Every now and then, I look up at my shelf, and see that stuffed panda.



It wasn’t that day that was the worst. It was the waking moments in each day following it, with their sudden realizations and worthlessness. Begging the question, what was it all for in the end? Why bother with anything when all we do is turn to dust?

We all want to make a lasting impact on the world, but so few of us do. We leave faint footsteps washed away by the seas of time. So many fall on the path and never get up, so many find that they want it, but are here only fleetingly. And to those who do, what good is it in the end? A few hundred years’ remembrance? At the end of the universe, the end of society and class and civilization itself, what does it matter?

If we could all see to the ends of time, the end of our entire world, how could we have purpose? Humans have a limited life span. Our bodies last for, at most, a hundred years. And countless never make it so far. They are cared for in spirit for a few years. But everyone must move on. We never move on completely. There are always those days we see images in every little thing. A favorite color, flower, toy. The tinkling notes of a failing music box. We stop, consumed in the only thing left of a person who meant the world to another. Details.

Seeing the world move past is the worst. The world continually spinning out its fate, while you’re stuck in one little moment. Stuck on one detail. One tiny detail. And at that point, you understand that one day you’ll forget almost all of them.

But you don’t want to forget them. You try so hard. Seeing the colors, the flowers, the toys. Memorializing birthdays. You do all this, trying to satisfy yourself. You see the final truth when you find you can’t recall the face, voice, favorite food, even. Slowly, ever so slowly, it ebbs away. Gone.

One can only guess why human nature is to forget. Perhaps it is the curse of our race, driving us to anger and hatred. The need to remember pushing away all else. Estranging you from the people you love. Perhaps faulty memory is our creator’s final gift, when all else is gone. Trying to help us move on. Trying to let us live our intended life. Our footprint life, full of improvement and success and challenge and perseverance.
Yet, it is a flawed gift for innumerable beings. We need to have knowledge. Why else would we have so much curiosity about the world? The studies of science, mathematics, environment. We need to know something. We want to be able to keep other things from melting away as thousands of our kind have. One could say all study comes from within that grief. For even before our loss of wonder for this world, we have a deep, ancestral urge to know. To learn.

We hide behind this profound curiosity, hoping it will protect us when the end comes, but it doesn’t. How could it? All will be forgotten in time, all wonder abandoned. We all lose our child’s innocence at some point. The moment we realize not only that the world can be a terrifying thing, full of woe, but also when we finally grasp the fact that all our wonderment and awe have betrayed us. That all the curiosity will lead us nowhere, when the majority of this planet’s society is ruled by greed for treasure. That each of us is like a dragon, hoarding treasure with no joy, saying each time, one more prize and I shall be happy. Happiness can never come from pastimes such as this. True happiness is something no one can experience.


We all go along with our short lives, trying to have worth, trying to know, trying to find that innocent and amazing world we used to know. At our deepest point, we know we will never find it, that Eden is hidden away forever. But we can try to get close. Hope, something so distinctly human, as much as grief and curiosity, something we have even when that golden world we had is taken. We see the embodiment of this almost-divine happiness in those we love. And when they die, a part of us dies.


She was just twelve that day. She had meant so much. So much. But the world went by, not noticing part of its cast was missing. The show went on. The world turned. I turned. Turned to the end. That was the day my golden world fell apart, never to be put together again. As much as I tried to paste it together with happy memories, it would never be the same. It could never be the same. Not without her.

And every time I saw a detail, just her favorite color, lime green, or something smaller, I remembered that day, not a happy memory. And every time I saw a detail, just her favorite color, lime green, or something smaller, my world, my delicate, pasted world, fell apart. Back into a million pieces of sadness, and remembering and hoping.

Just twelve, it always came back. Just twelve, why not a hundred? Why so short? She had so much good left to do.

I try to hold on. I grasp it with a death-grip, just like I used to do to her arm. But Christmas came and Christmas went so many times. Birthdays missed. Years. Gifts I could have given. Events that should have happened.

One dreadful phrase still haunts me. I could have, I should have done more. Gone to every dance recital. Sleepovers, summer camps, clubs, anything. If I cared so much, why hadn’t I done more?

Her death was what made me wake up. I used to care about the clothes and the colors and the makeup. I used to. Something about “I should have” just seems to crush that away though. The same way it crushed my spirit and my life.

My friends, even my family, tell me that I need to move on. “She wouldn’t want you stuck forever”, “She’s want you to move on”, “Come on, don’t be so depressing”, and “She’s happier now.” But is she really?, I’d like to ask. Do you really believe she’d want me to move on, forget her, forget my guilt, forget the memories? I’m sorry, but do you really believe the dead, being separated from us forever, want us to forget? But if I said this, I’d get a nice, uniform, “You don’t have to forget entirely, but you need to move on. Keep the good memories, but stop dwelling on her, er, passing. It won’t do you any good, will it?” Always, always with ‘passing’, ‘gone on’, all of that. You can’t shield me, the damage has already been done. Give it to me straight. She always did.

