ʀᴇᴡʀɪᴛᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴛᴀʀꜱ

31

"𝓘 𝔀𝓪𝓼 𝓪 𝓫𝓮𝓪𝓾𝓽𝓲𝓯𝓾𝓵 𝓫𝓻𝓸𝓴𝓮𝓷 𝓼𝓸𝓾𝓵 𝓜𝓪𝓭𝓮 𝓫𝔂 𝔂𝓸𝓾"

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Losing someone is a wound that time may never truly heal, a wound that festers beneath the surface, aching with every heartbeat, every breath. It’s a void that swallows you whole, leaving you adrift in a sea of memories that haunt and comfort in equal measure. And here I was, at the edge of that void, staring into the abyss that had once been my mother’s life.

The air was thick with the scent of rain-soaked earth, mingling with the scent of decay as the coffin descended, lower and lower, swallowed by the ground that would now cradle my mother forever. Each tear that fell mirrored her descent, my heart breaking with each slow inch that separated us. I had thought, perhaps foolishly, that I wouldn’t feel this way, that the years of hurt and anger would have built a wall between us, insulating me from the pain. But grief, it seems, doesn’t respect walls. It seeps through the cracks, finds its way into the deepest corners of your heart, and settles there like a bitter winter chill.

She was still my mother, after all. Despite everything, despite the cruelty that had marred our relationship in later years, there had once been love. There had once been warmth. I remembered a time before the darkness crept into our lives, a time when we were whole, a family. Before my father’s death shattered our world, leaving us both broken in ways that neither of us knew how to mend. We were happy once, weren’t we? I can almost picture it—the smiles, the laughter, the way the house used to echo with the sound of life.

But that was the past. And the past is a land you can never truly return to, no matter how desperately you want to.

After the funeral, I found myself standing in front of my mother’s house—no, *our* house. A two-story relic of a time long gone, it stood there, weathered and worn, its facade a ghost of what it once was. The paint, once a cheerful shade of white, had faded to a dull, peeling grey, like the memory of a smile that had been forgotten. The windows, with their dusty panes, reflected nothing but the emptiness of a house that had not felt the warmth of life in years.

I hesitated at the threshold, my hand trembling as it hovered over the doorknob. The house seemed to exhale a sigh of recognition, as if it had been waiting for this moment, waiting for me to return. But before I could push the door open, a shadow moved in the corner of my vision—a tall, impossibly tall man, his figure looming like a giant against the backdrop of the house.

He moved with a sense of urgency, his voice harsh and clipped as he spoke into his phone, his words sharp enough to cut through the thick air. Something about the club, something about not being able to make it. His tone was impatient, bordering on anger, but his voice was unfamiliar to me. Who was he? I didn’t remember seeing him at the funeral, and yet here he was, striding up the stairs that clung to the outside of the house like an afterthought, maybe the tenant?

He didn’t even glance my way, didn’t acknowledge my presence as he disappeared into the upper floor. I stood there, frozen for a moment, before shaking off the unease that had settled over me. This was my mother’s house—my house—and I wouldn’t be driven away by some stranger, no matter how imposing he seemed.

I pushed the door open, and the creak of the hinges echoed in the silence, a sound that tugged at something deep within me. The air inside was stale, carrying with it the scent of old wood, dust, and something else—something that smelled faintly of the past, of memories too painful to be revisited.

I stepped inside, and the house closed around me like a cocoon, wrapping me in the heavy weight of nostalgia. The living room was much as I remembered it, though time had clearly taken its toll. The furniture, once plush and inviting, was now covered in a fine layer of dust, the fabric faded and worn. The curtains hung limply, their once vibrant colors now muted and dull, like the ghost of a sunset long forgotten.

But it was the photos on the wall that caught my attention, each one a window into a different time, a different life. I moved closer, my fingers trailing over the frames, tracing the faces that stared back at me—faces that were both familiar and strange. There was my father, his smile wide and bright, his arms wrapped around a younger version of my mother, her eyes sparkling with a happiness that I barely recognized. And there I was, a child, grinning with a gap-toothed smile, my hair in wild tangles, a light in my eyes that had long since dimmed.

I couldn’t stop the tears that welled up, blurring the edges of the photos, turning the faces into smudges of color and light. This was what I had lost—what we had all lost. A family. A future. A past that was now unreachable, locked away in these faded images and dusty memories.

I wandered through the house like a ghost, each room a portal to a different era of my life. The kitchen, with its chipped counters and rusted appliances, still held the scent of the meals we had once shared, the warmth of the mornings that had started here, with my father at the stove, flipping pancakes while my mother poured coffee. The dining room, where the table still stood, though now it was empty, devoid of the laughter and conversation that had once filled it.

And then, finally, I came to my old bedroom, the door still marked with the stickers I had carefully placed there as a child. I pushed it open, and the room greeted me like an old friend, though it too had been abandoned to time. The bed, with its faded quilt, still sat against the wall, and the shelves still held the remnants of my childhood—books, toys, trinkets that had once meant everything to me.

I moved to the bed, sinking down onto it, the mattress creaking under my weight. It felt too small now, too fragile, like it could barely hold me. I looked around, taking in the details—the posters on the walls, the stuffed animals that had long since lost their softness,pictures of us in high school, the drawings I had taped to the walls, their colors now muted and faint.

This room, this house, was filled with echoes of who I used to be, of a life that had once seemed so simple, so full of promise. And now, all I could feel was the weight of what had been lost, the crushing sense of emptiness that came from knowing that those days were gone, that they could never be reclaimed.

I missed Michael. The thought struck me suddenly, sharply, like a knife to the chest. I missed him so much that it hurt, that it felt like a physical ache in my bones. I wanted to hear his voice, to feel his arms around me, to lose myself in the comfort that only he could provide. But he wasn’t here, and the distance between us felt insurmountable, like a chasm that I couldn’t cross.

And so, I sat there, alone in the silence of my past, the house creaking around me like an old ship lost at sea, and I wondered if I would ever find my way back to shore.

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