Today I put your plate on the table like I always do when I have breakfast, I held mine in my hands tightly because I could not bear to eat off a table where you are not sitting at. I watched the hill across our home where the wind ran around in circles looking for someone to play with. The tree at the top was waving its hands around trying to catch the wind’s attention in a desperate attempt to call it over but it abruptly stopped when it realized the wind was long gone. I squeezed the hem of my sweater and tried my hardest not to cry at these meaningless scenarios, a product of guilt, and sorrow. I could not take it anymore, my hands shaking uncontrollably. My bowl fell on the clean floor shattering into pieces while yours stayed intact, unmoving. Between the two nonliving objects yours somehow felt way blander. I did not eat today, all the other bowls belonged to you and I was not hungry anyway.
You were taken from me in a matter of minutes. If I had known I would have taken a long way around and visited your mom’s house, let my arms carry the weight of the groceries for a while more instead of letting my mind carry the burden of not being able to save you. You would have massaged them after, wouldn’t you? Prepared us tea and I would put out your favourite cookies for us to enjoy while, which now menacingly stare at me from the kitchen counter.
I laid in the bathtub, the cold surface stinging my warm skin making a shiver journey down my spine. I felt at ease within the cool embrace of my bathtub and the sound of water slowly dripping from the sink soothed my nerves. I can still hear your mother’s voice when she called me that day. It bounces off the walls of my mind and echoes and echoes and echoes. She was screaming and crying with such anguish in her voice that I imagine only a mother who lost her child would ever be able to feel such a way. Her almost screeching voice left me mortified. My daughter, she cried, my daughter is gone. I remember when I was 7 my parents sat me down to tell me about my grandfather’s passing. I laughed at first as it all felt like a joke. It was the first time I saw my dad cry, for the first time I was learning how loss felt and in the end figured it was no joke yet when I heard how much your mom still needed you I desperately wished it could be.
Every time I thought about my future I would see you in it. If someone had told me something like this was going to happen, I would have said it was impossible. It was all just a cruel joke of life.