I am unsure where exactly to begin and end these posts. The memories to which I am allowed access are so convoluted and chaotically spread throughout my mind that I find myself pushing the metaphorical boulder in any attempt to delve to deep. The course of events that led to my current life is one I have not directly traversed since their original happening. Be patient and bear with me as I reopen some of these old wounds and reset the broken bones in an attempt at true healing.
The aunt my mom spent so much of her time with while my dad was gone played an important role in things. She had a baby, Emma, that I chose to make mine in every way I could. I fell in love with this tiny being at eight years old. I spent every precious moment I could spare with her. I began to request that my school bus allow me to make my departure at the front steps of Emma’s home. I would race through the front door, toss my backpack to the corner, and squeal with delight as Emma’s sparkling eyes would alight on me. Her toothless, slobbery grin that my appearance would elicit filled my heart with the purest form of love and joy. I lived and breathed for this baby until my mother’s latest affair took my brother and me far from her presence. I’ll tell the tale of that in another post.
I was visiting with my dad for the weekend when I first experienced real loss. Dad and Nanna took my brother and me out for dinner one night before we were to return to my mom’s home. Dad’s phone rang and after a few moments his face was struck with an expression seemingly torn between fear and horror. My inquisitive mind prevented my silence as the call was ended. He refused to respond to my queries with anything other than a brush off and wave of his hand. The knowledge that he was stubborn and quick to anger was enough to silence me. I would know soon enough, I gathered.
The next morning I was in the back seat of my dad’s car when my world was irrevocably changed. I learned that my sweet Emma had drowned the evening before in my aunt’s pool as preparations were being made for the wedding of a friend. We arrived at a scene like one might expect from a movie. The metal framed pool was in tatters to the side of the house. An ax lay discarded on the grass. Silent stares and tear-stricken faces met mine as I stumbled through my own tears to my aunt’s lap. I begged her to tell me everyone was mistaken. She quietly and patiently told me exactly what had happened. She could only clasp me tighter as we shook in unison with sobs. Her voice must have already been torn from her because she was silent as I wailed and gasped for air. This moment of my life seemed to stretch on until I almost shattered. I looked at my own chest in disbelief that it wasn’t bloodied and empty where my heart should be. Of course, I thought to myself, I wouldn’t be in such agony if my heart was no longer there.
I dimly recall the arrival of my mom and her newest boyfriend, John. Our departure plans were suspended as the arrangements for Emma’s burial were made. I was forbidden from the funeral. I held on to bitter resentment for so many years at both my mother and father for this cruel action. Thankfully, I had the opportunity to whisper goodbye to the shell that was my sweet cousin. I trembled as I stood so close to the body that should have been warm and pink with life and laughter. My aunt laid a comforting hand on my shoulder and murmured words of encouragement. She understood my reluctance. This was not Emma. However, she reminded me that this was my chance to say what I needed to say. To bleed some of the poison that was grief. I laid my clumsily folded letter beside the pale little doll in the tiny casket. I had written my farewell on a torn-out piece of notebook paper the night prior. My field of vision was blurred with more tears as I turned from that angelic face framed with neatly combed, doe brown hair for the last time.
This is not a story of something that was done to me or that I suffered at the hands of someone else. I thought of Emma as my own little baby. For the short year and a half she was allowed on this world, my life was nothing short of perfect. My first taste of motherhood was all it took to convince me that I was destined to be a mom. My heart still aches as I wonder what Emma would be like today, months before becoming an adult. Unfortunately this was not that last tragedy I experienced in life.
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