Living Proof

'It's hard when you miss people. But you know if you miss them, that means you're lucky. It means you had someone special in your life, someone worth missing.'

- Nikki Schiefelbein

AVONLEA

I've never believed that people could actually hear their hearts beating inside their chests when I read about it in my books. Now my own heart is pulsing in my ears in a weak drum noise that doesn't leave much space for my brain to work.

I don't know where I am. Why is it so hard to find the only cemetery that exists in this town anyway? I've been walking around for more than four hours trying to get to know the new Magnolia Springs.

Everything has changed so beautifully over the years, but my heart hurts for the only home that it has ever held inside its walls. It pulls me like a magnet, but then, this same way I was pushed out of here long ago, when I didn't have any choice in the matter.

The strange thing is, it still feels like home. Maybe it's the wind that has never made me breathe so full I feel it in my lungs, or maybe it's the sky that's as blue as mama's eyes. She used to describe this place to me when I was younger, until she told me to forget about it, told me we were like birds, we never stayed in the same place for long. I never believed her.

Because, how could you forget something that holds your best memories in its earthy ground?

I may not have them, but deep down I've always known that this town is the treasure that keeps them locked away for when I need them. I've just never really tried to find them before. Because mama didn't want me to. I still didn't believe her. And now she's not here to keep me away.

I walk around a few more steps until my eyes crash with what used to be a playground, my safe space as a child. Now it's transformed into a two story bar, or that's what the flag looking wooden sign attached to the building says. Nora's Bar. The doors swing open when a couple runs through them, hands clasped together and big, happy smiles on their faces. They take a turn to the left side of the building, and I watch as the guy lowers his head to meet the girl's lips in a frenzied kiss, the setting sun making their shadows look like one. Romantic. Guess that's my cue to keep on moving.

I rush forward, my hand going to my back pocket for my phone. I turn it on only to see that it's been another hour of me just dragging my feet on the concrete. My Maps app tells me I have to walk a couple meters more to arrive at my destination. Why didn't I look it up from the start?

My steps turn sloppy from all the walking, and my heart beats louder in my head when I finally see my destination before me. Still and sad. Empty, but so full of bodies and skeletons and spirits. It pulls you in, that calmness. As if saying, 'you're gonna be here one day too.' And I hope so. I hope I don't die eaten by some beast somewhere, that they can't even find enough of my pieces to bury me. I hope I don't lose it and throw myself off of some cliff only for them to never find my body. This one has been a dream and a nightmare for me.

I shudder, the cold air nipping at my skin. Should have taken something warm with me. The next steps I take inside, are small, scared. Of what, I don't know. Maybe I'm scared of what I'll see when I see her grave, or maybe I'm scared of what I won't.

I didn't get the chance to see her buried, or her gravestone, because I was too busy convulsing on the ground, my body too tired to keep up after all the drugs they put in my system. But I remember where they laid her. And my feet send me directly there. Thanks, you guys.

As soon as I see the big, gray stone with her name on it, my knees threaten to buckle. Her smiling face on the picture brings me to them. My body is no longer capable in keeping me upright when the reason I've been alive for so long is laying under the ground I'm sitting on.

This picture is one I've memorized so well, because mama didn't smile much, not like before the photo anyways. It's been so long since I last saw her eyes shine with happiness, her smile free, face radiating sun, the most beautiful she's ever been. And mama is — was, always beautiful. Even after she started avoiding me, even when she started hitting and blaming me for everything that happened to her, even when she yelled in my face that she had never wanted me, that she wished I was never born. I started to believe her words, as much as they hurt. And they did. They cut so deep, that I'm scared one day I'm going to burst so easily and I'll lose all my pieces.

My voice shakes when I speak, "hi mama." Tears fall. "I'm missing you so much, I don't know what to do without you."

Grief, I'm learning, is long, and scary, and it drains you bit by bit, until it leaves you empty and so shallow, so lonely. And I'm pretty sure it lasts forever. It rests so easily over your heart that you learn to live with it. To live with the knowledge that you've lost someone and you're not going to get them back no matter how much you suffer trying.

Mama left this world two weeks ago. Two long, heart wrenching weeks ago. And I still can't believe it sometimes. I'm trying to get used to her absence, but it's too hard when just days ago, she was the only person that made life easier to live.

Now I walk around in my pretty new home, emptier than I've ever been, forgetting that she just left me, and get my phone ready to call her, to tell her I'm safe, that I made it back home.

Just yesterday, Mr. Lewis — he insisted I call him grandpa, told me I could eat whatever I wanted to. And temporary happiness took place so fast in my heart, the excitement making me grab my phone and saying, "let me tell mama about this, she'd love it. She'd probably want something to eat after work."

When I realized what I said, my hands shook and the phone I was holding fell to the floor with a thud. Grandpa gave me the biggest hug he could muster while shaking himself with tears of agony. I'd never seen a grown man cry. We both ordered pizza that night and talked and cried about mama, the food long forgotten.

"Grandpa bought me a new phone," I cry, "after he saw that I didn't find mine." I searched everywhere about it before I learned that the police took it with them. "They found it smashed in pieces close to your body mama, what happened?" We're still waiting for the results, even though it probably doesn't need any investigation, because she's dead now anyway. So what if I learn what made her tie a rope around her tender throat and kill herself?

"I don't know what's going to happen to the house now that I'm here, they don't tell me anything." I rake my brain for words to say, not waiting for a reply that I know isn't going to come. "It's not that bad here, mama. The house is gorgeous, I stay in your old room. I've met your old friends, neighbors. They cried about you, said they miss you. I told them you were in a better place. I hope."

