Creative Nonfiction

Gone, Daddy, Gone
By Bethany Bruno

Dad, it’s been one year since you died.

And this past year, I’ve had to go through violent battles for emotional stability inside my head because of it. These confrontations have destroyed who I once was. The Bethany you loved and kissed goodbye with your thick mustache tickling my skin as you pulled away from our embrace, is gone. The strong young woman who could take on anything wedged in her way, has become a crumpled-up shell of a human being who cowers in the corner, afraid of even the smallest inconvenience. Bethany has been replaced with someone I’m unfamiliar with. She’s a stranger that my body attacks daily through panic attacks, leaving me utterly spent and completely useless. I often wonder during these attacks if it’s my time to go, to leave this world and become death’s newest club member. The only connection I have to who I once was is your death. Mom says to “think about the happy times, not the bad!” but, I will not allow myself to erase the final moments of your life from my daily thoughts. Over and over and over again, it plays in my mind. Like a discordant melody that begs for an audience, I willingly sit in the empty auditorium and force myself to listen. Like the story of your death, that song deserves a chance to be heard. Everyone has moved on with their lives, but not me.

It hits me out of nowhere, like a punch to the back of the head. I’ll be pouring myself a glass of water in the kitchen when suddenly it appears. That image of you seizing while surrounded by so many people watching and waiting for it to end. I had been preparing myself for your death for six months. When it arrived, and I was ready to be done with all of it, and to be done with you. I was unsure of what to do, so I grabbed your hand and held it. Your leg began shaking and your breathing began to get steadily shallower. Your eyes shot open, blinking uncontrollably without rhythm. I realized that what laid behind your dark brown eyes was not the father I knew. Those eyes were part of a body that was running on fumes. Frank Bruno was gone, but now the battery life of his body was slowly and drastically draining to a dead stop.

I released your hand and ran out of the room toward the nurse’s station. All I could manage to physically do was scream “Help!…Help!… Help!” I felt like a defenseless child, looking for an adult to swoop in and save me from danger. I ran back into the room to see mom hovering above you, holding onto your arms, to keep you from hurdling yourself off the bed. Your son, Scott, is holding mom incase her knees buckle, sending her to the tile floor. I keep looking at the jugular vein in your neck, unsure of what to expect when you stop breathing. Will it be a rapid halt or a slow stop? For those last six months, all I had thought about was what the end would look like. This ending was not even close to the hundreds of scenarios that ran through my head. No, this was much worse for you and for me.

And with a final gasp of breath, you stopped. Everything and everyone just stopped. The vein in your neck slowed until it expanded once more and stopped cold. It took a few minutes, but every ounce of warmth left your body and you became cold. Your hand, that I held long after you died, began to stiffen. You were gone, and you were never going to come back.

I thought I was ready. I thought I could get some peace from finally letting you go, but I didn’t. I selfishly wanted you to just go, so I could be free of the pain of watching you slowly die. I selflessly wanted you to die, so you could be free from the pain of cancer. Either way, I thought your death would bring some sort of peaceful closure for you and me, but it didn’t. 

I remember the night before you died, I was sitting in the chair beside your Hospice bed. It was around 2am and the Hospice House was silent except for the sound of oxygen machines running in various patient’s room. Every 15 minutes a nurse would come, check your vitals, and then insert a Tylenol into your anus to bring down your high fever. As you laid there, in a medical coma, I cracked a joke about that tiny pill actually being an alien probe. I thought it would make you laugh, by some miracle, but you remained still. I wondered if it made you feel uncomfortable when it was inserted, but I need you to know something, Dad.  I had fought for that Tylenol, because the nurses questioned my willingness to “let him die without prolonging his suffering.” I didn’t want you to suffer with a high temperature. I didn’t want you to feel the heat that accompanies a fever in your final hours of life. You deserved a cool, relaxing send off, so I demanded that pill. “No, he deserves to die in comfort,” I said to the head nurse. She nodded and left the room. She didn’t argue with me any further after that, knowing that I would be your deathbed guardian who wasn’t afraid to tell a bitch off.

