Loss Brings Renewal

The ping of her phone caused her to look up from the laptop she had been staring blankly
at for hours. It was a simple message from her mom.
Can’t wait to read this next set of poems!
Sighing, she closed her laptop. It was two weeks before her deadline of turning in the
manuscript for her book of poems, but she had nothing. She had been uninspired lately and it
was affecting every aspect of her life. The poem she had been staring at for the past hour was
supposed to be an epistle to her late best friend, but even that wasn’t coming out the right way.
She could hear her best friend’s voice saying “Come on girl! I know you’re better than this.”
It had been a year since Rebecca passed. Cancer took her at the ripe age of 20. Rebecca
had been there for her from the beginning. They met each other in 4th grade, and they had been
inseparable since.
After losing Rebecca, she had her poems published like Rebecca had begged her to do
since graduating college. It was what had gotten her this deal, but now she had nothing. She had
written a little after Rebecca, but she wasn’t confident in it anymore.
Her phone pinged again, this time a message from her brother.
Looking forward to seeing you soon! Be at the restaurant in 15.
She stood up from behind the desk and found her shoes. Looking in the full-length mirror
over the door, she finally took in her appearance since sitting down at the laptop. Her already
pale skin looked sickly, her once bubbly blue eyes now carrying 5-pound bags looked darker, and
her vibrant red hair was disheveled into what her mom would call a rat’s nest. Deciding to pull
up her hair, she threw it in a loose ponytail and walked out the door.
Her black Nissan was waiting patiently for her in the apartment’s parking deck. She
threw her small bookbag into the passenger seat as she sat in the driver’s seat. Reversing out of
her spot, she began her descent through the parking deck. Turning on the radio, a new song she
didn’t recognize started playing. Not paying much attention to the slow tune, she continued her
drive to the restaurant 5 minutes from her apartment.
Her brother had started meeting her at the restaurant every Wednesday after losing
Rebecca. He claimed it was because he wanted to see her more, but she knew he was worried
about what she would do if left alone for too long. She had the tendencies in high school, yet
despite trying to hide them, he was the one who found out first. The guilt of having her younger
brother find her with the razor was enough to make her stop.
Arriving at the restaurant, she made her way inside and searched for the tall, blonde boy
she was meeting. Immediately, she saw her brother’s goofy grin and awkward wave from the
back of the building. Approaching him, she found he had already ordered a drink, sweet tea, for
her.
“Hey big sis. How are you?” he said as he stood up to give her a hug.
 “I’m good, Ben. How are you?”
“I’m alright. Hungry as hell though. Let’s get some grub.” Ben said as he pulled out the
chair for her.
Ben had been out of college for a year, but that hadn’t stopped him from climbing the
chain as fast as he could. He had majored in mathematics, but she still didn’t quite understand
what exactly Ben was doing for his career. She knew he was an actuary of some sort, but the
logistics of his job were lost on her as numbers were not her thing. Despite being different in
almost every way, they had grown up super close and best of friends.
“How’s writing going? Almost done with this project?” Ben said sitting down himself.
She shook her head as she opened the menu.
“Not even close, honestly. I kinda want to back out.”
“What? You can’t do that! You know you’ll regret not jumping on this opportunity. Come
on, give me some of your ideas.”
“I don’t have any. That’s the issue. I’ve been so uninspired that I don’t know why I even
bother at this point.” She could feel the tears starting as she looked at her brother.
“Have you tried writing for-“
“Don’t.” she looked back down at the menu, knowing the tears were about to come.
“Rebecca? Look, I know it’s hard, but it’s been a year. Maybe this is what you need to
break out of this funk. Or maybe you need to go home?”
“Are you fucking serious right now? You know I can’t do that.”
“Why not? I know mom would love to see you. She does miss you; you know.”
She went silent, knowing Ben was right. She hadn’t been to her parents’ house in a year
because it brought back too many memories of Rebecca. Her family had been telling her it was
time to continue with life instead of going through the motions like she had been doing, but life
was way less fulfilling without Rebecca. She had been to therapists, but even then, none of them
were able to break the fog she had been in since hearing the news.
“Look, I’m sorry. That was out of line.”
“I’ll go home.”
“I’m sorry what?”
“I’ll go home. You’re right, I need to go home.”
“Aha! Say that again, I like that,” Ben said, smirking at the end of his sentence.
“Shut up.”
 ~~~
The next day, she made the hour drive to her parents’ house. As she was driving, she
heard the song again. This time, she started listening to the tune until the opening line: “I think
it’s impossible for me to be happy.” She quickly changed the station, not wanting a sad song on
the day she was supposed to start feeling better.
Pulling into the driveway, she tried not to look next door, but some force of the universe
pushed her to look anyway. She stared at the little brown ranch house that looked like nothing
special from the outside, and felt the tears come to her eyes. Though the family had moved after
her death, it would forever be known as Rebecca’s house to her. She pushed the tears away and
got out of the car.
