Surviving Sorrow

Going back after a long vacation is always the hardest. Summer had always been fun for all. Nobody wants it to end. The ridiculous amount of free time that you have that doesn't seem to end and all of the fun things you do that you weren't able to do during school days beats sitting in a class of thirty people or cramming for a long test. Letting go of all those is hard.

But it's not about that why it's so hard for me to get back. This last few weeks of summer wasn't all about those things. This summer, I grieved. This summer, I lost my girlfriend.

Her name was Leah, and she was everything to me. She was the one person that made me excited to go to my classes. She was the person who make me wish that the day will not end. And she was the person who always made me know that the next day will be more wonderful than today because she will be there.

But all of that is gone now.

To tell you it's hard, sums up what I feel. To tell you that it devastated me, that my heart was pulled and shredded in front of my eyes the moment I saw her coffin was in sight, that everything good in my world laid there lifeless, was how I actually feel ever since that day.

At first, I thought it was some cruel joke some heartless monster came up with. That somewhere within the house, Leah is laughing at my reaction. But it all became real right at the moment I saw her inside that coffin. She really is dead. Her lifeless body laid there within the cold confines of that horrible box I desperately wanted to destroy. Her face will never again smile at me, and her eyes will never again be full of love and joy. It was all too real.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to take that bastard that was too tired to drive that hit her to hell. I wanted to take her body out of that coffin and carry her with me, hold her in my arms and never let go.

But I can't. I desperately, needed to, wanted to, but I can't. She wouldn't let me do it. She wouldn't want me to do it.

The world just stopped existing then. It took out the best of me. What was left died each day since.

What makes it harder is that no one knows who she was to me. Leah was not allowed to have a boyfriend. We agreed that we wouldn't tell anyone until the right time came. Our friends, our family, everyone we knew was kept in the dark. And because of it, I have no one to confide on.

I thought of telling her parents the truth, but I didn't want them to get mad. They wouldn't understand. They would have kept me away. And most of all, all they knew of their daughter was how she was the perfect daughter. I wouldn't want to ruin that. I didn't want to bring more pain to them. It was already too much to lose her. Telling it to them would just bring more unnecessary suffering to their grieving.

Much worse is that I can't tell my folks either. They'll look at me with pity. They'll continually remind me of her loss. And more importantly, they'll try and convince me to tell her parents about it. I already have myself fighting the urge to tell them. I already have myself to remind her she's gone. I don't want anyone else doing it.

The same goes with our friends. They'll only see me as the guy whose girlfriend died. They will always treat the topic of Leah as sensitive. They'll avoid anything about Leah like she never existed. I can't have that. They were her friends. They should be allowed to grieve.

I want to just mourn her. It's all I can think of every waking moment. It was all I can think of doing. But I don't want to remember her dead. I don't want anybody reminding me that she's dead.

Studying might just be what I need now. It's a good distraction; a refuge that I can be in.

But as I entered the hall, my memories of her came flooding back. So many of our friends reminded me of her. Her locker, the idle chat between her friends, my attempt to manage my locker; all of my memories of our time together came rushing in. All of who she was assaulted me at once. And all of what she will not be came like a flood.