Kearl 1 Introduction At twenty-four years old, I experienced my first great loss as I watched my grandmother succumb to uterine cancer. Grief took an odd and unexpected shape in my life, lurking in unexpected places and shifting my life in ways I was unprepared for. I felt like a child who did not know where to put all the big emotions that felt too big for my body. I swung between bouts of terrible sadness, anxiety, and anger during the months following her funeral. Grief is a universal experience, but I began to realize how much of an individual navigation it was and how impossible that navigation seemed. I observed what grief looked like in others: my father, silent and stormy, my mother loud and nostalgic, and my brother, who looked for escapism and distraction. I was like my father, staying silent until I was forced to be like my mother and letting it out in less than ideal circumstances. I was like my brother in a lot of ways, too, looking for distraction by consuming television and video games in the hopes that it might rot my brain and numb me for a while. I allowed myself to wallow for a month before I decided I needed to get it together. I was in school, after all, and I was so close to the end. I would not allow myself to get behind now. The good thing about school was that it also offered a distraction, something to occupy my mind most of the day. I started writing again. For school, but also for myself, and eventually, I started writing about grandma. It was an outlet of sorts, a place to store my thoughts and ask questions I could not yet voice out loud. This led to an investigation of my own memories and the connections that were made to past experiences involving death. I realized that I needed to shift my perspective, to examine these memories in a new light in order to move forward. Brooke Randel calls this “writing in a zigzag” in an essay where she talks about the process of writing Kearl 2 her memoir, Also Here. She says “I was writing not just to find answers, but to discover questions, to see where my knowledge and memory were falling short, where I should point my curiosity next.” My curiosity led me to more questions. I started reading books on grief, starting with Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking and moving to Wild by Cheryl Strayed. Each book offered a different perspective, one following a line of evading grief while the other launches fully into self-destructive tendencies. Neither matched my experience fully—I had not lost a spouse, and I had not lost my mother, but there was a level of resonation that occurred as I read these stories and was reminded inexplicably of my grandmother. Suzanne Roberts ponders on the idea of different deaths carrying different weights but remarks that “grief is like water—all water is wet,” and each of our losses adds to our pools of grief and reminds us of them. In an interview with Mark Larabee, when asked about how she was able to remember such details from that time in her life, Cheryl Strayed responded, “When it comes to the internal pain I was experiencing, I had no trouble remembering it and bringing those emotions to life on the page. Some things you don’t forget.” Going into this project, I had no worries about remembering how I had felt as I experienced these losses, but I was worried about returning to that place that was still so fresh. I rationalized that the feelings would never go away fully and that writing about the experience was the only thing that was going to make me feel better. In an interview with Emma Brockes, Didion talked about how she had to “write my way out of it” when asked how she was able to continue writing after her husband's death. She went on to explain that writing was the only way in which she could understand things. This was something I could relate to as this was my original intention with many of these essays—to write my way out of the grief. Kearl 3 I. Finding the Story in the Essay When I decided to do creative nonfiction essays for my thesis project, the friends and family I told were underwhelmed. They did not know why I had chosen nonfiction essays instead of something more exciting like fictional short stories or even a novel. I had to remind myself that the words “nonfiction” and “essay” have different connotations for them than for me. This had me contemplating how to explain what my essays would look like, what their definition would be, and how I could make the writing of them meaningful. In 2016, Susan Steinberg and John D’Agata had a conversation about the definition of an essay, his anthology The Making of the American Essay causing much debate on the topic, even among the writers featured in the anthology. “I like to think of the essay as an art form that tracks the evolution of consciousness as it rolls over the folds of a new idea, memory, or emotion,” D’Agata says. “What I’ve always appreciated about the essay is the feeling that it gives me that it’s capturing that activity of human thought in real-time.” I started writing several of the essays before my grandmother died and even before I knew I wanted to organize them into a collection. In the first set of essays, I am the observer of grief, spectating the deaths of fictional characters and surveying the reactions of my teachers and classmates to a teenage boy’s suicide. As the essays go on, I become not just an observer of grief but an active participant in it as I recall the deaths of several pets and the loss of my grandmother. As I move from the position of observer to participant, the essays evolve in their narrative styles as my own memory and emotions about each experience dictate the way the essay moves. I had to put a lot of trust in myself to recall these personal narratives in a way that Kearl 4 was less concerned with recalling the facts and more concerned about what story I wanted to tell. John D’Agata talks about this distinction within nonfiction writing in his interview with Steinberg: Facts are akin to images, for me. That probably strikes some as a perverse statement, but I say it as someone who turns to essays for literary experiences only, and for that reason, when I’m reading I don’t need facts to do much more than resonate with the rest of the story that’s being told. But that’s not the case with every reader, of course. We’re all looking for different things and have different expectations when we read. Yet for that very reason we do a disservice to both the essay and its readership by suggesting that everything that falls beneath the umbrella of “nonfiction” ought to be written by the same rules and for the same audience. There are some nonfiction books that traffic primarily in facts, by which I mean that we value them for the facts and information that they introduce to us and the ways in which they organize them…When I read a memoir, on the other hand, I’m hoping to bear witness to an exhilaratingly expressive voice and am therefore expecting a completely different literary experience. I don’t care about the facts in that case; I care about the story. As I worked on this collection, I realized that it was no longer about understanding and making sense of my grief, but rather telling the stories that have since shaped and changed me. I tried on different narratives, creating distance and intimacy with point-of-view choices, writing across timelines that did not follow a chronological path, and rooting in a scene in one single moment while stretching it out through a stream of consciousness. I wanted each essay to compliment each other, but I also wanted them to be able to stand on their own. Some of these stories were difficult to tell as the expectations I had for them were not fully developed. This was Kearl 5 a result of writing about grief that was still new and which I was still unraveling. The subjects of these essays are close to me and it felt important to depict them in an accurate way while also creating a voice engaging enough for readers to feel empathetic toward these stories. II. The Larger Topic Grief is a topic that looms large in these essays, but it was not what I wanted them to all be about. I needed that throughline, something that connected them all together, but in order for them to shine on their own, I needed to find the larger subject present in each one. John Bonomo writes: An essayist always writes two essays simultaneously, overlapped as transparencies, one exploring what Vivian Gornick calls the situation, the other what she terms the story. Poet Richard Hugo talks about a piece’s “triggering subject” and its generated, or real, subject. Phillip Lopate describes the “double perspective” that an essayist needs, the ability to both dramatize and to reflect. I’ve always talked to my writing students about the narrow subject and the larger subject. The narrow subject and the larger subject are something I have often referred to as “the thing and the other thing.” This was how it was referred to in my creative classes, and it is how I will refer to it from here on out. Finding the thing in these essays was simple as I knew I wanted them to somehow discuss death. The other thing would be brought out by my own interactions and emotions surrounding these deaths. The other things of these essays are mostly abstract, with several focusing on inner turmoils such as lack of control and the unease around death itself. Kearl 6 Two of the essays in this collection are about the death of my grandmother. One centers on the two-week period just before she died. Within those two weeks, I lost two of my pet cats, and when constructing this essay, I had to ask myself, which one is the thing and which is the other thing? Is the other thing something else entirely? The decline of my grandmother’s health is present in the essay, but it takes a back seat. The death of my pets is a bit more present, but