Her mother’s arms were waiting for her at the front door. As she walked up to the door,
she realized how much she had been missing her mother. Her head was too occupied by the
thought of Rebecca, that she hadn’t let herself think about anything else.
“Welcome home, honey,” her mom says gently.
After hugging her mom, she walked into the living room and started catching up with her
mom. Inevitably, her mom asked how the poems were going. After explaining her predicament,
her mom just looked over at her and took a deep breathe.
“She would hate herself knowing she was the reason you’re holding yourself back.” Her
mom said, standing up to grab her coffee cup from the kitchen.
She sat on the couch and let her mom’s words sink in. She knew her mom was right, but
she didn’t know how to let go. She felt like she was doing a disservice to Rebecca. Her mom
could read her face and offered a hand to help her up.
Her mom led her down the hallway and into her old room. She took a deep breath as her
mom opened up the door to the past.
Her room hadn’t changed a bit. The beige walls were still full of posters of bands and
pictures of her and Rebecca and other friends that she had closed out after Rebecca’s passing.
Her yellow comforter still covered the bed with the 10 pillows taking up the space. The only
difference was it wasn’t near as cluttered as when she lived there. The beige carpet was visible
and not covered by all the clothes like her apartment now. Her desk was clutter-free minus one
picture of Rebecca.
“Take my picture! We gotta remember this moment forever! Come on, seize the moment
bestie!”
She laughed, held up the phone camera, and took a quick snapshot of Rebecca in front of
the overlook. It was a perfect moment. She felt like nothing could go wrong in their lives.
Rebecca suddenly started screaming off the edge of the cliff.
“Girl, what are you doing?” she said with a laugh.
 “It felt right. Don’t tell me you don’t have the urge to just scream randomly sometimes.”
“Not really, no.”
“You know, with how long we’ve been friends, you’d think we would have found your
sense of adventure by now.”
"Hey, I have a sense of adventure. I’m here now, aren’t I?”
“Ok, so scream.”
“Mmm... what if someone sees me?”
“Girl, you gotta quit caring about what others think. Here, I’ll do it with you.”
With a little more convincing, she eventually decided to do it. They screamed off the edge
of the cliff, Rebecca running out of air before she did. Rebecca looked over at her and smiled,
and somehow the moment was even more perfect.
Somehow a single tear fell down her cheeks as she forced her eyes away from the image
of Rebecca smiling. She looked back over at her mom and smiled. It wasn’t a forced smile, it
was a genuine smile, something she hadn’t been able to do since Rebecca passed. She looked at
the other pictures of Rebecca and reflected on more of their memories.
Later that night, she was settling in her childhood bed and decided to put on some music
for the time being. Opening her laptop, she pulled up Spotify and shuffled a random playlist she
hadn’t made. The song that seemed to follow her everywhere came on immediately and she
decided maybe it was time to listen to it.
As the song continued, she could feel herself slowly being more entranced by it. Before
the final verse started, she could feel the tears well in her eyes. The verse turned away from
feeling helpless to finding hope again and that’s the moment she lost it for the first time in almost
5 months. Something about the solemness yet hopefully tone hit home with her, and she knew in
her heart that she needed to scream again, but this time, in her own way.
She opened a Word Document on her laptop and started typing. She wrote to Rebecca,
her brother, her mother, the other friends who had given up trying to help her, and whoever else
came to mind. She wrote pages and pages of words that meant nothing and everything at the
same time.
After 30 minutes of just typing, she finally took a breath and sat back on the bed. She
realized at that moment that she was finding her voice again. She started reading through what
she wrote in sections to see if anything encouraged her to expand upon it in poetry form. She
pulled out her notebook from her overnight bag and started writing down the words that jumped
out at her. She realized she related to the song in that she had lost all feelings since Rebecca’s
death. But now, she was feeling all the emotions she had pushed down for over a year. She felt
guilty for pushing everyone away, felt like a failure, felt anger because she hadn’t been herself,
and finally felt like getting her life back on track.
 Eventually, she calmed down enough to reopen her laptop. Opening a new document, she
breathed a heavy sigh and started to type the words that had come to mind, breaking the lines
when it felt right to her.
When she felt it was done, she moved her laptop off her lap and laid back on the bed. As
she laid there, she realized she didn’t feel alone. No one was in the room with her, but she felt a
sort of calmness settle over her that made her feel safe. She listened to the music still playing
from her laptop and felt her eyes get heavy. Before allowing them to close, however, she looked
one last time at the poem she had just written.
For Rebecca, my beloved
by: Skye Davis

Forgive me,
for it is time
I let you go.

I held you
as long as I possibly could,
but now,

it is you
that is holding me
forever still.

In my heart,
you will stay as
others come and go,

but I can no longer

hold you as number one.
Don’t fret,
our screams will echo
off the mountain for evermore. But
please understand

as I leave your memory be.