Sunspots and Raindrops

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“The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.” This is a quote from Charles Dickens.

“We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict.” Jim Morrison, this time.

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” By Bob Marley.

“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” This one is from Maya Angelou.

“Pain is as diverse as man. One suffers as one can.” This one, quoted from Victor Hugo.

I sat, sniffling into my dad’s old handkerchief, as I Googled quotes that could and would possibly help me deal with the strife I was being put through.

I was suffering diversely. I was dealing the only way I knew I could…

“Sonny?” I heard my mom holler from downstairs. I was surprised her voice carried as well as it did. She was a bigger wreck than I. “Sonny Mae, where are you?”

I sniffed hard, tucked my handkerchief in my back pocket (just as my dad always carried it) and yelled, “I’m upstairs.”

Footsteps hopped up the stairs and then my mom was in my doorway. She looked better today, but not well. Her eyes were bloodshot and the sockets were puffy and blotchy. Her lips looked dry from licking them constantly and she didn’t have any makeup on because of the risk of crying it all off.

Hard to believe that that is an improvement, huh?

“Are you ready, sweetie?” she walked into my room and wrapped her arms around me. I felt my eyes prickle and tears threatened to spill over the brims, but I fought them back for my mom’s sake and nodded into her shoulder. “Well, the truck just pulled up and the men are starting to load everything up. So, be sure to separate what you want in the car with you and then we’ll be off.”

I watched my mom walk out of my room and the moment she was out of sight and earshot, I fell back on my bed again and wasted no time in beginning to sob.

We were moving out of state, out of region, all the way to the suburbs of Las Vegas. My mother was suffering in a very different manner than I was. She had told me about how she always wanted to live in Vegas, or at least in a warmer climate than the suburbs of Chicago, so she bought a house in eastern Vegas and we were finally packing up and heading out.

It was only seven o’clock in the morning and I had done my makeup three times.

My mother chose Summerlin, Nevada because she had some friends that lived there that had insisted she come and visit them anytime. They said that they’d take care of her during this tough time in her—and my—life.

But I’d never felt more alone than I had in those last three weeks since my mom had announced we were moving.

Since in was the middle of August, I had to call, text, or e-mail all of my friends to tell them that I wouldn’t be attending school in Chicago anymore. Most of them were surprised that I would move so far away, but others accepted it as my way of coping.

When I told them that it had been my mother’s choice, they only felt worse for me, assuming that she—my mother—was spiraling out of control because of recent events.

But I knew better…and because of it, I had accepted the news of us moving the same night my mom had told me three weeks prior to that day.

I guess now that the moving men were here, loading up everything we owned into that big orange and white truck, it finally struck me that I would be leaving this place forever.

I would turn seventeen on September 27th and I would be a junior at whatever school I’d be attending in Summerlin. I was an average student, but had a knack for writing and photography and I hoped to get a career in one, the other, or maybe even both.

Or maybe I’d drop out of school and be a Sin City stripper or live in a cardboard box.

As I gathered my “carry-on’s”, so to say, I realized that my concern with my future had suddenly slipped and I would sooner worry about the people at my new school and fitting in among them than graduating and doing anything with my life.

And if you knew me, you’d know just how irregular that is of me.

My father had always said that I worried about too much too often.

“You’re going to drive yourself insane by looking too far into the future,” he’d told me time and time again. “Relax. Deal with now and the future will come in due time.”

My dad had an uncanny ability to calm me down. But not even he could stop my incessant tears on that day.

I had my backpack and purse and stood outside the house, watching as the men carried my belongings out of the house and into the back of the huge truck.

My mom was in the car, waiting patently with the sunroof pulled back but the windows rolled up. She’d purged (again) and bought a brand new sleek, black Chevy Camaro. It was a sinister-looking car, one that my dad would’ve loved.

I opened the passenger door and dropped into the seat.

“All set?” my mom asked stuffily. She’d been crying in the car.

I nodded and my mom gave a weak smile before signaling to the moving men. They were ready to go too.

The engine of the Camaro snarled to life and as my mom pulled away from the curb, I gazed back at the now-empty house that I’d spent the last sixteen years living in.

Only memories filled it now.

We got to the city limits ad then to the edge of the state. But before we were out of Illinois, we passed a graveyard.

I stared at it and I noticed the car slow as we passed. My mother was staring at it too.

It was a small cemetery, local, and I could see the white marble columns that stood over my grandparents’ graves.

But that wasn’t what held my and my mom’s attention in that moment.

There was another tall white column that my mom and I gazed at. It was adorned with roses, wreathes, pictures in frames, and ribbons.

The funeral had been months ago but everything on the gravesite looked fresh and new.

My dad was a popular man in life. I wasn’t the least bit surprised that he was just as beloved in death.