Let's Go to the Garden and Be Kids Again

The past week I’ve been dwelling on the thought of death — metaphorically and literally. Death, in all its glory. A bridge that connects the end to a new beginning. A drastic change in our routine that teaches a lesson about the necessity of letting go and letting things happen, even if it haunts you like the memory of an old friend you don’t talk to anymore.

The only funeral I remember vividly attending as a child was my grandfather’s. When he said his goodbyes, I wanted to ask him to wait because I wasn’t ready. Wait, can we have one last pillow fight? How about all the snacks you never got to give me? You never finished your stories. Are you proud of me even before I become anything? Even so, will I ever be ready? Endings are hardly beautiful. They are unfair and do not make any sense. Endings creep up on you and it will find you in the midst of an early morning walk on a sunny day. And even then, the sun doesn’t stop shining and the birds won’t stop throwing their voices in the sky. I remember how hard I cried then. I mourned for the memories we shared — and the ones we never got to. I miss him more than I remember him.

Speaking truthfully, I don’t think I have known peace since then. There was a growing cavity in that little girl’s heart, and perhaps it caused the possible chemical imbalance in her brain. A blip in time and that space has become a home to anger, sadness, and resentment. I tried to convince myself the anger and resentment is for the world because growing up I had always thought everyone secretly hated me.

Did they? Or was it just a reflection of my own self-hatred? Did the little girl know that she’ll end up hating herself? Could she already see it in the mirror?

Some days I go on walks around the new neighborhood. I admire the big, pretty houses that could have been mine, had things turned out differently. I pass by the tall trees and familiar flowers and wonder how forgiving mother nature must have been to let go parts of herself to give room for people like me. I look at the sun and wonder if she has bad days too but still shines regardless. A snail crosses the road, and I think of how tough it must be to have everyone leave you behind when you can’t keep up.

I walk home as the sunset paints streaks of orange, purple, and pink across the sky. I open the front gate, and I don’t feel angry anymore. The door clicks open, and I smell my mom’s home-cooked meals. That familiar ache in my chest returns, but it’s not the cavity this time. Perhaps it’s the epiphany that I cannot return to the lunch table where my junior high school friends and I are having lunch together or maybe that I’m not a whole person and never will be. Somewhere on the way home, it must have slipped from my pockets — all that fury and resentment I had spent a lifetime carrying. Maybe it’s never meant to be held for so long anyway; it’s carved out a hole from where it used to be.

There are days that I do not recognize myself in photos. There are times I feel like my life stopped when I realized we had lost everything. I let these feelings linger, not because it’s a familiar sadness but because I know there is no other way around it. These days are fleeting, and time is like a waving hand from a passing train while I stand frozen. I close my eyes and hope I wake with a warm, fuzzy feeling and the hope of a child at the sound of a lullaby. I’ll find peace when the sun rises tomorrow.

Let’s go to the garden and be kids again.

I’ll hide and you go seek. Catch me if you can.