"Grandpa is good. Aunt Claire is," I pause, sniffing, "a bit hard. I guess she just didn't want another burden, or she doesn't like me that much." She's always glaring, putting a distance every time I even unconsciously step a foot in her space. "She yelled at me today like you often did mama, and I cried a little bit. I know you don't like it. She didn't like it either." More tears come out, no matter how much I try to wipe them away. Mama once told me she didn't have anything in common with her sister. Guess she didn't know about the love they have to silence me. It's funny.

"I'm transferring to a new high school here, mama. Grandpa said it's great and I only have this year before I graduate. But you knew that." I hope she did. She didn't pay me much attention these last few years. "He said I'd make new friends. I doubt it." She knows that too. I can't make friends. Can't keep them, that's what she always said. "You're not good enough to have people care about you, Lea. You're like me." I suppose I am, since I'm still friendless.

"I..." a deep breath, "I miss you, okay? It's hard without you. I forget that you're not around anymore. And my chest hurts, mama. Who's gonna make it better now?"

Before mama changed, we used to play doctors a lot. I'd be the patient, and she'd come and diagnose me. She'd put me in bed, those blue eyes of hers so full of love, and give me kisses until I was bursting with laughter. I'm sure she's forgotten about it, but I never will. One day, she told me that if we hold on to the beautiful things that make us more human, we'll forget all about the monsters that took over us when we were at our weakest. And that's how I wanna remember her.

Because before she chose to leave me, to just be a figure, a working shadow, in our rented, cheap house and forget all about being a mother, mama was everything. I worshipped the ground she walked on. Her voice alone filled me with happiness, with hope, especially when back then we were at our lowest yet. Despite having not a cent, no food at home, we were so good. We were at home. She always had the power to light up a room with her presence. And I was the happiest to stand back and watch her shine. But she changed, and my world changed with her.

"I've been eating," a stupid smile lands after more tears, lasting nothing but a second, "grandpa buys me lots of things. I guess he just doesn't understand that no matter how much I feed my belly, it's my heart that it's starving, mama."

For years, we were so broke, penniless really, that we couldn't afford even one meal for each of us in the table. We'd have to eat plain bread, sometimes the oldest one they had at the bakery under our house, which cost less than the fresh ones, and we'd keep it for days. One meal a day was as good as it gets. At least we had water. We had people that at first, started to bring us food, vegetables, fruits, leftovers. That made me kinda happier, but mama fumed. One day, a neighbor came over to bring some leftover cake after her daughter's birthday, and mama snapped. She was yelling at the woman, telling her we didn't need the trash she brought (we did), throwing things at her and her house. Nobody ever came back to bring as things anymore. And I'm surprised they didn't file a report when the police came. Maybe they saw how beyond broken we really were. I've never had a full meal in my stomach since then.

My tears don't stop as the memories come, "uh, mama, you know how I feel?" My lips tremble, "actually, you've never known, so I'll tell you." Like I always did, because she was too tired to try to understand how I was feeling most of the time. "You can't stop me from talking now, okay?" I wipe at some more droplets on my cheeks, my vision blurry. "This is the most I've talked to you since then, and you're probably fuming right now, but it's okay. I'll talk now, 'cause you don't have anybody to talk to under there."

I prayed for mama's soul to reach heaven, if only just for her to see what she'd have had she been a little better. But I don't think she will. She told me so herself, when she was screaming in my face that she was gonna drag me down to hell with her.

"I'm angry, mama," because you chose to leave me. "I'm sad, I'm hurting," because I miss you so, so much. "I'm lonely," this one has been my best friend for a long time. "I'm broken," I don't know if I'll ever be whole again. "My heart feels so heavy inside my chest, and no, it's not a health condition mama, this one is deeper."

She always had an explanation for these, pointing everything out when I complained for anything. When I cried too much from pain and my eyes hurt, she'd say I was just tired. When my stomach hurt so much I'd fall to the floor, she'd tell me it's a stomach bug, to stop being so dramatic, when in reality I was dying from hunger. When my body hurt so much I couldn't get up to go to school, she'd scream at me that I was making that up. She couldn't remember the way she beat me up the night before.

"You were so good to me when I didn't know, when I forgot that he existed, mama. And I miss so much of you from those days, it makes me ache. I just hope, wherever you are, it's better than the space you were in when you were here." It hurts everywhere at once. I clutch at my chest.

"I saw pictures of you yesterday. You looked so happy, so full, I started to cry. Again. Bet you're not surprised," I roll my eyes. "I hope I know someday what made the light in your eyes dim so low that you couldn't see anything else but that scaring rage, and I hope it wasn't me. Even if it's not easy to think the opposite. I'm sorry."

Everything hurts. Can she hear my heart cracking open in my chest? "I know you loved me, mama, as much as you could." This one hurts the most. Seeing that love vanish from her eyes when I couldn't do anything about it nearly brought me to my knees. "And I'll always love you, okay? I'll never forget you, mama. You're engraved so deep in my soul, you beautiful angel."

My breathing is ragged and I'm crying so hard now, my whole body shaking. "I hope you never forget about me either." A wail breaks from my throat. Is that too much to ask? I know that if you care enough about a person, they'll be forever in your mind and heart. I hope I am in hers.

The sky starts to darken, the sun now long gone, stars shining down on us. A breeze whooshes past me, and I wrap my arms around myself a little tighter.

"Guess it's time to go, mama. I don't wanna be here when the ghosts start walking around", I shudder. Nightmares.

My legs shake when I get up from the ground, and I take a deep breath to calm myself. "I'll come back soon, okay? And I'll bring you some more flowers." She loved them.

I take one last look at her tombstone, and then my legs take me away from her. I'm using the underside of my shirt to wipe my face form the tears when the first drop of water falls on my boot. I look up at the darkening sky. At least I'm not the only one crying today.