it was not quite the thing I wanted to focus on either. I ended up being pulled toward this idea of control, or the lack of control. This was the feeling I had had for those two weeks. I could not stop my grandmother from dying, and I could not save my pets. The abstract emotion was the underlying thing that kept bubbling to the surface, and as I leaned into that, I was able to identify the “double perspective” that Phillip Lopate refers to. It was important to me for the other thing to make itself known organically. I did not want to search too hard for the other thing; rather I wanted it to come across the page through subtext and then go back and highlight it in my revisions. Each essay has its other thing and none of them are the same. This was an important distinction as well because I did not want these essays to be repetitions of each other or to read as though they were my own personal journal. Having the thing and the other thing coupled with each other offered nuance to these pieces and allowed me to think about these events with new perspectives. This reinforced D’Agata’s definition of the essay and that feeling of “capturing that activity of human thought.” III. Writing Cool Grief seemed a heavy topic to me, which frankly made me nervous to write about such a topic. I turned to Debra Gwartney’s craft talk “When the Action is Hot, Write Cool,” a talk I Kearl 7 have returned to often whenever I dive into the creative nonfiction genre. Gwartney explains that “it’s often more effective to convey emotion with a matter-of-fact tone and highly controlled language.” This is something that Joan Didion wanted to do as she wrote The Year of Magical Overthinking, which strayed from her usual style of writing. I wanted it to be really raw ... I didn't want it to be as concealed as my style usually is. Did you ever read The Executioner's Song? Well when I first started to read it I was stunned, because I knew he [Normal Mailer] was doing this limited vocabulary; I was stunned by the flatness of it. And then suddenly at the end of the first chapter you hear his own voice, which is very effective. I wanted to get some of that flatness. That “flatness” is the matter-of-fact tone that Gwartney refers to. This is something that I have a constant struggle with, especially when what I am writing is a topic so personal and “hot” to me. Gwartney reads examples of writing in her talk, showing the effectiveness of cutting out adverbs and the description of bodily functions, such as tears and crying. “What were you and your characters doing besides crying?” is a question Gwartney asks and is something that has stuck with me whenever I write emotional scenes. I remind myself to leave out the obvious, or at least take it out for the final draft. Because my essays surround the topics of death and grief, I had to ensure that there was no crying present on the page while also still implying its presence from time to time. In order to do this, I sometimes write the actual crying, just so I can pinpoint the moments where I may need to do more work in order to bring those emotions across before going back and taking out the emotion for a more finalized version. This is done beautifully in Brooke Randel’s essay “Grief, the Interior Decorator” where she writes “I don’t need a reminder that I’m sad when I already have a body.” I wanted to replicate this in my own work, to simplify the language down and not overdramatize it while still having the impact hit readers. Kearl 8 Gwartney says to “trust the physical gesture” to get the point across during a scene, allowing the actions and movements to deliver the message to the reader. “You have to normalize the incredible,” she says. “Take the emotion out instead of adding it to.” This was something I tried to replicate in one of the essays where the physical movement and bodily gestures are something that grounds the scene. I use the tug of a skirt to emphasize the uncomfortable feeling of the speaker as she attends the funeral of a great uncle rather than explicitly stating that discomfort. Matter-of-factly recalling traumatic events makes a bigger impact. This seems contradictory, but when referencing the work of Mark Richards, Gwartney explains how he “writes into the heart of contradiction….he embraces that instead of trying to write around it.” This is something I tried to lean into as I wrote the essay that recalls the story of a boy who had killed himself when I was in the eighth grade. This was a difficult essay to write, not only because it was about death, but because it was about suicide. Suicide seemed to be the “hottest” topic to write about when piecing this collection together, and I wanted to make sure I was handling it the right way. I did not want to over dramatize the situation, but I also needed the impact of it to come across. By recalling the events in the most matter-of-fact way possible, I was able to see how the tragedy of it all would still be able to come across. Conclusion When organizing this collection, I sought to explore many aspects of grief taking shape in different forms and in different distances in my personal life, and have been able to view them in different lights and notice and explore things I had been unable to in the immediate aftermath of Kearl 9 these deaths. The reading I have done to accompany these essays has invigorated me to continue my investigation and to experiment with them in new ways. They have helped me shape them into more polished pieces that have allowed me to have introspection into these experiences and rediscover things I had not previously considered [at the time]. In my attempt to write my way out of grief, I was faced with more challenges and questions. The difficulty of writing about an experience still so fresh and so yet to settle in my own life created obstacles I had not anticipated. For that reason, a few of these essays will benefit from time and space, allowing for better reflection on these experiences in order to offer richer revisions. I imagine with this will come new essays exploring more elements of grief as I continue to navigate through them. I could see this collection eventually taking on a hybrid form as I explore different crafts that may allow for new ideas and perspectives to take shape. I have learned a lot about myself in these essays, both as a writer and as a human being. Kearl 10 Improper Funeral Etiquette ~ We were talking about my grandma's cancer at a funeral. When I say “we,” I mean my mother and father. I had feigned ignorance, acting as though I was not listening in on their conversation to avoid having to talk about it myself. I had not thought about death too much until the last couple of months. At twenty-two years old, I felt as though I had an understanding of death. It wasn’t something I feared, really. The thought of dying was not one that kept me up at night. What I had not fully wrapped my mind around was the fact that I would have to deal with the deaths of my loved ones. The funeral services were for my mother’s uncle, John. I did not know John well, having only been to his home a handful of times with my mother when I was young, but I remember thinking he was funny. He was blind and he always made jokes about it whenever we went to visit. Things like, “Sorry, didn’t see you there!” John’s services were being held at the LDS church he and his wife had gone to each Sunday. His casket was dark and surrounded by flowers and photographs of when he was younger. I stood with my family in line for the viewing portion of the service, waiting my turn to offer condolences to his family. "The doctors said that her cancer has spread," I heard my dad say to my mom. It felt a little morbid to discuss grandma’s prognosis in an environment so coated in death. Or, maybe I just didn't want to hear about it. I had been actively avoiding thinking about death up until the last couple of months. Grandma was sick, yes, but she had been sick for years. Kearl 11 At that point, I had the irrational idea that maybe she would live forever, and we’d all have a good laugh about it when she reached age one hundred and seven. We took a step forward in line. The church was cold. Churches always felt colder than they need to be, in my opinion. Or, maybe it was purposefully cold. Because we were there for a funeral where a dead body was present, and the cold helps prevent or postpone decomposition. I looked at John, and the image of rotting flesh flashed through my mind. I tugged at my skirt and turned away. I needed to focus on something else. My elbow found my brother's rib and I sought his attention. "Is my skirt too short for this?" I asked. "What?" "My skirt. Do you think it's appropriate for a funeral?" "Well, it's a little late to ask that now," he said. He squinted at me. "Turtleneck makes you look like a dweeb, though." I looked down. I didn’t think it was too short. I wore black tights with it and thought the turtle neck made up for the shortness. I'm not sure what's appropriate funeral attire. I only have short skirts because they make me look taller than I am. Long ones make me look like I belong on the prairie. Maybe I should have gone dress shopping. I looked around the room. Some people were wearing jeans. Is that considered too informal? I would have done that if I had known it was an option. The skirt would be fine; no one was looking at me anyway. We took another step, and I braved another look at John's body. They had put a lot of makeup on him to cover up the yellow bruising on his skin. His lips looked chapped. I'm not sure Kearl 12 if that's a side effect of being dead or if they were chapped before. It doesn't matter. He was dressed in his sacred temple clothes that LDS members are buried in, and his hair had been combed. It was a little oily. He looked as though he was asleep, but not. As I examined his