Ellie Dixon

Grief

Grief is one of the biggest pains anyone will go through in life. Nothing compares to the agony of loving someone one day and grieving their existence the next. Having to get used to life after having someone be in it for your whole life suddenly gone. Nothing compares to losing a child, there isn't even a word for it. Someone who's lost both parents is an orphan, someone who's lost their partner is a widow or a widower, but someone who's lost a child can't be categorized because they lost a part of themselves. The pain in Carol's eyes as she walked away from the barn, from her son's body, the pain was nothing I'd ever seen before.

Growing up how I did with mother cost me a lot of grief. I had to grieve my innocence, my childhood, everything I was missing out on growing up with someone who didn't love you, having the only person who loved you come to visit only twice a year. When I was seven my best friend died of cancer, she was the only person in the world who knew the secret me and my mother kept, maybe apart from a few of my mother's druggy friends who found out but didn't care. Losing Emily how I did wrecked me, especially since I had nobody to support me. Emily was like a sister to me and as the years passed, it didn't become any less difficult to think about her.

As I was holding Sophia, her body trembling, sobs pouring from her mouth like a broken damn, her hands unconsciously gripping my arm for support with such force I knew it was going to bruise, I knew she hadn't just lost a brother. She lost a part of herself. Jacob was her twin. They had gone through everything together, and I knew that her childhood was just as difficult as mine. Even though Jacob reacted a different way to the trauma than Sophia did, she loved him. Even after everything I knew he put her through, she loved him like he was a part of her, which in a way he was. I found it difficult to keep my own tears in, but I needed to support Sophia.

Sophia reached for her crutches and forced herself to stand. "Sophia, don't." I tried.

"I wanna see him." She insisted, moving to the front of the group.

"Sophia-" Dad started but stopped what he was saying when she didn't acknowledge him and rushed to her twin's side.

"Sophia. Don't look." Rick attempted but again she ignored him.

Sophia went on her knees next to Jacob's head. She cried as she rolled him onto his back. I stood behind her, not sure what to do. She leaned over, gently closing his eyelids and brushing some hair out of his face. "Why didn't you throw the car?" She whispered to him. I saw tears dripping from Sophia's face, onto Jacob as he lay there. Sophia put her hand on his cheek as she cried. "It was just a toy and now look at you. What happened to living to one hundred and one?" Sophia asked him quietly as her crying became silent, but the tears still ran from her eyes.

I noticed Beth going over to her mother, moving a corpse off her before rolling the mother onto her back. The bullet must not have hit her brain properly since she came back. The mother started clawing at Beth's hair, trying to pull her closer so she could bite her. Beth started screaming as Rick, Shane, Glenn and Hershel all interjected to save the blonde girl who was crying over her mother. When Beth was pulled away, Glenn grabbed the wrists of the walker, trying to stop her from getting anyone but also make sure she didn't bite him. Andrea grabbed the pic axe Shane had used to open the barn and swung it to the back of the lady's head. When she pulled the pic axe out, Glenn released the wrists and the walker fell to the ground, finally dead.

Shane had put a blanket over Jacob, covering everything apart from his head. Everyone else started to trickle away, but I stayed. "Do you want me to go?" I asked.

"No, please... Stay with me." She looked up to me, her face red and tear streaked with puffy eyes. I nodded before kneeling next to her. She grabbed my hand tightly. "I thought he was going to be okay."