Don't Forget

Breathe. I can’t breathe. I was also hoping that the drive to Queens would be longer, that I would have more time, but the closer we got to the cemetery the less ready I felt. I needed time, but time was up and we were parked in front of the snow coated green gate to Washington Park Cemetery.

My stomach is turning itself inside out and my mind is trying to pull me into a hundred different directions. And Kamden is talking too much, but I know he’s just trying to relax me because I haven’t responded to anything he’s said for almost ten minutes. I’m doing terrible.

“Spencer?” He touches my shoulder. “You want me to go in with you?”

“No. I mean thanks- I.. this is just something I have to do. Alone. Thank you.” He means
well, but I need this for me, and the only way I can do that correctly is on my own. I love him for asking though.

My heart feels like it’s beating a thousand times per second. A trillion times per second. Everything is moving fast an slow at the same exact time. It’s freezing outside and the gates to the cemetery are wide open, like they’re waiting for me. I don’t even feel like I’ve walked that much, but I’ve managed to get from across the street, to the entrance. I’m not good at explaining my feelings, but right now I feel like a mess. I brought this upon myself. I want this. I need this.

I can’t put my finger on the reason why I’m so scared, but with every step I feel like a five year old being forced onto a roller coaster that is clearly going to send them into cardiac arrest. That was a terrible analogy. I would ask what’s wrong with me, but I don’t know. I figure it’ll end soon. Once I find him and see his name, and say hello.

I don’t know how I got this far, but I’m walking up and down rows of tombstones and brushing off the snow that’s covering every tombstone. The nerves, the tightness in my chest were reaching a peak and that meant that it was bound to end soon. The anxiety felt eternal and it wasn’t suppose to feel like this.

“Timothy Benjamin Nash,” I mumble to myself.

Right when I say it everything stops. I can breathe, and my heart isn’t lodged in
my throat, and there are tears strolling down my face. I don’t know why, but it feels good. It feels really good and I’ve never felt this way before.

“Hi…Dad. I’m-I’m really sorry I haven’t come to see you, or that I never came in the first place.” I drop to my knees in front of his tombstone and wipe away the tears that are rolling down my face. It’s no use, they won’t stop and I don’t think I want them to.

“I know it’s not okay, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I drew in the snow that was in front of me. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m angry all the time! Even when I’m happy, I’m angry. I hate her, Dad! I know hating people is wrong! You taught me better than that, but I don’t understand how you could have still loved her! After what she did to you? Sometimes I feel like a bad person. Does that make you a bad person?” I cry. “I know,” I sniffle. “I’m not bad. That’s just how she makes me feel and when I talk to her it’s like there’s no censor on my mouth. I wish I could say that I don’t mean to hurt her, but sometimes I do. When I think of how she left us..and you- I just can’t stop myself. I know it’s wrong. It’s really wrong, but isn’t what she did wrong too? Why didn’t she want us? Like we were something to be ashamed of? We’re a part of her and she didn’t want us. Now, all of a sudden she expects me to treat her like m mother! Like she has authority over my life! Besides you, I’m the only one that has authority over my life. I mean, now that your gone, I know it’s just me. I’m the boss of myself by default. I wish you could talk back. I mean, I always wonder what you think of me up there.” I take a deep breath and read over his name three times. “Do you think I’m wrong? I know you loved her, but do you think I’m wrong?” Silence. “Of course you do. “But you haven’t seen her! She left us for some rich guy with a whole bunch of kids! She had another baby and she looks like me!” Only now am I realizing that I’m hysterical again, frozen tears and everything.
“Her step daughter hates me! Ad I mean she hates me. I know it sounds childish and everything, but you don’t know her. She’s-she’s…I’m sorry.”

I was wrong, and the more I thought of what my Father would think of me, the more I knew that I had to stop sinking down to her level. Harper will grow up eventually and when she does, she’ll be a good person.

“I have a boyfriend now… he’s my first one. He’s a good person Dad. Sometimes I think he’s too good for me. He’s got a future in front of him, he hasn’t told me exactly what he wants to do, but whatever it is, I’m sure he’ll be great. I think I want him to teach Evan how to play baseball. I want him to teach Evan how to do everything and I know he’ll do it, because he loves me. He told me so himself.” I could see the look on his face from here. He was probably laughing at me.

“I don’t have anything else to say. I wish I did, but I don’t. I thought I would feel you here, but it’s fading. I wish you could speak to me, but you can’t. I’m sorry Dad.” Tears are rolling down my face I get off of my knees, brushing the snow off of my pants. “I’m sorry, I really am. And I promise this isn’t goodbye. I swear.” I read over his tombstone three times before I start to walk away.

I’m not letting go of him, if anything I’m taking him with me. My father is not that tombstone, or that cemetery, or the wedding band that hangs around my neck. My Dad had always been with me, but I didn’t accept it until now. I didn’t know it until now. My father was wherever I chose for him to be. I had felt empty all this time for no reason. It was all in my hands., this whole time it had been in my hands.

I can’t tell you I’ve got everything figured out. That would be a total and complete lie. I don’t know how to face my Mother, but I will, because I’ve got too many questions, and that’s what she is. She’s my Mother. I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I will. I have to. I don’t know how I’ll explain all this to Evan. I don’t know how to explain that I’m going away to college next year. I don’t want to go to Arizona State, I want to go to Berkeley. I want to go to UCLA. I want to go to California and I have no idea how to explain it to Evan without making him feel like I’ve abandoned him, but I will. Somehow.

I don’t know what’s going to happen to Kamden and I. I don’t know if he’ll just be my first love or my only love. I don’t know how things will work with him at Stanford, and me somewhere else in California, but I know that I love him, and that’s all I know.

Here’s the thing, I don’t care. I was once obsessed with knowing, but life isn’t
about knowing. Life is about believing. It’s about believing that there’s something more; that there’s someone or something helping you along. Giving you the last pieces of the puzzle even if you don’t actually know the picture your working for. It is our fate to live, and forgive, and move on. Those of us who do not do so are drowning ourselves in a misery beyond compare. Those of us who do not do so are calling ourselves perfect and we’re setting ourselves up to be called hypocrites.

What is life without Faith? What is faith without fate? If we do not live, we are running in circles. If we do not forgive, we have left ourselves at a standstill. Living? Truly living, is the absence of anger, the warmth of forgiveness and the honest acceptance of the undeniable fact that we cannot predict a single thing about this life because, life is the only unpredictable thing left to this world. It’s the only mystery that we cannot solve. And you know what? That’s okay, because in the end, we lived.