features, I got a sense of the uncanny valley effect. I tugged at my skirt again, just to give myself something to do. "I'm sorry," I heard my brother say to our aunt. She looked tired, her hair on the messy side. I couldn’t blame her. "Please let us know if you need anything." They hugged. And then she moved to hug me. "You look nice, dear." "Oh, thank you." I breathed out a sigh of relief. Cremation costs six hundred to a thousand dollars in the state of Utah, a fact I could not stop thinking about as I looked at John's body in the casket and wondered about the number of graves there must be in the world. It has to at least be in the millions at this point. Eventually, space will run out. Probably not in the near future, or at least not soon enough for me to worry about it, but eventually. I spend a lot of time thinking about the "eventually" and "what ifs" of the world. Eventually, Hozier will retire from making music. What if he goes bald before that happens? Eventually, they will stop making Star Wars movies. What if they destroy the whole franchise? Eventually, we all die. What if we all die from a giant meteor, like the dinosaurs? Kearl 13 "Are they going to do chemo again?" my mom asked my dad. "I don't know," dad said. "She didn't like it the last time." Death is a big industry, though I'm not sure how good it is for the environment. The formaldehyde, menthol, phenol, and glycerin that help the embalming process along will eventually bleed into the soil, killing the Earth. Almost 80,000 gallons of it are placed in the ground each year due to burials. There are ways to do burials and minimize the damage done to the Earth. Biodegradable coffins are a thing, and you don't actually have to have the body embalmed. I'm not sure what that would mean for the turnaround time on funerals. It's not something that I need to worry about right at this moment, but it's going to be someone's problem. Funerals range from $2,000 to $7,000, maybe a little more or less than that, depending on the person and the family's financial status. My brother once said that he wants a big funeral and an even bigger headstone—sort of like the Lincoln Memorial, but instead of Lincoln, it's a statue of him sitting in a rocking chair. I told him I don't think they make those. I wouldn’t mind being cremated when I die. It's not much better for the environment but is considered the "greener" option. It still uses fossil fuels for the burning process and sends chemicals into the atmosphere, but the remains take up less space, and there are biodegradable urns! My dog, Holly, was cremated. Her ashes sit in a box on my desk at home. I have to dust it every now and then, but it's really not a bother. I think I would be okay sitting on someone's desk. Kearl 14 My mother does not like the idea of cremation. She insists I need a place where my body can be visited by those who love me after I die. Maybe she feels that way because she was raised LDS, as was I, and the LDS church prefers burials over cremations. I'm not sure where I fall on the religious spectrum these days, but I know my desire to keep from disappointing my mom outweighs any desire I have to control how my body is disposed of after I die, so I don't bring up cremation again. Hinduism is the only religion that mandates cremation, and they do it within 24 hours of someone dying. It's purifying for them and helps release the soul faster for rebirth. That's a cool way to think of it. I like thinking about that more than a body rotting in the ground. Islam is the most strongly opposed to cremation. They even forbid the witnessing of it. The only time it is ever approved is to prevent the spread of disease during epidemics, which feels quite sensible. Sky burials are the most eco-friendly as they nourish the vultures and birds that come to consume the remains. It feels very much like the circle of life Mufasa talks about in The Lion King. Sky burials are not legal in the United States but are still widely practiced in places like Tibet. Mom would probably have a heart attack if I suggested wanting a sky burial in Tibet. "I think she's just going to let it run its course," dad said. “Hmm,” mom said. I've never had someone close to me die unless you count Holly (I cried over that for nearly a week). I had gone to extended family members' funerals. They always made me uncomfortable. I never know what to say to people in mourning. "I'm sorry" is usually what comes out of my mouth, but it feels like the wrong thing to say, something thrown around too Kearl 15 much to even have meaning. "My condolences" feels too formal, but saying nothing at all is even worse. After we exited the line to view John's body, we made our way toward the chapel where the funeral services would take place. There were more flowers set up here and more pictures. I spotted my cousin and made my way toward her. I was pleased to see that her dress was about the same length as my skirt. "Hey," I said. "Hey." Silence settled between us, which was annoying because I was hoping she would be able to distract me with some drama that might have been going on in her life. I wracked my brain, trying to think of something to say to fill the silence. "I read an essay in class about how hard it is to curl a dead person's hair." She scrunched her nose. "What?" "Yeah. You can't dye a dead person's hair either. I don't know why you'd want to, but yeah. That's not really what the essay was about, though." "Right. Maybe don't mention that to anyone else today," she said. "I think we should probably find a seat." We sat in one of the pews, our knees squished together. My parents and my brother joined us. I looked through the small program detailing who the speakers were for John's funeral while my brother immediately picked up one of the Hymn books and started telling me which songs he Kearl 16 thinks all sound the same. I noticed a snag in my tights on the top of my thigh and tugged my skirt down. My mom leaned over to whisper in my dad's ear. "Did they say how long she has?" I wonder how many years we have until cemeteries run out of space. A hundred? A thousand? Maybe by the time Earth runs out of space, humans will have discovered other habitable planets to move to and bury their dead. Maybe sky burials will become the norm. Maybe it doesn't matter. There was a tap on my shoulder, and I turned to see my mom. She pointed at the snag in my tights. "That skirt might be a little short." Kearl 17 The House with the Horses Out Front is Haunted ~ My mother has a tequila cabinet that latches shut. She keeps her expensive stuff in there, stuff she never drinks but likes to keep on display. The only time she ever opened a bottle was to take a shot with her uncle Randy. On the day he died, I could not get my mom to tell me what happened. She couldn’t speak. She latched onto my brother while I answered the calls coming through on her phone. Randy had died, suddenly, from a heart attack. ~ We moved into Randy's house two months after he died. It had been a relatively quick decision. I had been hesitant, but ultimately moved in to save money on rent and expand my space from the townhouse we had lived in before. I was granted two rooms; one as my bedroom and the other as an office space to work from home. Despite having more space, my stuff did not fit quite right. The posters and art prints I had brought did not hang on the wall in the same way. My bed was at an odd angle, not parallel to my dresser, and my bookshelf was too close to my desk. I was irritated that I had to reorganize what used to be a perfect setup before the move. It proved to me, in some way, that I was intruding on a space that was not mine. There were horses out front. Four mares. I had a perfect view of them from my office window. They did not belong to Randy, that much I knew, but the land they roamed on did. Various people would come by with horse trailers to take them away and bring them back. I could never figure out what they were doing with them or why they were always brought back. Kearl 18 There seemed to be an understanding between me and the horses and the temporary place in which we were staying. Like we were guests in someone else’s home. ~ For two weeks, I lived alone in Randy’s house. It was during these two weeks that I came to the conclusion that the house was haunted. My family had gone on an Alaskan cruise. I stayed behind, unwilling to take two weeks off both work and school. I first became suspicious because of the noises. The sounds of scratching coming from the vents, a creak across the floorboards, a thud against the windows. I chalked it up to coincidence. Blamed it on how old the house was. But at night, when I tried to sleep, I would stay awake listening to the sounds and thinking maybe I was not as alone as I thought I was. The house's radio system was supposedly broken, but an occasional buzzing sound would come through the speaker on the wall in my bedroom. I drowned out the sound by turning on my record player during the day, turning it up as loudly as I wanted because there was no one around for miles to hear. At night, I would shove my head under my pillows. I attempted to tinker with the speaker system with no success. Then, one day, the sound was gone. I listened for it, pressing my ear against the speaker. There was nothing but silence. The temperature in the house fluctuated between hot and cold. Despite how much I messed with the thermostat, I could not shake the chill that permeated the bedrooms. I had messed with the windows a bit, checking to make sure they were all latched tight and that no draft was coming through. I had learned through ghost hunting shows that spiritual presence Kearl 19 could cause temperature fluctuations. They could also mess with electricity, something I had looked up after the lights kept flickering in my bathroom. ~ The