I just sat there watching you gasp for air with every breath. I whispered into your right ear in the off chance you could actually hear me. I apologized for all the shitty things I said and did over the years. I told you how mad I had been at you for being disabled the last few months, which required giving you constant care- even though I was really mad at the situation and not you. I told you that I would take care of mom and Scott. I recounted stories that we experienced over the years, like when we used to occasionally go to the movies together, sharing a large buttered popcorn, and driving back home while you schooled me on how “Southern Rock is the best kind of Rock music.”  I told you how ironic this whole situation was. That it took your death to make me realize how much of a great father you were.

Do you remember when I asked you to look after me and to help me get my life back on track? I whispered, “Send me some good things- help me get the hell out of Port St. Lucie, would ya? You and I both know there’s nothing here for me to make a life for myself.” I did this with half hope and half shame. I had always openly expressed, much to your groans of disapproval, that I didn’t believe in God, signs, or any of that kind of spiritual stuff. Yet, there I was, talking to you as if my years as a member of Club Atheist never existed. At one point, late into the night and when I desperately needed something reassuring to say, I lied to you. “Dad, I want you to know something, I do believe in God, and I believe you’re going up to Heaven to be with your family. Granny will be there, Papa, Uncle Tony, all of our pets who died, and it’s going to be amazing. You’ll sit around a giant table, covered with all kinds of Italian food that Granny cooked up. And, you’ll just shoot the shit.” I laughed to myself after I said it, not knowing what I believed anymore. It seemed ludicrous, yet I desperately hoped that it could be a possibility. I waited for you to twitch or to move a finger, as a sort of sign that you heard me. But, nothing happened. You just remained comatose and breathing with your mouth wide open. I remember thinking how full of shit all of those dramatic cancer movies were. Not one had ever gotten it right.

One time during the night, a nurse came in to check on you. As she was giving you yet another Tylenol rectally, she asked me “How are you doing, honey?” It kind of threw me for a loop, as there she was putting a pill into your anus and somehow trying to converse with me.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ve been preparing for this to happen for 6 months now. I just want him to be at peace.”
This was my go-to line for anyone who asked me how I was doing, knowing that your death was inching closer every minute. You get asked it so many times in the time after you announce the impending death of a parent that you need to create some sort of automated response.

But, the nurse said something to me that has been ingrained into my mind ever since.

“But,” she said, “you’ll miss these nights. He may be in a coma and unresponsive, but you’ll miss seeing him like this,” as she waved her hands over your body, like some sort of showgirl drawing attention to grand prizes on a table.

And you know what, Dad? She was absolutely right. A part of me wishes you were still here- coma, constant anal pill insertions, and all. I know your quality of life was terrible even leading up to the coma, but I’d still take that over not having you around anymore, period. I’ve become selfish with my yearning to see your crooked smile. I just want to see your face one more time, just once, please. I want to brush your thinning black hair with my fingers, to hear you complain about something-anything, and to call my name and ask for a refill of water- even though I found this task to be annoying since you were always closest to the fridge.

Dad, I worry most that my mind is starting to forget you. What you looked like, smelled like, sounded like. I am scared that my memories of you will one day fade. That all I will have are hazy memories at best. The only memories that seem to pop up in my mind now are of your final moments, and of your eyes staring up toward the popcorn ceiling. A few minutes after you died, I realized that your eyes had never closed. I took my hand and slid it down your face, but your eyelids refused to remain shut. I did this motion at least three times before I stopped trying. Even as the room was filled with the sound of sobbing from Mom and our family members, I stood there and just stared at your eyes. Those large brown eyes haunt my dreams. I wake up in a panic, surrounded by my empty room. My mind, in those moments upon awakening, can’t figure out if it was real or simply a nightmare. Sometimes, I wake up, get out of bed, and walk over to your bedroom, desperately hoping to see you lying in bed as I watch your chest rise and fall with each breath. But, that hope is useless. I walk by your room now and all I see is a mountain of clothes that Mom has piled up onto your side of the bed. You no longer exist, much to my constant dismay.

One realization I’ve come to is that ultimately, I was wrong all around- I was not prepared, no matter how hard I tried to be, for your death and its aftermath. I did everything I could for you, yet I didn’t do enough. I should have stayed home and been your full-time caretaker. I should have shut up and stopped getting annoyed with you for blocking the hallway with your wheelchair when all you wanted to do was move around after lying in that hospital bed all day. I have so many regrets, but none more than what I left you with. I should’ve show you more love and affection, instead of lashing out at your constant need for help with this or that. I wasn’t mad at you, Dad, I was mad at having to act like things were fine- that you would make it through. I hated having to lie and put on this false act of having high hopes when the Doctor discreetly said to me, “3 months, tops.” We didn’t want to scare you or let you lose hope, so I kept my mouth shut and became your personal motivational speaker for kicking Cancer’s ass. I’m sure you understand now why I did this and would agree with my decision. But, I wonder now if maybe you secretly knew all along and kept silent for my sake. You were always strong, even until the end.

