2022 WATTYS SHORTLISTED || After being forced into a marriage by her devoutly religious parents, Aspen's husband is diagnosed with a life-limiting illness, and she must find her purpose as well as fight feelings for her husband's nurse. || Aspen Wat...
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T H R E E M O N T H S L A T E R - M A R C H 2 0 2 0
Author's note: for the purpose of this story, Covid-19 has not happened
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There is something to be said about there being a bittersweetness in new life and death. Two days after finding out we're expecting a baby, the happy bubble pops as soon as we enter the confines of the cemetery. I know it's for two reasons: Georgina and Joel.
Despite the happy tears we shed this morning when the test had two pink lines, the reality of new life being found out on the anniversary of Joel's death settles like bubble residue over us.
It hurts because with new life, the reminder of the death we've faced lies in front of us like a speed bump.
The moment we reach the grave, he stands apart from me and sits on the green grass, staring at Georgina's gravestone. I turn and see one single patch of daisies to the right. Without saying a word, I pick them all. I silently apologise to the grass, but I'm sure they won't mind their destination. I put the freshly picked daisies against the gravestone but keep one for myself. It takes a while, but I sit beside Nick on the ground at the foot of his sister's grave.
Well, my sister-in-law. She might be gone, but I feel her presence every single day despite never meeting her.
Georgina and Joel may have been polar opposites in life – one was a teenager, female, a total lust for life type of person with a burning passion to be happy. Joel was an adult male who coasted along – but they are so similar in death. Both leave behind a legacy.
The Ancient Egyptians believed that if you speak the name of the deceased, they will live forever. To etch a person out of society, or in those times to erase their statues and their names out of temples meant they never existed. Both Joel and Georgina will always have a lasting legacy because neither Nick nor I will ever blot out their names or the lives they led. Maybe if we keep whispering their names in the wind, they will do what the Egyptians believed and reincarnate.
Maybe Joel and Georgina are both alive somewhere, just reincarnated, and leading happier, healthier lives as they should have in the first place. Maybe Joel is married to a girl he loves without having Huntington's disease. Maybe Georgina is older, without cancer and still loving life like she did before she was ill.
"Do you think she'd be happy for us?" Nick questions quietly.
I sigh and watch him for a moment. He doesn't look back; he just picks the grass beneath him and scatters it onto the mound of her grave. It's almost like he's scattering the earth over her coffin at the funeral.
