If I Could Dance With You Again

Epilogue

They say love is a good thing — a light that reaches into every corner of life and reveals what we often can't put into words. Love is all the emotions you could imagine wrapped into one trembling, powerful thing.

Sometimes love feels peaceful, like warm sunlight through the window on a slow morning.
Safe, like a familiar hand you've held a thousand times.
Grateful, awe-filled, calm.
Curious, silly, happy, excited, energetic.
Love stretches wide enough to hold all of that.

But it also gathers the quieter things —
the shy, the tired, the disappointed.
The jealous, embarrassed, and sad.
The rowdy, ashamed, miserable, lonely.

And on the heaviest days, love becomes something darker:
the depression that settles in your bones,
the anxiety that steals your breath,
the stress that makes every minute feel heavy,
the fury that surges from nowhere.

Love is everything you could ever imagine — and sometimes, that "everything" is terrifying.

There are nights when the fear slips in.
Will it be okay? Will I be okay?
Will there come a time when peace finally finds me?
Or will I be swallowed by every negative emotion I'm afraid to name?

I wonder sometimes —
what if no one ever loves me the way Appa loved Eomma?
Would that be okay?
Would I survive that emptiness?

I ask myself if I will ever find a love as deep as theirs —
their kind of soul-fused, life-bound devotion.
The kind that makes you say I love you not only with your voice,
but with the life you build together.

Because I saw what that love looked like in its final moment.

Eomma was lying there, peaceful.

Still.

Beautiful, just as she always was, even in the quiet of her last breath.
Appa tried to be strong, tried to keep the world from collapsing,
even as he whispered to her,

"You can rest now, my love. I love you, and I will forever miss you."
For a moment, he remained the steady man we knew —
but when her eyes gently closed, the strength drained out of him.

His tears fell in a storm he couldn't hold back.

I didn't even realise my own tears were falling until I tasted the salt of them.

"Aniya, Aali. I can't. Not yet. Not now."
Those words slip into like a dream. Appa was suddenly ruined.
His grief broke something in me — not because he said them,
but because of how much pain lived inside them.

Appa kept brushing Eomma's hair,
his fingers trembling as though he feared she would vanish if he stopped touching her.

His cries went on for hours, unfiltered, raw, devastating.

Leo cried so hard he turned his face toward the wall,
as though the world was too bright, too sharp to look at.

Leon oppa held himself together — barely —
but he stayed composed enough to walk to the bed,
lean down, and place a gentle kiss on Eomma's forehead.

Minutes later, Eomma's closest friends arrived — Aunt Wren and Ruby —
their sobs tangled together as they held one another tightly,
as though sharing grief could make it hurt less.
Appa still wouldn't let go of Eomma.
He stayed beside her, hands around hers,
the way he always held her when she felt cold,
as though warmth alone could keep her alive.

Eomma had warned him - us for years.
The sickness.
The possibility.
The slow, quiet decline.

But no one — not even the bravest — is ever truly ready to lose someone.

She fought hard.

Fought with everything she had.

But cancer won this time.

It was heartbreaking.

The kind of pain that hollowed out my chest until breathing felt impossible.

I couldn't move.

Couldn't speak.

Couldn't think.

The grief numbed everything.

Later, I found myself sitting in Eomma's memorial.
Leon had prepared it with such care — flowers arranged neatly,
candles glowing softly like small promises of warmth in the coldness of loss.
Definitely, absolutely, heart-wrenching.

Her friends, Aunt Yanika and Aunt April arrived shortly after,
fresh from a business trip, unaware of the storm waiting for them.

The moment they stepped inside, their faces folded into sorrow,
the reality sinking in instantly and deeply.
And there I sat, surrounded by people breaking in different ways,
wondering if love — this powerful, beautiful, terrifying force —
would ever feel safe again.

Wondering if the kind of love Appa and Eomma had
was something meant only for them,
or if someday, somehow,
I might find a love like that too.
A love worth fearing.
A love worth grieving.
A love worth living for.

- Choi, Faline Callie S.