mysteries solved themselves over time. When a bird flew into my office window one morning, I jumped in my seat, shocked and surprised. The bird—who had looked a little dazed before flying away—had left feather markings on the window. It was so unexpected that I started to laugh. The scratching in the vents came from mice, a less humorous discovery than the birds, but nothing the cats could not fix. The creaking of the floorboards came from the hallway. During the day, I practiced walking up and down them, keeping close to the wall and walking on my tip-toes until I figured out a way to make no sound. With some well-placed footing and a pair of fluffy socks, I could float down the hallway without a sound, as if I had never been there in the first place. There are two thermostats, each controlling one side of the house, something my father had told me over the phone after I had explained the weirdness of the temperature. After adjusting them both, the temperature regulated itself. I was finally able to sleep without four blankets. I changed the lightbulb in my bathroom, and the flickering came to an end as well. It occurred to me that maybe, I was inviting ghosts in places they never were. I don't believe in ghosts. Not seriously, anwyway. I'm open to the idea of them, and I enjoy watching ghost-hunting shows. There has never been enough evidence to convince me that there are corporeal figures that roam the empty hallways of abandoned buildings and cemeteries. In the case of Randy's home, I did not suspect that he was there haunting us. He hadn't lived in this particular house for some time, opting to live in an apartment above his shop most of the Kearl 20 time. He had been getting the house ready to move back into but died before he could finish whatever renovations he had planned. The apartment is where he died, so even if he was a ghost, I assume his spirit would be wandering the halls there. But there were things of his left behind at the house that made it feel as though the place was haunted. It was my presence in the house that felt unnatural. Like I was the one lurking in spaces I shouldn’t, disrupting what would have been Randy’s space had he not died to suddenly. I wondered if I would feel this way had I been closer to Randy, like my mother who viewed him almost like a father or even my brother, who had spent time with him as both a great nephew and employee who worked with him for years. ~ My mother has a tequila cabinet that latches shut. She keeps her expensive stuff in there, stuff she never drinks but likes to keep on display. The only time she ever opened a bottle was to take a shot with her Uncle Randy. The cabinet is the only thing in the house that opens on its own. Kearl 21 All of My Characters Are Dead ~ All of my favorite characters are dead. Most of them, at least. It’s a joke shared between me and my friends; a character’s fate is doomed the moment I deem them “the favorite.” Sirius Black from Harry Potter, Princess Leia from Star Wars, Boromir from Lord of the Rings, all meet their ends at one point or another. It was not always the case. There are exceptions to the rule. Avatar: The Last Airbender gave its characters a happy ending, and my favorite book series, The Raven Cycle, spares all of its characters—aside from Noah, who had actually been dead and had been appearing as a ghost since the beginning of the novel anyway. I was content with those endings. But, for me, the ones who died were the ones that lingered, the ones I thought about the most. ~ I was eleven years old when I first started to read The Hunger Games series. My mother had bought the entire trilogy for me and for a couple of weeks, I did nothing but read. I read in the lunch line at school, on the playground, and on the bus ride home. I read hours past my bedtime despite promising my mom that I would go to sleep “just after this chapter!” I couldn’t get enough. This world, this story, these characters had become precious to me. One character in particular stood out against the rest: Rue, the girl tribute from District 11. Maybe because she was close to my age or because her description reminded me of a favorite cousin of mine. Either way, Rue had become someone I deeply cared about, someone I was rooting for despite her minimal presence on the page. In hindsight, I should have known what was coming. The deaths of the other tributes were inevitable, but when Rue finally met her end, I couldn’t help but Kearl 22 wonder why my favorite character had to die. I reread the passage, flipping back a few pages because there must have been something I missed. Suzanne Collins slowly became my number-one enemy. The more I thought about Rue’s death, the more unsettled I became. Wasn’t reading supposed to be fun? I had dedicated so much time reading her books and this was the thanks I got. I had to show her, somehow, that she could not just kill people and get away with it. I was not going to stand for it. I wrote petitions for a rewrite and had my friends sign them. I crafted my own versions of the story, an alternate ending in which Rue survived, and posted them to fanfiction websites. People would see that my version was the one that made sense, and Suzanne's career would be over. Despite the loss of Rue—and my newfound wariness of Suzanne Collins—I continued to read The Hunger Games series. In the second book of the series, I found myself yet again attached to a character who was surely expendable. Finnick Odair would not die until the end of the last book, but his death was one I thought about well into my teenage years. Under the influence of anesthesia after getting my wisdom teeth removed, I had lamented loudly over the loss of Finnick, telling my oral surgeon about how unfair it was while my mother recorded the whole thing. It’s funny to look back on now, even a bit embarrassing. How silly for me to be crying over somebody who never existed in the first place. ~ I went to college with the intention of studying psychology. It seemed to be an interesting enough topic, and my best friend was studying it, too, so maybe we could have classes together. I lasted two semesters before switching my major to English. I had taken a fiction writing class and realized I enjoyed that much more than lectures about Freudian theories. One thing Kearl 23 psychology did for me during my brief study was answer my question about why fictional deaths hurt so much. Philosophers call this “the paradox of fiction,” asking how people can experience such strong emotions toward fictional things. Jim Davies, a professor of cognitive science, answers this question by explaining that “most of our mind does not even realize that fiction is fiction, so we react to it almost as though it were real.” This explained why character deaths felt personal. I started seriously writing my first novel at the age of nineteen, shortly after changing my major from psychology to creative writing. I had been an avid fanfiction writer as a teenager, but this was the first time I attempted to write my own story with my own original characters. I hoped that by doing this, I could understand the rationale behind killing ones characters and further understand the importance of such motifs. There was one character that I had thought of early on; a side character who would help my main character along her journey. A guide, a mentor. A teacher. You know the trope. I found his name in a Virginia Woolf novel, and I knew right then that his fate was sealed because I had given him a dead man's name. "You're evil," my best friend, Savanna, told me when I shared my plans. "How could you, of all people, do something like this?" "It's like that saying," I replied. "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." Septimus would be the first character I killed, but I was certain he would not be the last. There was more to come from this novel alone. The thing about killing off your characters is that it's kind of hard. I had to do it right. I agonized for months on how to do it. I printed out different Kearl 24 versions and laid them out on my bedroom floor, examining them like a detective might investigate a real death. There were versions where he died alone, in front of the woman he loved; versions where he died quickly, and some where he went slowly, stuttering out his last words in a final breath. I did not touch my novel for a few months after Septimus’s death. I found myself in a strange mourning period where I was filled with guilt over creating something and destroying it all with a couple of clicks of my keyboard. It was like killing a piece of myself. After choosing which death suited Septimus and the story best and sitting with my grief for a couple of months, I turned to my novel-writing peers. We had formed an online workshopping community through the platform of Discord. This was the place where we posted new chapters of our novels or other works-in-progress and asked for feedback. We each had our own designated tab to upload files and a separate one where feedback could be sent. This way, everything was easy to find and no one would have to scroll forever to find their original draft. I had expected much of the same comments I had received before whenever I shared—a little bit of praise followed by a few suggestions for clarification or maybe a suggestion to write the scene a different way. I was always open to regular critiques and criticisms. What I had not expected was the long, detailed message I received privately from one of my classmates, listing all the reasons why Septimus should have lived: He was too young. He was too important. The other characters needed him. He hadn't told the woman he loved that he loved her. He didn't know she loved him back. He was going to finally be happy. He still had so much to do, etcetera, etcetera. Kearl 25 It felt good to know that I had