A Grateful Heart (ONC 2023; manxman)✅

Chapter 1

In her famous book, On Death and Dying, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, a Swiss-American psychiatrist, outlined the five stages of grief: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Over the past year, I'd gone through these stages several times. Sometimes I accepted Erin's death, but other times grief washed over me like a wave, nearly drowning me. Breast cancer took her life at thirty-one. If she'd been over forty, a scheduled mammogram might have detected the tumor. By the time it was found, it had metastasized to other areas of her body. For a year and a half, Erin fought for her life. In the end, nothing saved her.

Was it worse to feel the searing pain of anger or the overwhelming sadness of depression? My boiling anger made me feel like a stranger in my own skin.

Our parents called us 'Irish twins' due to being only eleven months apart. Caring for Erin until the end nearly killed me, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Her final wish was to die in the comfort of her own home, and her wish was granted. She was a great big sister and my rock. When I came out at twelve, she was there for me when no one else was.

During the loneliest and most confusing times of my life, Erin helped me sort through my tangled emotions. She was there when I discovered my first crush was straight and a total asshole. Another time, she convinced me to go to college instead of following a loser to Las Vegas. I would have been lost without her. Our father died when we were kids and our mother passed away three years ago, a year and a half before Erin. Apart from a few aunts, uncles, and distant cousins, Erin was my only family.

As the one year anniversary of her death neared, I contemplated the meaning of my life. What was my purpose? Over the past few days, I'd been binge watching the Apple TV show Severance. The main character, Mark, lost his wife and was a former history professor before he worked for a company called Lumen. Overcome with grief, he couldn't cope with the loss of his wife, so he chose to be 'severed.' A chip was inserted into his brain, making him forget his life as soon as he entered the elevator at work. For eight hours, he no longer had to deal with the pain. His memory was restored after he left the office building. I would gladly accept a chip in my brain or a pill that would make me magically forget all the pain in my life, even if it meant forgetting my sister. Getting out of bed was a chore. As a history teacher, like Mark, I no longer found meaning in it. Did I really make a difference in my students' lives? I doubted it.

My eyes hurt from staring at the computer screen, reading essay after essay on the Great Depression. I was so far behind, my students had already submitted two other essays since the Great Depression assignment. I decided now was a good time for another beer. As I stood up, I glanced out the window to find my elderly neighbor collecting her cats for the evening. Yesterday I shoveled and salted her walkway and stairs so she wouldn't fall and break a hip.

The crazy old cat lady next door rarely left her house, content to live there with her twelve cats. I'd often hear 1940s music emanate from her house. I never complained because I liked listening to the music. History used to be my passion. I bet the crazy old cat lady had a lot of great stories to tell, but there was only one story we all knew well.

Soon after her husband died, the crazy old cat lady claimed she got in a yellow checkered taxi cab, which then took her to Ireland in 1848 at the height of the potato famine. After a month, the same taxi picked her up and took her back home.

She wasn't called the crazy old cat lady just because she owned a dozen cats.

For years, an urban legend circulated that a taxi cab drove around at night, picking up passengers and taking them to places where they didn't want to go, but where they needed to go. Merriam Webster's Dictionary defines urban legend as 'an often lurid story or anecdote that is based on hearsay and widely circulated as true.'