KICK IT | JENLISA

110

Jennie

Blinking myself back, tears streamed down my cheeks. I let them flow freely. The memory burned down my throat, pulling the raw cords so tight that I couldn't swallow.

Every step forward crippled me because I lost Taehyung over and over. As reminders and triggers were ripped from my life, I lost more of him. His parents' insistence that every article of belonging of their deceased son had to be returned to them was the first piece torn off me. Throwing me out of the home which Taehyung and I shared was another.

A different method of dealing with grief existed for every person. Amid robotic shock, I hadn't found my coping mechanisms when my mother-in-law's grief bulldozed me.

Patricia Kim mourned the loss of her son by hoarding all his items, holding me responsible for his death, and shunning me from their lives. We'd never gotten along, plastering false smiles behind her belief that I wasn't good enough for her son and that no one would ever hold that candle in her eyes.

We dated for four months and got married without him notifying his parents. He knew they would have objected to our union. But when he got down on one knee, I knew that he had already stolen my heart with his first 'Ladybug' and he held it hostage each one after.

We didn't have much time to make our shared life plans, but we dreamed about the possibilities. He had carried my entire heart with him on each deployment. The loss of him left me an empty shell. I was like a dead sun that collapsed into a black hole.

After his no-casket funeral, the disdain look was as apparent as the tears in his mother's eyes. After Taehyung's ashes were removed from the church pedestal, she shoved the official papers into my hands. I remember my hands trembling so much that I didn't even recognise my handwriting. But after signing my name on those documents, I no longer had ties with them.

My brain was numb after Taehyung's funeral but I still managed to turn away from his mother's judgemental glare. His father, a retired Army serviceman himself, offered me a sympathetic smile before they turned and removed themselves from my life forever.

And Lisa? I wasn't sure what to think about her. I gave her a part of myself I didn't even know still existed. A part that only Taehyung had owned. And I couldn't take it back.