made the right call in killing him. This emotional backlash was exactly what I wanted, the knowledge that there would be readers out there who would love and mourn him as much as I did. ~ Characters die for a lot of different reasons. The shock factor can be effective in keeping audiences surprised, and it is a common trope in horror and thriller genres. Sacrifices make the story more devastating and often drive other characters motivations to ensure the sacrifice is not in vain. Sometimes, it’s less glamorous. They're sick, or they're old, and their time has come. They die in accidents or suicides. It's sad, but it's honest and it's relatable. Little Women is a comfort novel for me, but Beth's death always has and always will bring me to tears. She was a sweet character. Kind and soft and different from Jo, Amy, and Meg, but just as brilliant if not a little underrated amongst fans of the novel. Her death feels more tied to reality than that of Sirius Black, and the mundane circumstances of it all always make me take pause. Her death does not fill me with the same passionate rage I had after reading The Hunger Games, but it hits something deep inside of me, a sort of trepidation and grief that makes me never want to lose someone I love in real life. ~ All of my favorite characters are dead, but they were also alive. Maybe they still are. If not alive, then they are at least immortalized in the pages of the books I found them in. I can revisit them whenever I want to. I can avoid their deaths by closing a book early or shutting off the screen. I can read or write fanfiction where they never die in the first place. Really, it’s not so Kearl 26 terrible when characters die. It's useful to experience loss through such low stakes. It prepares us for when the big ones happen, the ones that occur off the page and in our homes. Kearl 27 The Scent of Oranges Reminds Me of Teenage Suicide ~ It is 7:30 on a Monday morning, and you are sitting in first period: eighth-grade math with Mrs. Halverson. She is putting orange-scented oil into the old vents that sit below the windows that peer out into the courtyard because she says that the classroom smells like mold, and it distracts her from being able to teach. She's doing that thing with her hands again—the one where she draws circles on her palm with one finger as she tries to remember the lesson she had planned for the day. Your classmates are playing on their phones and chatting to each other, their attention already pulled away. None of this is surprising. All of this is to be expected. One of the office secretaries, the one with the curly hair that's flat in the back from resting her head against her chair, comes into the classroom just minutes after the bell had rung, indicating the start of class. She walks to the front of the classroom and whispers into Mrs. Halverson's ear. This is not expected. Something bad has happened. You can tell by the way Mrs. Halverson's face drops, her eyes go wide, and her finger stills its dance on her palm. Before you get the chance to even wonder what's happened, Maddie, who sits at the front of the class, drops her phone onto her desk with a loud clatter. She's crying—no, she's sobbing, and her voice is too loud for the morning as she repeats the same thing over and over again. He's dead. You go still. You wonder, who? Who is dead? Mrs. Halverson is consoling Maddie now, and the secretary is standing at the front of the classroom. You've just realized that she's started speaking to everyone. A boy committed suicide last night. A ninth grader, one you didn't know, had killed himself. Kearl 28 This isn't the first time you have heard about suicide, but it is the first time you've experienced the aftermath of it. Classes are canceled for the rest of the day. Students and staff members are too upset, crying in the hallways the same way Maddie was. You don't cry. You stand next to your locker, tapping idly against the dented metal, waiting for your brother to come and find you so that the two of you can go home together. You have the thought that things are going to be different now, and your lips purse into a pout. When your mom picks you up, she's upset. "Are you okay?" she asks. "Do you want to talk about it?" You don't know if you do, and you tell her as much. She reaches her arm across to squeeze your leg. You look out the window at your classmates as they pour out the front doors of the school. They’re rubbing their eyes and hugging each other. Crumpled tissues are folded in their hands. You wonder if you should be crying. ~ The next few days of school, they talk about suicide. There's a whole assembly about it on Friday. The student body officers have hung up posters that have hotline numbers written on them. The counselors make visits to each classroom, as does the principal. Teachers become more lenient with their coursework. Mrs. Halverson doesn't make you do the quiz she had planned. She stops putting orange oil in the vents. Everyone is talking about it, and you kind of wish they wouldn't, and then you feel bad about wishing that. They post the boy's picture on social media with the captions "Rest in peace" and "Miss you, man." Kearl 29 Lunch is tiring, and you take to eating in the choir room with some of your friends. They can't stop talking about the boy either—how nice he was, and cute, too. Why would he do such a thing? You try to bring up the things you used to talk about, like that new movie coming out or how badly you need new gym shoes. Amy rolls her eyes at you. "You're being insensitive," she says. “I’m not trying to be.” “Well, you are. Don’t you get how serious this is?” “I mean, yeah. It’s really sad,” you say. “I know it’s sad.” “It’s important to talk about these things so that it doesn’t happen again.” You pick silently at your food, annoyed and maybe a little guilty. Were you being insensitive? Should you have agreed with them? Maybe it would be easier just to say what everyone else was saying. Maybe it would even make you feel better. The untouched orange from your lunch gets thrown in the trash on your way out the door. Suicide rates are higher in boys, almost 4 times higher than girls. It is a statistic that is plastered all over the walls at school now, along with which states have the highest suicide rates, but you don’t really get what point they're trying to make. You don't want to think about the boy who has become part of these percentages, but it's consumed your whole life now. Where was all this information before? Why are we talking about it now? Kearl 30 The school is starting a new program called "Hope Squad." It's a suicide prevention task force headed by thirteen-year-old volunteers who wear t-shirts that say "Stay hopeful" and "You're not alone." Anyone can sign up to be one. It seems like a lot of responsibility to take on. When the clipboard gets to you in English class, you pass it along, not even bothering to consider it. ~ Your mom comes into your room every night now, shadowed by your dad, who is so much quieter than he usually is. She asks how your day was and if there's anything you want to talk about. You tell her it was fine and that there's nothing to talk about. She lingers there for a moment before leaving. You can hear her whispering to your dad down the hallway about how worried she is about you and how all this might be affecting you. You don't know how to convince her to stop worrying, how to explain to her that you're fine and it's everyone else that's acting differently. Saturday morning comes, and you're glad for it. You're happy to have a break from thinking about this boy who committed suicide. You're glad to be away from your friends who treat it like some kind of hot gossip filled with speculation as to why he did it and how they think you're insensitive about the whole thing when you refuse to have an opinion. You roll out of bed and head towards the kitchen to grab some breakfast. Your brother is there, standing at the sink in a Batman t-shirt with bags under his eyes. He's peeling an orange at the sink, and you stop in your tracks. You try to act normal, to not be upset or angry that you've already been forced to think back to the beginning of the week. You go back to your room, Kearl 31 appetite gone, and you shove your face into your pillow, trying to get that smell out of your mind, but you can’t. ~ On Monday, you walk into the counselor's office. The aid inside directs you toward Mr. Waters's office. He's a new counselor this year, and you don’t know him very well yet. You’re a little upset that he’s here this year because you liked your last counselor, but your brother says that he’s cool so you’re willing to give him a chance. When you enter, Mr. Waters smiles at you. His room smells like eucalyptus and coffee. You take a seat on the squishy couch near the door. "Have you been feeling okay?" he asks. "Is there anything you want to get off your chest?" "Not really. Just didn't want to be in class." "Okay. You can sit here for a bit." There are a bunch of toys on his desk, little puzzles and magnets. He sees you eyeing them and passes one over that looks like a bunch of triangles tangled together. You set it in your lap. Mr. Waters doesn't say anything, and neither do you. He smiles patiently, which probably makes him a good counselor. He types at his computer for a little bit while you sit there with the triangle toy in your lap and the sound of the clock ticking away the seconds. The bell rings, indicating that class has ended, but you still sit there. When Mr. Waters finally speaks, his voice is gentle as he offers to give you a pass for your next class. You take it, standing from your seat. The triangle puzzle drops from your lap and to the floor. ~ Kearl 32 History class is quiet. Mr. Booker has a look on his face that you have never seen before. His lessons continue