aeon

epilogue

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WILLIAM'S POV

as much as you try, do you even really let things go? i don't think you can ever truly release something from the roots of your very soul. it was planted there for a reason, and allowed to blossom with a purpose.

my dad never let things go. he held onto whatever remainder he could get his grip on, and he refused to relinquish it. i knew better than to push him, it was something i didn't understand.

i had no way to express my appreciation for him and everything he did all throughout my life. he never failed to give me everything he had within himself to grant me with a beyond acceptable childhood. nothing i could say or do would be an adequate notion of my gratitude. he wasn't dealt the best cards, but he did what he could to the best of his abilities.

i once was out at lunch with him, and i saw something in his eyes that made me more in tune with everything he did for me. i was fifteen and he took me to race go-karts before taking us to grab lunch. "dad, thanks. i know you're working really hard and having to deal with me on top of it, but i'm really lucky." he looked shocked at my words. i had surprised him, and it almost looked like it pained him to look me in the eyes.

he dipped a french fry in ketchup and stared at his plate as he did so. "it's all thanks to your mother." that wasn't the first time he would say that. my father never took credit for much, and i knew why. it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out his survivor's guilt. without my mom's death and donation, i would have been left without both parents. he didn't feel worthy of taking credit for anything that would be impossible without the sacrifice my mother chose to make.

he always insisted he wasn't lonely, and i really don't think he was. i think he still felt my mother with him, and that was plenty enough for him. when i was six i noticed when he was relaxed on the couch, or seated anywhere, he would have his hand resting over his heart. i asked about it one day when i was a bit older. "this is the most valuable part of me. i've got to protect it." he believed that i was only soothed as an infant when my head was laying upon his chest to hear his heartbeat. i'm not sure how true that was, but it's a damn good story.

i visited him at the house he had lived in for at least forty years, and there were journals stacked on the living room floor. i shouldn't have, but while he was in the bathroom i opened one up and read a page. it made me read multiple other pages before he emerged. he had journals filled of memories he and my mother had together. i had no idea what made him start doing that, but i wasn't about to start judging him.

i didn't know why he wrote extensive details in the pages about my mother, but once i saw he began labeling things in his house i got an idea. as he aged his memory only worsened, so that was his way to keep her alive. when he want to go live in a home with full time care, the only thing he brought was a bag full of clothes and his journals. when i would visit him he would be reading them with complete focus on the words he had scribbled down years ago. "goddamn, i was so in love." i wasn't sure if he was remembering what he had written about, or if he was referring to what he had written about with no memory of it all.

i don't know every detail of what happened, or the life my father had before i was thrown into the world, but there is one thing i'm damn sure of. my father, michael wheeler, loved my mother, jane eleanor hopper-wheeler, with every beat of his heart.

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