I also think about the six weeks you spent at the rehab center and I feel so selfish for not making the fifteen-minute drive over there and spending more time with you. You were so lonely and scared, yet I hated going to that place. This was such a selfish act and for that I’m sorry. I should have sucked it up and spent more time in that hell hole with you. I would sit in an uncomfortable wooden chair and stare at you or my phone for hours while you watched the nightly news. Your body was growing weaker each day from the cancer literally eating you away. You required so much physical help that I could not provide. You were a prisoner, stuck in a shattered body and guarded by incompetent nurses. I was cheated out of six weeks that I could have had with you at home and that angers me now and forever. But, anger is only one of many emotions I experience when I think about your final months, weeks, days, hours, and minutes.

I wake up every day in our house that we lived in together for over twenty years. It’s filled with remnants of you, everywhere. You’re everywhere, but not really. Not the way I want or need you to be. Everything reminds me of that final night and day with you. I look around and I see: the Mr. Coffee Coffeemaker, the TV remote that’s missing its backing because you threw it onto the floor too many times, the couch that contains a permanent indent from your ass, your green Incredible Hulk mug, the Florida patio where you enjoyed sitting in with your coffee and newspaper each morning, your dog who doesn’t understand where you went, and the bathroom where you spent hours in agony from vomiting or constipation due to the chemotherapy.  This house contains nothing but memories of you. I can’t escape you. To live where you’re constantly surrounded by relics of life that no longer exists is just torture. I don’t know how to get past this, to get past having you in my life anymore. Will I ever recover from this loss? If I were able to somehow get over you, would that mean losing you forever? If so, I’d rather suffer for the rest of my life than forget you ever existed.

Some people say “it gets better with time. The pain lessens, time heals all wounds…” and etc. Some choose to always look on the bright side of life and remember that there are good things to come. “This was just one bad moment of your life, but there will be good moments to come” is a phrase I tell myself daily. Yeah, that’s probably true, even if I think it’s bullshit. But, that doesn’t mean I don’t get to grieve how I want to grieve. Everyone does things differently when it comes to grief. Some do drugs, some drink, some have terrible relationships in search of replacing that loss. But, I choose to suffer. I have chosen to allow myself to fully feel every bit of emotion and remember every memory that appears when I think of you, Dad.

I will think about you every single day and grieve for the fact that you will no longer be a part of my life. I think anyone who’s ever lost someone feels this way. When you lost Papa, you were never the same. Holidays were just never as bright as they once were. But, unlike me, you kept your feelings silent. I wish now that you had talked to me about how you handled those internal battles with yourself over your father’s death. Maybe you had some insightful wisdom about death to bestow upon me, never knowing how soon I would need it with the loss of you. It’s a lesson I’ve had to learn on my own. It feels like a class that drags on forever, as I stare at the mounted wall clock waiting for it to end.

I believe that everyone always holds onto their grief in some way, shape, or form. Your grief tears you down and destroys you, but it also creates you once again. This new person is unrecognizable at the moment, but she will eventually become entangled with the old Bethany that must be present somewhere deep inside of me, like the mixing of primary colors to create a new shade that stands out within a crowd. I hope to become that beautiful shade of green, the one you were so fond of.
​
Maybe then, you would recognize me, wherever and if we ever meet again. 

Bethany Bruno is a born and raised Florida Writer. She attended Flagler College, in St. Augustine, FL, where she earned her B.A in English. She later attended the University of North Florida for her M.A. Before becoming a Library Specialist, she was a English Teacher and a Park Ranger with the National Park Service. Her work has been previously published in The Flagler Review, Lunch Ticket Magazine, and The Paragon Press. She is currently working on her debut novel, “From the Passenger Seat.” She lives in Port Saint Lucie, FL.

