What can you do when your person is gone? Scream into the void? I guess that is what this is. On a Tuesday evening last June, I excitedly told my Mom that I was finally ready to commit to making my dream of cabin/cottage/forest homeownership a reality. We lost her that Friday. My mind shattered when I heard the news, also over the phone, which seemed especially cruel. Mom was my best friend, my person. But I had not seen her face to face since December of 2019 due to the pandemic. Nothing much mattered to me directly after she passed, much less some dumb piece of imaginary property far away from her home, her things, her gravesite. Only in the last few weeks have I even considered rekindling that ambition. I dove into research as a way forward. Unfortunately, everything on the market was excessively large, unattractive, overpriced, rundown, or in a lousy location. Not until this evening, did any single spot feel like a potential fit. I was so elated when I found this tiny escape, I immediately went to do the thing I had done every time something sparkled in life before this moment — call Mom. Not until I held the phone in my hand did reality come crashing down on me (yet again) that I can never tell her. I can never share my joy with her again. She will never share her day with me again, either. That is what death means. She can’t read my stories anymore, so why write them? I can’t tell her that this dream may come true, so I screamed, and I cried, I wished that things were different, that she was here, and I wrote it down. What else can one do?
