Picking Up Roots

When You’re Gone

With you gone, there is no point. That’s what we’re always looking for: some sort of point, or an angle at which this all makes sense. You were the North Star, for all of us.

You may not have known it. We sure as shit didn’t tell you as much as we should, if we did at all. It was always more likely that you felt more like a punching bag than a guiding light, but you were. The jokes and the jibes, it was love, because we didn’t know how to say it any other way.

Now, without you, it doesn’t feel like there’s much point to going forward. It’s difficult to find a new moral compass at this stage of life.

Of course, you wouldn’t want us to feel this way. You’d tell us you were proud of us and to do what was in our hearts. You’d tell us you weren’t worth the upset – worth stopping our lives for – but that’s not true. You were. You always were. We just never did, and now it’s too late.

This is a theme in our lives: we’re always too late. We are hyper-aware. We see everything. We know everything. We understand how all the pieces fit together. And we take it all for granted.

We appreciate what we have, but from 10,000 feet. We don’t get in close and talk about feelings, because we don’t know how. We’ve traded humanity for screentime and the one thing, in all our awareness that we don’t understand is how deep the regret – and the guilt – will cut when we lose a piece of us we’d taken for granted.

The words are so simple – they’re all one syllable:

I love you.

We love you.

We’re afraid to use them. Now it’s too late.

Destiny

a new day breaks,
another new beginning;
will we alter course - 
change our method -
or continue
on the same track,
frustrated we have not changed -
not grown into our dreams -
we are the keepers
of our own destiny

Tornado

Nothing remained except the pieces of shattered heart strewn about the lawn. The tornado had hit hard. The sky flashed with lightning, but no thunder, as the winds battered the house. Branches and pine cones banged off the windows making us jump. The sky darkened but was light, then the rain began to thunder upon the roof and everything went black.

We’d been huddled together on the couch watching the storm track on the television. We could feel the tension in one another, but didn’t speak it into existence. We moved closer as it gathered strength.

When the blackness lifted, I was by myself. What had hit me, I couldn’t say, but Kay was gone. I searched through the wreckage of the house, wandered dazed through each room from attic to basement before stumbling outside to search the yard.

There wasn’t a trace of her amongst the ravages left by the storm.

In a panic I went back into the house. I went up to the bedroom, her things were all in their closets and drawers. Her photos had tipped, but were still on the nightstand. I called her name and ran out to the garage.

Her car was in its spot. I ran back into the house. Her keys were on the hook by the door. Her purse hung there too. Her shoes rested below.

I went back downstairs to check the basement, wondering if I’d missed her, if she’d gone down there after I’d lost consciousness. I checked every corner. She was nowhere. I screamed her name with every ounce of strength left in me.

So powerful was my anguish, I didn’t recognize the sound leaving my body. It was the sound of an animal in pain. I screamed again and passed out.

I came to shivering on the concrete slab of the basement floor. I heaved myself up and climbed the basement stairs. I threw myself onto the couch and stared at the screen on the mantle. Kay sat to the right of the screen. Her final resting place a subtle, deep navy that didn’t stand out.

My heart shattered again as the tornado struck again.