HERO SYNDROME

❝Rising And Ready To Take Flight❞

My father ruined me. This was one thing I thought I knew after he died. I didn't know anything else after his death. What was up, what was down? What would hurt, and what wouldn't? Where these tears of sadness, joy, anger, or of all three? How did I co-exist with my heart and soul before so effortlessly? How could I brave the storm inside of me?

Everything in me told me to turn the car back around. To go back before it was too late. My hands were trembling, and I had to grip the steering wheel. But I managed. I drove an hour outside of the city I had called home to the sleepy town of Willow Grove. It was my parents childhood home. It was where they grew up, where they met and fell in love, and where my father remained alone waiting for the day my mother would join him again.

The town cemetery was like something out of a Tim Burton movie. The willow trees grew tall and wild around the property, making everything look sullen and unforgiving. My father's own stone hid under the shadow of one of the biggest willows.

A gush of cool air blew, and I tightened my jacket around me. I stood before the black granite stone that seemed newer in comparison to the others around him. It read his name, the date of his birth, the date of his death, and underneath it all was a small inscription.

PUT YOUR SOUL TO REST

UNDER THESE WILLOW TREES

READY FOR HEAVENS GATES

ETERNITY NOW AWAITS

I touched the words set in stone, and felt a longing. I had read these words before, years ago. This was him, this was dad. He wrote this in one of his journals. Written altogether, the first letters of every line spell out, 'PURE'. His obsession and final undoing.

"You weren't well old man." I said quietly, as if the rest of the dead could hear me. Maybe they could. Maybe that's why I barely raised my voice over a whisper. "You caused a lot of trouble."

'I know.' I imagined him saying, sitting atop his stone, peering down on me with his sullen green eyes. He looked well in my imagination. His hair was trimmed, his beard gone, and his eyes weren't glassy. This was who I wanted to remember.

"You look good, better than you ever did in the undead way." I said, with a small smile. I was insane.

'I look better than I feel. I am shackled to my guilt because of what I did to you and our family. Day after day I live with knowledge that I single handedly ruined everything.'

That gut wrenching feeling of dread I had felt the whole drive to Willow Grove, was replaced with sympathy. Even if it was all in my head and my dad wasn't really here, it felt real. His remorse felt real where it mattered. "You didn't ruin us. You just left and we had to learn how to be without you." I reached out to touch him, but stopped short. He wasn't really there, Phoenix.

'My Phoenix.' He mumbled with a faraway look in his eyes. 'I chose that name, you know. Your mother wanted something practical like Mila, after her godmother. She wanted something to match Max. I was going to let her have it, but then Max came out, wailing bloody murder from the moment he came into this world.'

"Sounds about right." I snorted. I knew this story. He had told me it over a thousand times. It was his favorite, he had said.

'Then you came. Calm, quiet, as if you'd been here before and you were at peace with it.' Dad smiled, and furrowed his brows. 'Do you believe in reincarnation?' He asked.

"Being reborn after you died? Not particularly." I shook my head. "Do you?"

Dad shrugged one shoulder, and trained his wielding green eyes on me. 'Neither did I...until you came. I held you both in my arms. Max was screaming his head off, scared and confused. This is probably his first life here, everything is brand new to him. He's scared but there's a fire in him- new and engulfing. Not you though. You were familiar with everything. You opened your eyes first, smiled first, and looked at everything as if you'd seen it all before and were being reacquainted with the world again.'