normally for the most part, but he doesn't yell at anyone for chewing gum or being on their phone. You draw stars in the margins of your notebook and drift away in your own head. There's a substitute in science class, so you decide to skip. You don’t go to Mr. Water’s office, though. You just want to be alone. You wander outside, past the school gates, and around to the seminary building. You sit between the bushes, tucked up against the brick wall, and listen to the sounds of someone playing the piano through the windows. Everything feels wrong. Your lack of care for this boy bothers you so much. But you didn't know him. You know that it's sad that he's gone; you can recognize the tragedy of him dying so young, but you can't pretend like he was your friend the way everyone else seems to. Later, you'll understand it better. Why your mom was upset, and why the teachers were so careful. But right now, you are angry that your whole world has to change. ~ Tuesday morning, you're in Mr. Waters's office again. And again on Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Sitting in his office has become better than sitting in class at this point. The triangle toy sits in your lap while you and Mr. Waters have a staring contest. He lets you do homework or lets you read. He seems to be the only adult that's unbothered by your lack of response to his questions. You wonder if that's why he's a counselor if that's what makes him good at it. You don't think Mrs. Halverson would make a good counselor. She's barely a decent math teacher, and you know for certain that the front office lady would be a horrible counselor Kearl 33 because she lacked tact, subtlety. She told your whole math class first thing last Monday morning that a boy had killed himself and hadn't even thought what the ramifications of that might be. The solution for the school is assemblies, posters, and T-shirts. For you, it's Mr. Water's office. The weekend grants you a little bit of solace. You visit your grandparents' house, and your grandma tuts at you and your brother because "isn't it such a shame?" and yes, it is, but you don't want to keep hearing about it. Your aunt makes cookies, and you sit on the bar mixing the dough while she hums a tune you don't recognize, and when she turns to put a tray into the oven, you sneak a taste of the dough. It's sweet, and you smile. You realize it’s been a while since you’ve smiled. ~ You look up the boy's obituary later that night. You find out that he was funny, and goofy, that he liked to make people laugh. He wanted to be an entrepreneur when he grew up. He loved sports like basketball, football, lacrosse, and snowboarding. He also loved music. He was a big fan of Spider-Man. You go to bed thinking that maybe you know this boy a little better now. ~ Two weeks have passed since it happened. Another Monday morning. You walk straight to Mr. Waters's office because you know you'll end up there anyway. You wonder about Mrs. Halverson's classroom and if she's got a new scent for the vents yet. Maybe she could get some Kearl 34 eucalyptus, too. Mr. Waters greets you with a smile. You pick up the triangle toy from his desk. You're going to solve its puzzle today. "It's a tricky one," Mr. Waters says. You shrug. There are tricker ones. You know this because your grandpa is a guy who likes puzzles, especially the wooden cube ones that never make sense to you. He solves them quickly, though. Years of experience. "Did you need experience to become a counselor?" Mr. Water's head pops up from what he was working on at his desk. He seems a bit surprised that you've spoken, but he hides it quickly. "Yes. I had to go to school. Do different jobs. Work with people." "Have you had experience with this before, then?" You don't have to clarify what this is. "Yes." "I haven't. I don't know how I'm supposed to feel," you say. And it's said so softly, almost like a whisper. You tell Mr. Waters that you wish you could've just done math that day. You tell him that you hate how everything has changed, how nothing feels normal, and how you hate the way everyone acts now. You tell him that you didn't know this boy and that you're kind of sorry that you didn't because he seemed really nice based on everything you have heard, and now you don't know what to do. You miss how things were before. "I think it's okay to miss how things were before," Mr. Waters says. You think you might be willing to listen to him. Kearl 35 ~ Slowly, things become more normal. Mrs. Halverson swirls her fingers on her palm, and her room smells more like pine these days. Mr. Booker scolds you for having gum in class. Posters for the student body office get hung up on the wall, along with sign-up sheets for the school play and cheerleading tryouts. Mr. Waters waves at you in the hallway and you wave back. You make it through the rest of eighth grade. ~ You're twenty-four now, and sometimes your house smells like oranges. It's because you own a cat and apparently, they hate the smell of citrus. So, you drop essential oils on the leaves of your plants, on the edge of your bookshelves, and around your holiday decorations to deter the cat from climbing on things that she is not supposed to. It works only half the time, but that's okay. You place the drops anyway. You don't always think of the boy, but sometimes you remember that day. When the smell of oranges is a little too strong. When you hear a similar story on the news about a different kid in a different school. Yesterday's problems are the same as today's, and they'll probably be the same as tomorrow's. But maybe not. Maybe one day, a thirteen-year-old will go to school and have nothing to do but math. Kearl 36 In Two Weeks ~ When I was little, my grandma would take me, my brother, and my cousins to the pool. I remember one summer in particular because the sun was hot. The cement was warm beneath my feet as I stood in line to jump off the diving board, my teeth chattering as the water on my skin started to cool. I was not scared. I was not a good swimmer, but I always came to the pool because I wanted to hang out with everyone. I had been content just staying in the part of the pool where I could touch, watching my cousins leap off the diving board with various levels of enthusiasm. "Why don't you go try?" grandma asked. She was sitting in a chair beside the pool, watching us. "I don't know." "Go try. I'll watch." I was not scared. When my turn came, I walked to the edge of the board and stared down at the water. It was so far away, and it looked so deep. I couldn't do it. Surely, I would drown. I was about to make my way backward on the board when I caught grandma's eye. She nodded at me, a smile on her face. You can do it. I'm right here, watching. I sucked in a breath, closed my eyes, and jumped. I hit the water quickly, sinking beneath the surface for a few minutes before popping up and gasping for air. I could hear cheering, and as I swam to the edge, I could see grandma Kearl 37 clapping for me. I beamed back at her, pulled myself up the ladder at the pool's edge, and went towards her. "I did it!" "You did it!" She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into her, unbothered that I was getting her wet. ~ On a Sunday morning, I woke to the news that my grandma had two weeks to live and that hospice would be coming in. I had just seen my grandma the day before, stopping by her home with my brother and best friend. As we pulled up, she was being wheeled out of the house by my grandpa, his face looking so much older to me at that moment. Grandma’s shoulders were hunched, head down, her white hair a bit messy and showing off her ears, which were turning red from the cold evening air. She was headed up to the hospital, and I felt a sense of trepidation. It was not her first hospital visit in the last couple of months. Still, as I stood in her driveway beside grandpa watching as she was lifted into her mini van passenger seat by a couple of firemen because she was too weak to do it herself, I could not shake the sense of goodbye. ~ I was still thinking about grandma when I got up to feed the cats. I had not slept well, and I had already emailed my professors to let them know I would need an extension on my midterm projects. As I dumped the cat food into the bowls, I noticed one of the cats, Zoya, was acting strange. Zoya was one of three cats we had at the house. She had been named after a storm witch Kearl 38 from a book series that my brother Wyatt and I loved. She was not a shy cat, but she was particular about who she wanted to be around and who she would allow to touch her, so whenever she chose to lie in your lap, it was considered quite an honor. This morning, though, Zoya had not left her bed. This was unusual, as she was usually an early riser and quite eager for breakfast. I cupped her head and rubbed my thumb in between her eyes. "What's wrong, girl?" I sat with her for a moment, trying to coax her to get up, but she would not. She did not eat, and her deep purr—which had been nearly constant since the moment we got her—was gone. I decided I would take her to the vet in the morning if she had not snapped out of it by then, but at that moment, there was nothing I could do. My mother insisted we go shopping to find something to wear for grandma's funeral. I did not want to go because I didn't want to leave Zoya, and we had just received the news about grandma, and I had not processed it enough to even think about what I might want to wear to her funeral. ~ Grandma had been living with cancer for six years. When she was first diagnosed, we'd been told that she did not have very long, but as time went on, I fell into the childish notion that maybe she would live forever despite the cancer in her body. Maybe she would beat it and live till she was a hundred. Maybe it wasn't as serious as everyone thought it