* * *

Casser Tour, Summer of Love
By Glenn Moss

In the Summer of 1967, as heat and anger gathered to explode in Newark and
Detroit and love gathered in San Francisco, I boarded a bus in New York’s Port
Authority with my parents. This was the last vacation I remember my parents
taking and the last I felt obligated to take with them. I was 13, wouldn’t be turning
14 till after we returned with images in my bag I would unpack and explore after
Midnight when the voice of WNEW-FM’s Allison Steele added her purple throated
voice to my Brooklyn nights.

My parents could teach a class in pretending to a middle class life while seeking to
cover working poor income. This may be far more common today with recessions
great and small and an offshore technology economy, leaving many with memories
of assumed solidity and finding liquidity only in the sweat from fear. Back then,
even as the ‘60’s opened rifts in perceptions of permanence, we weren’t yet at
recessions, gas shortages, rooftop escapes and disco.

My few friends were all at camp, volunteering or working at places with doors
opened by parents. Me, with a stutter and imagination, I packed a small bag and
joined my occasional bookkeeper mother and always women’s shoe store salesman
father. How did they even come up with the money for this 7 day tour of upstate NY
and a day trip to Expo ’67 in Montreal...the last world’s fair of any note. Back in
September, when I had my poor kid bar mitzvah on a Thursday morning, apparently
the other sanctioned day for this particularly Jewish American affair, what little
money was offered by the 15 or so family in attendance was quickly handed to my
parents so the rent could be paid that month. “Today I am a renter”, is what I should
have said.

The “should have saids”, especially self-damning for a stutterer, would have
prominence one particular night on this trip. The thread of that evening’s tapestry
began when we first entered the bus. My parents sat in the fifth row of two seats on
the left side while I took the window seat across the aisle so I could lose myself in
the scenes that would roll by, knowing that everyone else would be coupled up and
no other kid would be dragged along.

Within minutes, my parents and the couple in front of them started talking and
laughing. I was pointed at, and I turned my head and waved. No need to attempt
saying “hi”...I could get stuck on that ‘h” until the bus reached Westchester. So
began a vacation connection that dominated my parents’ attention, not to my
surprise but to my liking as it allowed me to be separate and wander.

The other couple, Sal and Donna Bonneti from Newark, was as authentically middle
class as my parents were not. Sal owned two plumbing and hardware stores and
Donna was a junior high school teacher. They had two kids, both boys, 16 and 17, at
sports camps in Pennsylvania. Just the kind my father wished I was and knew I’d
never be. I was the son who he beat at boxball and handball every Sunday morning.
The one who threw the Passover meat down the incinerator by mistake.

As the bus took its route north to the first stop in Lake George, I heard the shared
laughter as my parents and their new friends exchanged histories, real and shaded. I
looked out the window as suburbs and then more rural space opened up to the July
sun. In just a few days we would hear the news about riots in Newark with fires
burning a city that would see ashes and broken glass as a turning point; where blood
and national guard boots marked spaces where homes and stores stood only a week
before. Sal and Donna, shaken and the easy smiles gone, would leave the tour early
to return home and become part of the Newark exodus to find a new place to try and
renew. Memory advises that they moved to Westfield, with a new hardware store
and stories to add to the July that changed Newark and Detroit and the hopes from
1964 and 1965.

Lake George was a half-day stay in a town where a beautiful lake and history from
the French and Indian War were obscured by the honky-tonk commercial drapes.
We likely had lunch somewhere, but no memory is attached even as an aftertaste.
The taste that mattered would come that evening.

We pulled into the parking lot of the St. Moritz in Lake Placid around 5 PM. It was a
large Victorian hotel with all the requisite dark wood and American imaginings of
Old World grandeur. High ceiling lobby, polished floors, uniformed employees,
overstuffed chairs and a genteel hush.

My parents’ room had a large bed and pillows, and thick curtains. Mine, smaller, had
a single be set against the wall with the window opposite. The Casser group was set
to have dinner at 7, so I asked if it was OK to take a walk to town and be back in
time. As I took many walks on my own in Brooklyn, this was an easy ask.
An Adirondack town of once and future Olympics, Lake Placid allowed me to easily
imagine I was walking in a village in Switzerland or Germany. That’s the beauty of
an imagination nurtured by time alone and internal architecture; my eyes become a
projector of images that mix reality and dreamscape. Walking past shops keeping
winter like a child you don’t want to change, I could feel a chill and hear the glide of
skis on snow.

