Musically Challenged #1

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Scrivenings of the King-Beyond-The-Wall

#1070341 added April 30, 2024 at 11:45pm
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It was the five year anniversary of his death, and I still wasn’t any closer to getting over him. The one thing the stages of grief never tells you about is how it always stays with you. And how the stages of grief aren’t linear, but a constantly fluctuating, roiling mass. Sure, you get to “acceptance” sooner or later, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have any more angry days, denial days ... bargaining days. I still felt every second of loss I’d endured over the past five years, especially when I visited the place where he died.

That place was the small, secluded beach at the edge of Crescent Cove, where the waves and sandy shores were abutted with tall cliffs. It was here, amid the natural beauty and tranquility, that Mark had taken his last breath, swept away by a sudden, treacherous current that neither of us had seen coming.

Each year since that day, I found myself drawn back to this spot, compelled by a mix of nostalgia, sorrow, and a desperate need for connection. I’d sit on the same patch of sand where we’d laid our picnic blanket, where we’d laughed and dreamed of a future that was brutally snatched away before sunset.

This year, as I approached the familiar path down to the beach, the late afternoon sun cast long shadows that danced eerily with the swaying branches of the coastal trees. The air was cool, carrying the salty tang of sea mixed with the sharp scent of pine. My heart felt heavy, a familiar weight that I had come to accept as part of my being.

As I reached the beach, I noticed a figure standing by the water’s edge, looking out over the ocean. Curiosity piqued, I approached cautiously, noting the shoulders squared against the breeze, the unkempt hair tousled by the wind.

He turned as he heard my footsteps, and I saw his face—a tapestry of grief and recognition. It was Tom, Mark’s older brother. For a minute, I thought it was Mark, a ghost come back to life. The dream come true soon brought me painfully back down to Earth as I realized that it wasn’t, in fact, the love of my life standing in front of me for the first time in five years.

“Hey, Jess,” he said, his voice rough like the cliffs that bordered the cove.

“Tom,” I replied, unsure of what to say next. We hadn’t spoken much since the funeral. Grief had driven us all into our isolated orbits.

“I come here every year,” Tom continued, his gaze returning to the horizon. “Did you know that?”

I shook my head, feeling a pang of guilt for not reaching out more, for not being there for the family who had been my own, once upon a time. Honestly, I was surprised that I hadn’t seen him here before, because I made the same pilgrimage. Maybe he usually came at this time; it was unusually late for me as I preferred to come during the daytime, at the time of day when we lost Mark. If this was Tom’s regular time, he appeared to prefer to come later in the evening, when there weren’t any other beachgoers around to distract from his grief.

“I didn’t,” I admitted, sitting down beside him on the cold sand. “I guess we both find some comfort here, huh?”

Tom nodded, pulling his jacket tighter around him. “This was his favorite place. He brought me here when I was going through a rough patch. Told me the ocean puts everything into perspective.”

I smiled, tears pricking at the edges of my eyes. “He said the same to me, the first time he brought me here.”

We sat in silence for a while, listening to the rhythmic crashing of the waves. It was comforting, in a way, to share this moment with someone who understood the depth of the loss.

“Do you ever wonder,” Tom began hesitantly, “if you could have done something different, that he might still be here?”

All the time, I wanted to say. Instead, I sighed, a long, weary sound that seemed to pull the sorrow from my very bones. “Every day,” I whispered.

Tom reached over, his hand briefly squeezing mine in a gesture of shared pain and understanding. “Me too.”

It was then I realized that while grief had pushed us apart, it was also the very thing that could bring us back together. We were, in many ways, the keepers of Mark’s memory, the ones who could best understand each other’s loss because it mirrored our own.

“So, what do we do?” I asked after a moment, my voice barely louder than a whisper.

“We remember him,” Tom replied, his eyes moist as he smiled. “We keep loving him. And maybe, we try to help each other heal.”

It wasn’t a solution, not really. There was no fixing the empty space Mark had left behind. But it was a start, a way to honor his memory—not with solitude and sorrow, but with connection. I found myself briefly worried that maybe Tom was looking for a relationship of some kind, but one look in his eyes and I realized the truth; this was a platonic thing. There were some lines that just couldn’t be crossed, and this wasn’t a physical connection we had.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in hues of pink and orange, Tom and I stood and made our way back up the path. We didn’t speak much, but there was a comfort in our silence, a promise of support.

That night, I didn’t feel quite so alone with my grief. And for the first time in five years, the weight in my chest felt just a little bit lighter. The stages of grief aren’t linear, but perhaps, I thought, they’re more bearable with someone who understands and is willing to walk through them with you.

______________________________

(1,000 words)

Prompt: "My Immortal" by Evanescence

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