Gifts - Soul Mates from The Unbelievables

Gifts - Prologue

Mourning is a fickle thing, it reminds me a lot of spring, a new dawning, a new beginning. Time passes slowly, in a cold blistering daze but slowly, so slowly parts of you begin to thaw and warm. Suddenly, you're smiling a little more, you're laughing with others and you find pulling yourself out of bed there's a skip back in your step. You're braver; there's no fear of stepping out alone into the cold and you know, no matter what that there's this glorious beautiful warmth you can find in other. Then suddenly, one morning you step out in to warmth, skin-tingling-warmth. Suddenly the cold has left and there's sunlight and the Earth is awakening around you too or maybe you're finally seeing the colour and beauty again. But it's sweet and it's glorious and you can feel your sigh of content deep into your bones waking you up. Reminding you what it's like to be alive, the good and the bad.

There's always going to be bad and there's always that dull ache but if you give it time and you let yourself be happy that balance comes back, that content ease that lets you breathe without feeling like your choking from air.

I'd like to imagine that mourning was quick, that the process got better but it doesn't. It's slow and tedious, it's baby steps. One day you want to get out of bed, a week later you may find yourself back in that bed but you know that you'll get back out again, that you're strong enough.

I found my strength in Lucas, in his family, in my brother and my best friend. I grabbed on tight and slowly eased myself back into the world I missed and feared. I feared it greatly, feared that stepping back into how I used to blissfully feel would be an insult to my Grandmother. I feared it wasn't possible to feel like that again, that once you saw the darkness in the world the light goes out and never returns.

Those dark emotions aren't anything like I've seen in the movies, there's not one soul shattering momentous moment that breaks down that walls. You just have to push yourself through them, force yourself to keep going. So that's what I did, I went back to school and sat my final exams, I graduated with a relieved grin, I threw myself into days spent with those I loved no matter how ridiculous they seemed, I buried myself in the journal of my Nan's that I found; latching onto her still fresh life that I could almost still hear and feel. A life that included myself and my Grandfather in the pages, pages full of happiness and doubts, of knowing.

I remember riffling through the pages, hoping to find that momentous moment, that final entry or so that would put me into perspective and tell me it's okay. But I didn't. I recall desperately turning, hands shaking and tearless sobs passing my lips as my wide eyed gaze absorbed the pages full of her cursive script.

I came to the last page and my eyes danced across the page looking for a long letter, an apology, something. To only find six words, six words my dancing gaze ignored as they flicked forward through blank pages and back at other pages of useless thoughts.

Six words.

That's all.

Six words.

I felt ripped off, cheapened. I sunk deeper into the floor thinking maybe she really was angry at me. I'd prayed that she'd convince me to rid myself of the guilt but maybe she wanted me to be smothered by it. Maybe I deserved it, worse, maybe she believed I deserved it.

So time continued to pass and I stopped searching, stopped seeking answers and just started to...live. Things around me began to change and slowly did I. not back to who I was but to this new evolved me, a me that knew who she was, who had an identity and had something to hold onto.

***

A scattering of flutters to my back awoke me, one by one they slowly bought me out of the sleep I'd succumbed to. To my shoulder... A shoulder blade... a whisper at the back of my ear... A glide underneath my breast...