I made it back by 6:30 and my parents were wearing their best. My mother in a dark
blue floral dress and my dad in a suit. I had dark brown corduroy pants and a dark
shirt. We took the elevator down to lobby and were shown to large dining room,
almost a ballroom it seemed, filled with tables for the Casser tour and one or two
others. Sal and Donna were already seated at a table and waved us over to the three
empty seats.

As we walked over, my heart sped up and I could feel sweat forming in my scalp. She
wore a black dress and black stockings and her black hair framed a face with red lips
that were slightly open and eyes the color of a lake at dusk. We sat down, and no one
noticed my sweat or my breathing. And then, she came to the table.

“Good evening. Welcome to the St. Moritz. My name is Beth and I’ll be serving you
tonight.” I saw my father and Sal glance at each other and I felt angry. I tried to lift
my eyes to hers but couldn’t. Donna told her how lovey she looked and asked if she
was a student or worked at the hotel full time. Beth said she was a student at Ithaca
College, majoring in English and her family lived in the area.

She asked for drink orders and when she came to me, I managed to look up and, in
of those moments I could never rely on, I said, “Coke” without a stutter. She smiled,
and I reached quickly for my water glass, almost knocking it over.

Dinner was a blur of my watching Beth as she approached the table, asked how
everything was, asked about the tour and where we were from. When she heard,
“Brooklyn”, her dark lake eyes widened, and she said a friend lived in Brooklyn
Heights. She visited during Christmas break and the streets were so pretty and did
we live near there. My mom smiled and said we lived across the street from
Prospect Park, only a few subway stops away. Hinting that it was as nice as the
Heights, maybe even a little finer. Another pretend, but so much had become that I
wasn’t sure if she knew the difference. Beth looked over at me, smiled, and said,
“Sounds like a nice place to grow up.”

I swallowed my third Coke and managed,

“Oh, yeah. I l-l-love the park.” My stutter brought looks from Sal and Donna, but it
was Beth’s that mattered. In her eyes I saw more than the usual mix of
embarrassment and pity. Or believed I did. I wanted to say more but could not.

I did love Prospect Park. It was my escape in many ways; a place where I could be in
Middle Earth or the England of Edward III, anywhere but Brooklyn and the three
room apartment I choked in. I would sit in the living room that was my parent’s
bedroom at night and read Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia. Or sit out on the fire
escape outside the bedroom I shared with my older brother and read, getting lost in
the story and the sound of the open subway trains rolling noisily just beyond a
concrete wall. In that moment looking into Beth’s eyes, I knew I added something
special to my walking dreams. And maybe to my sleeping ones.

As dessert was being served, a group of four from the hotel came into the room
carrying a microphone and moved to space at the back of the room near a large
piano. Three were musicians, one guy carrying a bass fiddle and the other a
saxophone. The other sat down at the piano.

The fourth guy set up the microphone and said, “Good evening, ladies and
gentlemen. On behalf of the entire staff at the St. Moritz, we hope you are all
enjoying your stay with us and thanks to Casser Tours and McClellan Vacations for
choosing us for your visit to Lake Placid. Tonight, we would like to continue with a
tradition we have here at the hotel. We’ve discovered through the years that every
summer we are lucky to have among you some real talent in song. So, we’d like to
invite anyone who has talent and feels brave enough to come up and share a song or
two.”

Oh no. I knew what was about to happen. Whatever happened to their lives,
however smaller and plainer they became, my parents always saw themselves as
entertainers, at least together. My mother did have a fair husky kind of voice and
back in the late 1930’s was asked by a quartet who played Brighton Beach to
accompany them on a tour. They had heard her sing, maybe on the boardwalk one
summer afternoon when she was with friends, and thought she’d be perfect for their
sound. They even had group name picked out, Gypsy and the Four Kings. But when
she asked her parents, Rachel and Morris, a clear ‘no’ kept her in Brooklyn and
singing at family gatherings, and maybe still at the boardwalk. But no farther.

My father wasn’t a singer. He could help my mother keep a tune moving, but his real
talent was in dance. He looked a bit like James Cagney and he moved a bit like Gene
Kelley. Together, my parents found their escape through dancing, gliding in sync
with an energy and grace they could never replicate in lives that seemed to forever
recede from pre-war dreams. And I existed in the regrets when the music stopped.