was. ~ We came back home from shopping empty handed. I had not been in the mood to look for a dress, and mom and I had slowly become irritated with each other. The drive home was silent. Kearl 39 The minute we pulled in the driveway, I leapt out and went to check on Zoya. I had gone to check on her in her bed, and she was lying beside it. I thought she might be sleeping, but as I went to touch her, I felt the stiffness of her body. I picked her up gently, worried that she might break, and nudged at her face. My arms started to shake. “Zoya?” I whispered. She didn’t move. I wanted to rewind back to this morning and fix it. What did this mean? She had been fine up until this morning, and now she was just gone? I pulled Zoya into my arms, willing her to wake, willing myself to wake because this surely was a dream. When I woke up, Zoya would be fine. Grandma would be fine. ~ We buried Zoya in the backyard beneath the big tree. I had wrapped her in an old princess blanket because I did not like the idea of her getting cold. After, we got ready to go to grandma's. The plan was to be over there as often as possible for the next two weeks, something I was both grateful for and dreading. The driveway was filled with the vehicles of other family members when we pulled up. You could almost pretend we were having a party. "I'm so sorry about your kitty," grandma said to me when I walked through the door. "Yeah," I said as I folded myself into her arms. "I'm sorry, too." We stayed late into the evening, going over the details of what was coming next and the plans that needed to be put in place after grandma was gone. Grandma seemed wholly unbothered by it all, telling us all what she wanted for her funeral, cracking jokes, and talking to us as if it were all perfectly normal. I sat in an arm chair across the living room from her, Kearl 40 watching. Grandpa was quiet, his demeanour subdued. His hands were cupped around grandma’s, his veins popping out, like if he held on tight enough to her she could stay. How I hoped he could do it. ~ When we returned home, my other two cats were subdued. Karma—named after a pop song—swirled around my feet, almost as if she were distressed. Coco, the littlest of the bunch, was nowhere to be found. I picked Karma up in my arms, and told Wyatt to find Coco as he was always good at finding her hiding spots. Wyatt had rescued Coco from the field in front of our house. She was a small thing when we took her in, a kitten too young to be away from her mother, sick and scared. We nursed her back to health, and she quickly became part of the family, bonding with the other cats as if she had always been there. When Wyatt found her this time, his face was pale and she was curled in his arms. “She’s covered in her own throw up,” Wyatt said. His voice shook. "What's wrong with them?" I asked. I held Karma closer to me. "Why are they all getting sick?" My mom called her parents, and they came over right away. While everyone was in the kitchen, deciding what to do with Coco, I sat on the couch beside my grandma Nancy—the one who wasn’t dying—and she held me against her chest. I slumped against her, feeling younger than I was but also like I had lived an entire life in a single day. I could not understand what was Kearl 41 happening, could not comprehend how bad everything had become. I couldn't help Zoya, and now I couldn't help Coco. I couldn't do anything. "I don't want my grandma to die," I said. Grandma Nancy just held me tighter. ~ Within a few hours, Coco was gone. I had been asleep when it happened. My mom had given me a small, round pill to help me sleep and to stave off the panic that had caused my limbs to shake and breaths to wheeze. Wyatt had come in to tell me that he buried her next to Zoya. I nodded. In my lap was Karma, blinking, but not moving. "Do you think…do you think she might be sick too? Or does she just know that they're gone?" "I don't know," Wyatt said. ~ At four o'clock in the morning, my dad and I took Karma to the emergency vet. Wyatt and I had stayed up all night watching her, scared that if we took our eyes away for a moment, she might also leave. We turned on some kids show to watch, something to get our mind off the days events, but nothing too heavy. We noticed right away when Karma started showing the same symptoms as the others, and I knew I had to try something. I held her in my lap as my dad drove, silent aside from my occasional sniffling and Karma's distressed meows. When we arrived at the emergency vet, the receptionist smiled at me. "Hello, what are we coming in for?" Kearl 42 "Um, my cat is sick." The receptionist handed me a sheet of paper to fill out while we waited. Once we were called back into the room, I sat Karma on the small counter so the vet could examine her. I explained the situation—two cats dead, one showing the same symptoms that the other ones had. The rapid decline once symptoms started showing. The vet hummed, nodding along with my words. "It could be feline panleukopenia virus. I can't be sure unless we run some blood tests, but I recommend hospitalization so that we can give her the medication and keep her hydrated." The vet gave me a list of treatments they could do and how much each would be. The total was five thousand dollars. I looked at my dad, then back at the vet. "She would live if you did all of this?" "Not necessarily. This virus has a high mortality rate because of how rapidly it spreads." "What are her chances?" "About thirty percent survival rate." I handed the paper back. “I’m sorry,” I said. I looked at Karma. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.” ~ At eight o'clock, we walked into our regular vet's office. My mother had called, and she was able to squeeze us in right as she opened. She confirmed that Karma had feline Kearl 43 panleukopenia virus and that it was likely all the cats had it and spread it amongst each other. She offered to hospitalize Karma for half the price of the emergency vet. I accepted. I needed to try. ~ I bounced back and forth between grandma's house and the vet's office for a week. I was lucky enough to be allowed to visit Karma while she was hospitalized, happy to see her and make sure she knew that I would come back for her once she was better. I couldn't do much else aside from exist in those two places. While at my grandma's, I would try to do work from my laptop, a perk of working from home, though most of my projects went unfinished. She would tell me that I didn't need to be over there, that I should be at home so I could focus. That I should go to school and stop missing classes because it's important. "This is more important. I want to be here. I can be here," I told her. "It's not a problem." "Okay. Just don't stop doing things because of me." ~ I went to class one time that week. I took my usual seat near the front, but slid my chair back enough that I would be hidden behind my friend and classmate who sat beside me. He turned to me, a frown on his face. “Are you okay?” I shrugged. “Tired.” Kearl 44 “What’s going on?” “My grandma is dying.” “Oh, shit.” “And my cats are dead. Well, one is in the hospital.” “Fuck. I’m sorry.” I just nodded. When class started, I was happy to just sit and listen to the discussion. I didn’t participate, though I don’t think anyone expected me to. I doodled in my notebook until it was time to go. ~ Grandma started to decline during the second week of her hospice care. This was the first time I thought that maybe two weeks was an accurate estimate of time for her to be here. She wouldn’t talk as much, and her eyes were always closed—she couldn’t see out of the one very much anymore. “Love you, grandma,” I said, hugging her goodbye. “Love you,” she whispered back. It was the only thing she could tell us all still. ~ Karma was home. After a week and a half of being sick, she was home. Tired and with a load of prescriptions to take, but home. I was relieved, or as much as I could be. She still had a lot of recovery ahead of her, but she had me, and I had her. She clung to me, probably confused Kearl 45 about where her friends had gone, or maybe not. I wasn’t sure if she had the instinct to know if they were gone and then I felt bad that I couldn’t explain it to her. ~ Grandma died on March 9th, 2024. Two weeks, exactly. ~ Two weeks is a long time to watch someone you love die. It's not enough time to say goodbye. I can still hear the death rattle of grandma's breathing and the sudden silence that came after. I remember staring and waiting and realizing that I had no idea what came next. When I crawled into bed that night, feeling the day's exhaustion seep into my bones, I wrapped my arms tightly around Karma and let my tears fall into her fur. She stayed next to me, unbothered that I was getting her wet. I stroked a finger down her face, just between her eyes and down her nose until she feel asleep. Kearl 46 Judy Ann ~ I keep boxes of letters under my bed. Each one is handwritten and then folded up into a neat square and then tied together with string. Some of the letters are addressed to old friends, many to a past love, and most recently to my grandma, Judy Ann. Some people pray when they miss their loved ones, others visit their graves. I’ve never been good at speaking aloud my vulnerabilities, so I put pen to paper instead. It is a way for me to say what I need to say and not bother anyone else with it. Like a journal. Things to be read by others when I am gone and the boxes under my bed sorted through. We buried grandma with a notebook of her own, each page filled with messages from her grandchildren. I wrote the letters that live under my bed because I realized I still had so much more to say to her. ~ Dear Judy Ann, No one is acting right with you gone. We all got into a big fight, the whole family. I still don’t know what it was about. I don’t know if it even