𝒶𝓊𝒹𝓇𝑒𝓎

Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language.

Audrey didn’t realize how large her apartment had been until the cleaning out stage began. Most of the boxes had already been moved to the entrance way, ready to be lugged out and stacked in the U-Haul that would be arriving in just a few hours. She kicked a few lightweight boxes out of her way as she pushed the door open to the backroom that was used for “storage.” Although, she never entered this room. 

She had to twist and push hard for the door to open, it had been that long since it had been used. Light shifted through a tiny gap in the curtain, she could see dust particles falling through the cascading ray of light. Her nose was already tingling with the need to sneeze. A slow, emotional sigh escaped Audrey. She turned on the light and looked at the neatly stacked boxes; the contents had never been removed. This room housed all of the memories of her childhood. 

The young woman started lugging the boxes out two at a time. Soon the entire hallway at the front door was scattered with tall towers of cardboard. Sweat penetrated the top of her brow and she huffed tiredly, wiping it from her skin. Her shaky hands gripped her hips and she hung her head back. “Just a couple more,” she groaned and headed back into the room to remove the final few. 

Impatient to be done with this tiresome task, she stacked the four boxes on top of each other and started pushing from the bottom box to slide them across the floor. She was almost to the hallway when she got off track and collided with the wall, the boxes fell over, the top one scattered across the floor. She let out a groan, panting. “Damn it,” she moaned, wiping her sweaty forehead.

“Photos” was written on the box that had dispersed on the floor. She felt an ache in her heart as she started picking up the photos; some had slipped out of the photo holders in the albums so it was easy to cram these inside the album without seeing the images. However, there were various bundles of photographs that were trapped inside ziplock bags that weren’t properly sealed and these photos were scattered across the floor.

Falling to her knees, she began picking up the pictures. One of the first ones she grabbed was a photograph of her parents sitting on their front porch smiling. Emotions crashed over Audrey like a tidal wave. At first, she felt happiness—she hadn’t looked at any pictures of her parents in so long. Her memory of them had not done them justice to how beautiful and in love they were. She smiled at the sight of them but soon the indescribable pain of grief and loneliness tried to claim her again. 

Audrey laid this photo to the side, wanting to keep a reminder of them with her. Now rushing to get the others up without seeing the “picture perfect” moments caught. Another photo caught Audrey’s eye before she noticed and her focus was on the face of her sister, Dianne. Her sadness turned to hatred and she quickly ripped the photo in half, tearing the part of her sister from the memory of their final family vacation together.