One or two people from other tables found the courage and need to step up and sing
a standard the band knew and could adapt to the singer. Then, I heard the chairs
move and I saw my parents heading toward the microphone and the space where,
for a half hour, they could make all the pretend real.

As they began with Gershwin and switched to Berlin and began to dance, you could
feel each table’s conversation turn to silence and surprised admiration. All the
attention they always wanted right there amidst the coffee and chocolate cake in a
ballroom at the St. Moritz in Lake Placid, New York. Sal and Donna watched them,
smiling. Sal turned to me, and whispered, “Hey, they are really good. You must be
proud.” I nodded, looked down and wished I could get up and leave. I thought about
it and then suddenly, sitting down next to me was Beth. She leaned over to me and I
stopped breathing. She leaned into me and said, “I know. “ She put her hand on mine
and continued, “Once you are a little older and can get away, it will be OK. I
promise”.

She got up and maybe she smiled at me, but I couldn’t look at her then. Only when
she walked to other tables could I watch her walk, stop and lean in to a whispered
request. I wished I had said something.

My parents continued to dance, now to Porter and I did get up and walk away
unseen. Or so I thought. As I turned to look back, I saw Beth looking at me and she
waved.

I walked to the lobby, sweating and my hands shaking. I heard applause as I left the
hotel and walked towards town. The lights from the shops were on now and I
stopped to take a breath, and then another. I started walking again, and imagined
Beth was with me, not saying anything just holding my hand. After a while, I told her
about England in the 14th Century and she smiled. I saw that smile for a long time.
When I was older and left for college, it did get better and I remembered Beth’s
promise and I smiled back.​

Glenn Moss a media lawyer by trade and has been writing poetry, stories and plays since high school ( a long time ago). He grew up in Brooklyn, went to college in upstate NY and law school in Cleveland. Returning to NYC, he began work and continued writing; and looks to have clauses and exclusions dance just a bit. His stories often fall into the “creative/memoir” category, others into imagined possibilities just around the corner of space and time.

* * * 

Reassurance
By Danielle Wunderlich

This past summer took its toll on me, not because of any looming summer assignments ruining my fun, or any physically taxing summer job I had to take on to stock pile money for the coming semester. I actually didn’t have to worry about any of those things. Instead, I struggled with myself. At first, I wasn’t quite sure what it was, really. Everything just felt off. I didn’t feel like myself, my friends weren’t how I remembered, and even my home town just seemed to ooze a feeling of discomfort and unrealism. I had known I’d been feeling strange during the last semester of my first year of college, but I had figured once it was finished the long break would be my chance to get back to how I normally was. I was terribly mistaken.

I, without realizing it, began to isolate myself. My room became like my self-enforced holding cell. I wouldn’t allow myself to leave unless I had deemed that enough work had been done, or I had finally finished a project that I had been lagging behind on. The thing is, I could barely force myself to do anything, and so my room ended up being my main space of living for my first three weeks back from school. I didn’t even see anything wrong with this until my parents, rightfully, chewed me out for my hermit like actions. I still remember not knowing why they seemed so upset and concerned as they dragged me out of that room for the first time in weeks. Even while knowing that their actions were for the best, I still remember wanting to retreat back into that room as soon as I left it.

Forcing myself out of my shell that I had built up, and having to act normal, even if I didn’t feel like it, was something I never thought I’d have to deal with. My parents were understanding, and tried their best to help and learn, but I could never truly find the right words to convey what I was feeling. I’d never had that happen before. I still couldn’t pin point what was causing this dysphoria, but I was getting out more, so that must have been a good sign. I even managed to drive out to Rhode Island to pick up a friend of mine, which in and of itself seemed like a huge accomplishment. Yet even as I was proud to have taken the four hour drive all by my lonesome, I would hear a voice reminding me that I had promised them I’d come down weeks earlier. There was a failure to balance out what ever pride I had managed to scavenge.

Having them with me in my hometown suddenly made everything feel better, if only for those two weeks. They had been there with me when school started weighing me down, and having them back meant stupid jokes to distract me from my encroaching thoughts. We talked about what we had done, what this upcoming school year would be like, and we even bought a fish for our future dorm. I felt normal, if only for those two weeks. When I drove them back home, I had been planning to leave that next day, to go back home, and back to that enveloping feeling. I ended up deciding to stay, not a conscious choice, but I definitely did not want to return to that feeling of being alone when surrounded by my loved ones.

