Since Forever

Prologue

I sit in the same corner I've been in since I started coming here a month ago. The art teacher is chattering on about how to paint a bird, and the vocal instructor is saying something about changing the key to a song. Then there's the sound of a basketball hitting the pavement out the door. There are so many distractions around me, yet the only voice that I can hear the clearest is hers.

It should be a blessing to still hear the tender tone of her voice, to inhale the subtle hints of gardenia when I focus long enough. But there's this nagging ache of pain at feeling her so close when I know how impossibly far away she is now.

What I should do is try to drown her out, but I'm terrified that the moment I do, I won't be able to get her back.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard the phrase I'm sorry for your loss in the last few weeks. It's a funny saying if you think about it. It sounds like I misplaced my favorite doll or forgot where I left my journal. I mean, that's the definition of losing something, right? Misplacing it to the point that it can't be found? Is that really the word we've chosen to describe death? She's gone, and I can't get her back. I didn't misplace her, she was taken from me. Ripped from a life that she cherished.

The same tears that have been flooding my eyes every single day do a dance across my vision as I think about the cruelties of life. How does it work? How is it decided who gets taken from us and when? Because I can't seem to answer that question.

My mom was the brightest, most talented, beautiful, kind hearted person in this whole useless town. And now she's just gone. Chosen for something better, they say. Yet no one can seem to answer what could possibly be better than being our mother. Because she was a really good mom, and I don't know how to go forward without her. I don't want to go forward without her.

"Hey, Mack." I don't have to turn to know my brother is beside me. I am fortunate enough to actually have three older brothers. The one next to me now is Jared. He's only eighteen months older than me. We fight a lot. Well, we used to, before we lost all of the energy to bicker. It's a funny thing, actually. When you lose all feeling, apparently you have nothing left in you to fight for.

"I found these," he says quietly, placing a baseball glove in my lap. I don't look down, but instead continue gazing out the window, watching another day pass us by. "Do you want to throw a bit?"

The instinct to deny him, to shake my head in stubborn denial washes through me. But then my eyes catch his. This hopeful sense of begging for me to come back, to give him one thing that's normal in a sea of change. He's been trying, they all have. Each day it's something different. Catch, hoops, painting, singing, dancing. It doesn't matter what the activity is, my answer remains the same. No matter what I'm doing or how much fun I'm having, it won't change the emptiness I feel inside of me.

But today when I look at my brother, it's the first time I see his pain looking back at me. It happens in a wave of overwhelming clarity. Everything falling perfectly into place like the Tetris pieces Jare and I spent the majority of the hospital stays mastering.

Maybe the activities here aren't meant to heal me, maybe they're meant to mend their wounds. Maybe in the grand scheme of things, it's not my pain that needs to surface. Maybe, if I can push it down far enough, it will heal the family that I do have left. That's what my mom would do.

That's what she did.

She always put her pain aside for us. Even in her final moments, she was the one to make us laugh. And so, after a month of grieving, after seeing the ache in my brother's eyes, I swallow my hurt. I push it away.