Saving Grace (editing)

25: grace // Life

t w e n t y - f i v e

There are moments in life when you have to stop and ask yourself... what's the point?

Such a question is esssentially the basis of the age-old conundrum, the question that humanity has pondered on for as long as time.

What is the meaning of life?

Why do we exist in a world where it is inevitable that the end will come and our efforts may as well make little to no difference because they could all just be in complete and utter vain.

Why?

We live so that we can our lives won't be in vain, was Elliot's answer. It's almost like a catch 22 but... we are alive so that we can live. If not for ourselves, for others. To have life so that we can be alive so that we can live.

He had told me this over the kitchen counter as he prepared dinner, a week after that day in front of the swings.

At first he looked slightly baffled when I voiced these thoughts, but his expression changed to that of certainity.

I was noticing that the bags under his eyes were begin to fade and the permanent crease in his brow was loosening. He was sleeping in his room again and was catching up with the school work that he had missed.

Slowly but surely, he was returning back to himself.

Even despite the days where he would still look blankly at the ground as he stopped to tie Susie's shoelaces, he always came back, giving a reassuringly smile.

And other days, he would crack a joke while we watched the news and he would tease Susie about the missing gap in her front teeth, much to her complete delight.

I also remember how on that day, when his trembles had settled to a stop and his tears stopped flowing, he paused to look at me.

"Grace. What happened?"

The weight of the question always took me all the way back to that time that felt so long ago yet so so familiar and nearby.

I had lost everything.

They were dark days; so dark that I ceased to even look for let alone see the end of the tunnel.

My sister to cancer... My mother... My father... Even myself.

I had lost myself to my demons and I had forgotten myself completely.

But the determination in his face put me at ease.

And so, I told Elliot, recounting to him everything that did happen.

He listened, not interrupting me even once, continuing to hold his unwavering gaze the entire time.

I had always been scared of the notiom of being judged and criticised for what had happened. But I don't think it was what I was most scared of. The reason why I never opened up to anyone, no doctors, no nurses, no therapists, no 'friends', no one?

It wasn't only that was I scared of being judged for my past but that if I did reveal it, I knew that it would only confirm that everything really did happen and it would just make it all real.

I was terrified and I didn't know if I was even in my depth to handle the very moment it did all come out.

But telling such details to Elliot, that fear faded. I didn't need to be scared.

His never-ending eyes pulled me back in whenever it felt like I was disappearing into myself from the memories, drawing me back in like an ocean tide.

But then a bigger fear begain to grow, that he truly would look at me differently and that what we had, it would cease to exist. I didn't want to lose him.

When I finished, I didn't crumble or explode or even break, I just felt wide open and raw.

But Elliot stroked the side of my face and stared into my eyes, and without even saying a word I knew that I was okay.

Elliot stood up after a while and offered his hand to me where I was still siting of the patchy lawn of the backyard.

I accepted it and we silently walked back into the house, hand in hand.

Something was growing between us, something more than friendship, sonething even deeper than any relationship could be.

We were both far from perfection and we were both broken.

Yet we sort of completed each other, filling in the empty gaps and spaces that we each had and becoming a support and rock to the other.

Elliot was the stronger one, he always was. But even he was still vulnerable and still needed healing.

Yet don't all humans need fixing? No one is perfect after all.

I sort of knew already, I could see a hint of it in his expression some moments, those similar traces of the weakness I showed all over... not all scars fade completely.

I understood that he had completely damaged once before. And yet he managed to recover.

And looking at him as he pulled a silly face at Susie from across the room, I found that maybe it was possible to find that light at the end of the tunnel after all.

That I could find life within me again.