The last day I spent in Rhode Island with them would be, without me being aware of it, a very important one. Their mother had to work that day, but she dropped us off near an isolated, peaceful stretch of Rhode Island coast. It was a lovely day. Shining sun, no clouds, soft sand interspersed with sharp piercing rock not yet broken up by waves. We spent hours combing that shoreline for the best ones. I always picked up the smooth white rocks, and they always went for the cracked, striped, and war torn. We splashed in the waves as we discussed which kind of stone was better. We never came up with a definitive answer.

We would have periods when we had walked enough, and would then lounge on the SpongeBob blanket my friend had been kind enough to lay out for us.  I would sit and feel that sand sticking to my damp thighs, and would look down to see they had already turned a little pink, a sign that sunburn had already set in. That would develop into one of the worst sunburns I’d had in my life, but it was the only thing I’d come to regret about that day. These periods of sitting and watching the waves were when we would have the most emotional conversations of the day. Then we would drop them to go rock picking again, and return to them as soon as our bottoms touched the yellow and blue fleece laid out on the sand.

One of these conversations I remember vividly, as it had meant a lot to me, and yet at the time I wasn’t quite sure why. My friend and I had begun talking about writing, as it had been my favorite hobby for years. Recently I hadn’t been writing as much, for reasons still unbeknownst to me, so we were discussing ideas I may like to try out when I got back to it. I forget who suggested the idea first, but I remember how much I loved it. What would it be like if you were standing in the ocean, and the waves stopped dead? Not slowly petered out, or eventually came to a standstill, but as you were standing there you saw the ocean become like a pane of glass in front of your eyes. No sound, no movement, just silence.

I thought, at the time, that since I favored description and image that I loved the idea for the pure descriptive potential that it held. Having to eloquently explain the sight and sound of a completely still ocean seemed fascinating to me. At some point I may still want to write that story, but I’ve come to realize that image held another meaning for me. It fascinated me so wildly simply because it was a strangely good metaphor for how I was feeling. It’s a bit convoluted, but in the end I’m surprised I didn’t realize sooner. Waves crashing on a beach, are a well-known and counted on phenomena. The ocean will always have its tides and wind rushed waves, that’s a fact. We can always count on the pull of a wave on our legs and the sound of it rushing to meet the sand at our feet. Always.

How would we feel however, if these reassuring things were to disappear? If the waves failed to fizzle at our feet and the ocean failed to keep its perpetual motion, what emotions would rise to the surface? In my own way, I think I found out. When I was younger, I had some self-esteem issues, nothing abnormal though. I didn’t like how I looked, like any middle schooler. Once I hit high school, though, I realized I had nothing to worry about. I was confident, both in my appearance and my skill. I didn’t think I was the best person to ever grace the earth, but I had a good judgement of my self-worth. I was confident I’d have this back bone of self-confidence throughout my life. Once again, I was mistaken.

The reason why I’d been feeling so strange and so uncomfortable was something had sapped out all of my confidence and self-worth, making me almost terrified to take on any new task for fear of failure. For lack of a better word, I felt adrift in my feelings of mediocrity and melancholy, and pushing myself to do anything simply whipped up those moods. While this lack of belief in myself applied to everything, the thing that took the greatest hit was my writing. I went from feeling at least decently adequate in skill, to feeling like an imposter who fancied herself a writer. Even now, typing this out, that feeling looms over my shoulder, and I can’t quite brush it away. Without the confidence I felt I would always have, I now find myself terrified and trying to live with the lost reassurance I know I need.

Like the ocean’s crashing waves, I felt that I would always remain myself. Confident, bold, and smart. Now instead I feel like I have to convince myself of those things now that my own waves have stopped crashing. Much like I thought when my friend and I first started batting around that idea, I discovered losing something that was always there will leave you with an empty, horrified feeling. While you stand there reeling, you don’t even know where to begin to get it back. So, as I try my best to desperately reform the worth I had before I started college, I feel like someone gently paddling their hand in a still ocean, hoping the miniscule movement will somehow conjure the ocean back into its reassuring waves.

Danielle is a Champlain College student studying to be an English teacher, and hopes to teach writing someday. She loves to study the Victorian Era, to write within it, and has been told her writing is reminiscent of it. She misses her cat back in Easton, PA immensely.

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