matters. It probably doesn’t. But I know it’s because you’re gone. If you were here, we wouldn’t fight and I wouldn’t be so confused. Savanna drove me home. We sat in my room talking about it for a while. She gets it. Her grandpa died a few years ago, so she gets it. Kind of sucks that we both get it. ~ Kearl 47 Grandma loved beautiful things. Not material things, like makeup or clothes or even jewelry. Things like flowers, trees, birds, and fireworks. The yard at my grandparents’ house was always immaculate. Partly due to my grandpa’s meticulous lawn care routine and partly because of the different decor grandma had out there. She liked to look outside and admire the plants and flowers that surrounded her lawn, and the bird baths that hummingbirds would float over for a second before jetting off. I buried a hummingbird in my backyard one morning, not long after grandma was gone. I had went out to take care of some chore—watering and feeding the animals or taking out the trash—when I noticed the little thing lying on the sidewalk. I had never seen a dead hummingbird before, and it was odd to see it lying there so still. It was mostly blue, with some green and white in its feathers. I picked it up gently with a paper towel and carried it to the edge of the lawn, just beneath the big tree where my cats Zoya and Coco were buried. I dug a hole with my hands, not bothering to find a shovel. The dirt stuck beneath my fingernails, and my pants grew damp at the knees from the morning moisture. After deeming the hole deep enough, I tucked the bird away and covered it back up with the dirt. I had not realized I’d started to cry until I went back inside to wash my hands and saw my reflection in the mirror. ~ Growing up, grandma made all of my Halloween costumes. Whatever I wanted to be, she would bring it to life with a few yards of fabric and careful stitching. I was a movie star, a cheerleader, a vampire, and a 1920’s flapper amongst other things. It was incredible magic, Kearl 48 really. The fact that I could dream of being something and that it could be true, even just for a night. The costumes are kept in a bin, stored away for future visitation. On Saturdays in the summer, I go to the farmers’ market. The summer after grandma died, grandpa joined me on many of these Saturdays. We would walk around the market, a coffee drink in hand and look at all the booths there. We would look at the art work, the clothing, the food. Grandpa would end up buying honey and I would buy a keychain to add to the ever growing collection on my keys. On the last day of the market, grandpa stopped at a booth selling handcrafted Halloween decorations. There was a witch hat, made of wood and decorated with a big ribbon. He picked it up, showing it to me. “Do you like this?” “Yes, I do.” He nodded. “I think grandma would have liked it too.” ~ Dear Judy Ann, I don’t think I’ve fully realized you're gone. I keep forgetting. Alyssa keeps posting about you on Instagram. It’s her way of remembering you, but sometimes I get irrationally angry over it. I don’t want to get angry about it, but sometimes I don’t want to be reminded. ~ Kearl 49 Imagination had always been possible at Grandma’s house. I was lucky, as were my brother and my cousins, that we had a place to be whoever we wanted to be, a place where we could still feel like kids and have all our worries disappear. A year before Grandma died, the grandkids decided to get together with our Grandparents. Once a month, we’d go to their house to play a game and have dinner. Grandma and Grandpa were always such good sports, playing along with whatever game we had come up with, getting just as competitive as the rest of us. I’m glad that we were able to have that time with her before she left. We continue to get together with Grandpa, who needs us just as much as we need him these days. ~ The holidays were always fun at grandma’s. Her house was always decked out for Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween and most especially, Christmas. Grandma’s favorite holiday was Christmas. Each year, she would ask us all for a list, and she would make sure she got every single thing on that list. She was an early shopper, and liked to have her gift buying done early, asking for lists as early as July. As I got older, it became harder to think of things I wanted. New pairs of socks, a book, maybe a new water bottle. “What else?” Grandma would ask. “I can’t think of anything.” “I guess you’ll be getting lots of socks, then.” Gift giving was her love language, but that’s not what made Christmas with grandma special. Being crammed in the living room with everyone on Christmas day with grandma at the Kearl 50 center of it all, smiling and making sure each person had her attention while they opened their gifts made the day brighter. If I could have anything this year, it would be to have just one more Christmas with her. ~ I was grandma’s favorite grandchild. This was something I liked to constantly tease and remind my cousins about, but it wasn’t true. It wasn’t wrong, either. Grandma did not have favorites, but she had the ability to make each of us all feel like we were. I enjoyed just sitting beside her, talking about our day, laughing at something grandpa had done. I’d tell her about school, and dating. She was never the type to put pressure on such things, always just content to listen. Happy for the company. I felt secure in the knowledge that my grandma would always love me no matter where I was in life or what I was doing. She had a big heart and saw the best in everyone. Our family, so big and so different from each other, could all agree that grandma was the best of us and that she would always have our backs. “You’re all my favorites,” she would say. “Every single one of you.” ~ Dear Judy Ann, Everyone keeps asking how I’m doing, which I think is a silly question. I just say that I’m fine because I don’t know what else to say. I get mad more easily these days. More anxious. I keep telling myself that I’ll deal with all of that out once I’m done with school. Shouldn’t be too much longer now. I should be able to last. Kearl 51 ~ My cousin Emilee was married in May, two months after our Grandma passed. I was a bridesmaid, along with two of my other cousins, so on the morning of the wedding, we arrived at the venue bright and early so we could all get ready together. The bridal suite was full of bodies, all of us girls sitting on the floor, doing our makeup with the help of handheld mirrors or sitting on the bathroom and kitchen counters while we did our hair. Our dresses hung from doorways and our bouquets sat in a vase near the sink. There were a lot of smiles. My cousin beaming and glowing, excited for her wedding day. My aunt, happily teary for her daughter. Even though we were all there, right where we needed to be, I kept looking around the room, still surprised after two months that I could not find the person I was looking for. ~ At my grandma’s funeral, my best friend gave me a bracelet that spelled out “grandma” in morse code. I wore it every day for the first couple of months after her death. One day, when I went to put it on, it wasn’t in the place I usually left it. I tore my room apart looking for the bracelet, feeling sick to my stomach that I had lost it, guilty for being so careless with it. My wrist felt bare without it, making me feel wholly untethered. I kept this little fact to myself, that I had lost it. I didn’t want to have to explain to anyone how careless I was, how irresponsible. I considered buying a duplicate one, pretending that the old one had never been lost in the first place, but it would be a lie. A poor replacement for the real thing. I found the bracelet later. It was stuffed in the pocket of my crossbody bag I took to school. I remembered that I had taken it off because it was rubbing against my wrist while I was Kearl 52 taking notes. The thin metal was cool against my skin as I put it on. Once it was secured around my wrist, I expected to feel better, to have a weight lifted off my chest after having finally found it. It didn’t. I wore it anyway. ~ My Grandma had a habit of calling people on accident. She would do this to me several times in a day. I would always pick up, no matter where I was or what I was doing. “Oh sorry,” she would say. “I laid my phone down against my chest and it just called you.” “It’s okay.” “I guess I just wanted to hear your voice.” “Well good. I wanted to hear yours, too.” I have a voicemail from a time I didn’t pick up and where she hung up too late. I listen to it every now and then, when I start to forget the sound of her voice. It’s short, and a bit fuzzy, and she only says one word, but it’s better than nothing at all. ~ It’s been six months and I’m surprised to hear that birds still sing even though grandma is gone. That flowers bloom and rain still falls. The world did not stop spinning after she left. Some days, I don’t know how to live in a world without her. How to make it throughout the day without an accidental phone call or a visit to her house. I know that eventually, the loss will be easier to cope with. Until then, I will write the letters. Kearl 53 ~ Dear Judy Ann, It’s okay that you had to go. I’m happy you stayed as long as you did. I miss you every day. I think I always will. We’re all doing okay over here. Some days are better than others, but you know. Love, Anna Katrina Works Cited Bonomo, Joe. “Locating an Essay’s DNA.” Brevity, 12 Sept. 2013, https://brevitymag.com/craft essays/locating-an-essays-dna/. Brockes, Emma, and Joan Didion. “Q: How Were You Able to Keep Writing after the Death of Your Husband? A: There Was Nothing Else to Do. I Had to Write My Way out of It. .” The Guardian, 16 Dec. 2005. Didion, Joan. The Year of Magical Thinking. 4th Estate, 2021. 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