Page 38 of The Champion
How was that fair? I just...wishedI had more time with them. I wanted, hell, I had no idea what I wanted. Iwanted to say it was enough whoever it was that was deciding how much I wasdealt. I wasn’t sure how much more I could handle anymore.
I’d been up here all morning going through old boxes,remembering, avoiding everyone downstairs. Andrea was cooking with Nancy.Spencer, Aiden, Van and Jameson were doing god knows what with Lane and thetwins, and Alley and Emma were...actually,I had no clue what they were doing besides annoying me.
The next person that asked how I was I would probablypunch them.
It seemed everyone downstairs didn’t know that if theywere in the kitchen, I could hear them through the vents. When I was younger,this worked in my favor on many occasions to know when my dad was comingupstairs. I always had just enough time to hide any discriminating evidence.
Aiden and Spencer were arguing about something but Icouldn’t decipher what.
I laughed when I heard Spencer grumble. “Excuse me whileI find my balls. I’ve missed placed them somewhere.”
“Get used to it dude.” Aiden said. “Your wife is having alittle girl in four months.”
I shuffled through the box of Rachel’s belongings thathad been left up here and noticed an envelope, marked with my name. I’d neverseen it before and it remained unopened.
Once I opened it, I’d wished I hadn’t.
Again, this was another one of those times where I wascrying and not in a normal way, only this time it was amplified by my post-pregnancyemotions and the loss of my father. Shit-storm is the only word I can think ofto put those few moments into perspective for you.
So the dictionary described feeling sharp sorrow butgrief can look like a lot of things that bear little resemblance to sharpsorrow, as the dictionary will tell you. The thing with grief was that itlooked different on everyone.
I watched everyone once I made my way downstairsobserving how grief looked on them and wondering if that’s how I should beacting. Was I responding in the ways Elisabeth Kubler-Ross described I would?
Andrea was standing in the kitchen, baking with Nancy andAlley. When you think about it, it’s not only death that you’re grieving. It’slife and the changing of your life.
Our lives would forever change by one moment.
You begin to wonder why it has to hurt so badly but thething you have to remember with anything, is how quickly that happy right nowcan turn on a dime. I knew that well.
I also think that’s how you stay alive. When it hurts somuch you can’t breathe, that’s how you survive. That’s how you move on fromthat numbing feeling. By remembering that, someday, somehow, you won’t feelthat way. It won’t hurt this much and eventually, you’ll find solace.
When I walked into the living room later that morning, Ifound Jameson in Charlie’s old chair with Axel, intently watching the NASCARrace.
I smiled knowing he missed the race for me.
He seemed fine with it, or maybe he was feeling the sameas me. Charlie was a father figure to him as well. His expression was blank ashe stared at the television as if he didn’t have any more room for thoughts.
Noticing how everyone around me was acting, I also knewthat grief comes in its own time for everyone and in its own way.
Don’t be surprised if you don’t feel the pain right away.It’ll come eventually. Believe me when I tell you it will come...eventually.
The best you can do, the best anyone can do, is to behonest with yourself and don’t deny how you feel. Just feel something,anything, because feeling is the first step toward healing.
I couldn’t find the twins but I had a feeling as to wherethey were.
When I opened the door to Charlie’s closet I found them,crying in the corner holding each other.
So far, since I’ve met them, I’ve never once felt bad forthem...until now.
They may be the Lucifer twins, but they were still onlysix-years old and had just lost their father, the only father they knew. Itbrought me back to when my mom died and I was sitting in her closet during thefuneral, alone.
Nobody was there to comfort me but here they both hadeach other...and they had me.
Thereallyshitty thing, the very worst part ofthe grief that consumes you, is that you can’t control it. The best you can dois just let yourself feel it when it comes and let it go when it passes.
I sat down with the boys, pulling them into my arms.
“S-w-w-way...”Logan cried against my shoulder. “P-P-P-Pleassseee not leaveeee u-u-sss,” Hehiccupped and cried louder.