All that I want to say, but can never say. So much. The guilt. I know I should have done more, and I know, in the back of my head, that it really isn’t my fault. Not completely, anyway. I wish she was back. I wish it hadn’t happened. I wish it had bloody never happened. None of that ‘if I could just say goodbye, talk to them for two minutes’. We all die. Everything and everyone dies, but timing, timing is what tears you apart, ripping you to pieces in every way but on the outside. The voices inside my head, constantly urging me to continue on, that very day I live, I come closer. Closer to her. Closer, but not in a good way, in a sick, twisted way. I would never tell the counselor, or anyone, about the voices, except maybe her. She would understand. She wouldn’t say that I’m a psychopath riddled with grief who should be put on medication. Or, if she did, she’d give it to me straight. The counselors dance around, trying to cushion the blow, but they just make it worse. I know they think I’m depressed, probably suicidal, too. They want to give me pills. I know they do. I know they will. They can’t help it, can they? I’m a sick and shaken child in need of help and support, aren’t I? That’s all I am, really. Just another shy, sick animal.

I could run away. Hide in the countryside with my grief and my guilt. Somewhere as deserted and alone physically as I am mentally. That’s the worst part, the aloneness. No one understands it. I’m in a sea of bustling, lively, moving people, and I am isolated, my own solitary island. I stand, the sole pillar of memory left of her. Even her family has moved on. They didn’t have a choice. They saw the world turning, and couldn’t get left behind. They didn’t stay behind in hell, like I did. I’ll be here in my own pit of guilt and hate for as long as live. No one can put an end to it, because no one understands. When she left, my whole world left with her. The waking moments. Your disoriented waking moment, before realization kicks in.

The physical is an abhorrent dimension for me now. It is where my friends and family and past desires lie. Where my old life comes to haunt. The plastic, the makeup. Disgusting. How was I so vain? How has the world, in its grieving state, managed to hold onto material love and desire all this time? Now, the only material I care about is paper. My books, stories, and poetry. Everyone seems far away now. I relate to books more than people now. They hold more value. The characters, on their quest for love, for understanding, for life. I escape to their stories. Their stories do more for me than anything else. For a few precious hours, I escape from the cesspit of darkness and despair that my world has become. I fly. But I always land, dragged back down at the end.

I’ve always thought, maybe, just maybe, I could write a story, about her life and mine, how they intertwined, and how she brought me so much joy. How life was. How stunningly beautiful each day with her seems now, looking back.

I remember the first day we met, so long ago. I was six. It was the third month of first grade. My friend Miranda had moved away after kindergarten ended, leaving me alone. I sat on the hill, half conscious of my surroundings. Then she came up, we talked, and so began a short-lived lifetime of friendship. We had six and a half years together. Other friends came and gone, but we always stayed. Our friendship was constant.

And we had our traditions. Halloween, every year. She would come to my house, then I to hers. One of my favorite Halloweens we shared was the year we were eleven. We were in sixth grade, and while she was beginning to become more outgoing, she was still the most timid of the two of us. We were going up to my neighbor’s driveway, and we saw a figure standing there, very still. We couldn’t tell if it was human or plastic. I reassured her that it was probably a statue. I still made her go first. When it suddenly moved, she jumped about a foot in the air, nearly crashing into the slightly shell-shocked me, just behind her. When we got home, we had a great laugh, and story that would have been told for years to come, if she hadn’t left.

There were always those moments, those silly little moments, where we hugged, where we cried. One night, at a class camp, we had a campfire prayer service. We sat next to each other, arms clasped, needing to be next to someone. We hugged. We learned so much about each other that night.

The next Monday, she was gone. I didn’t know why. I had called her on the weekend, she hadn’t seemed sick. I decided she must be at the orthodontist. She had, after all, recently gotten braces. But as the day progressed, she still didn’t come. That night, an unexplainable worry fell over me. A sense of foreboding.

The next day, she still wasn’t back. She called me, that night. She told me. I couldn’t sleep that night. When I went to school the next day, she was there, waiting for me. We ran to each other. I hugged her. We collapsed on each other, crying. Classmates gathered at a distance, pointing and wondering. They didn’t know it would never be alright again. How could they?

For weeks, it was just her and I. The rest didn’t know until just a few weeks before that day. That horrible day.

I always imagined her making it to her birthday. Her so joyful, blowing out thirteen candles on November fifteenth. But that memory never was.

That was the first Halloween for six and a half years we didn’t go out. She was too frail by that time. She couldn’t go out, even in her wheelchair. She was so sick. It hurt to even look at her in the state she was in. But I looked, and I comforted. I was there. There every day of the last three weeks. Day and night. I was practically family. Her family didn’t mind, they knew that there was no better way to have her live. They didn’t want her in the hospital, because the doctors couldn’t help. A few more agonizing days were no match against home’s food and comfort.

I could tell, the last night. I just couldn’t accept it. She couldn’t sleep until three, and only fitfully. She was leaving, letting go. I got up to tell her mother, but she was already in the hallway. Call it a premonition. She had two mugs of steaming hot chocolate, and cookies. We knew it was time. It was six in the morning then. She didn’t make it to seven thirty.

Every now and then, I look up at my shelf, and see that stuffed panda. It was her favorite. She loved pandas. She loved so much.

And every now and then, I find I can’t remember her face, her favorite color, details. I latch on with my death-grip, but it’s slowly slipping away from me, all those little pieces. Slowly fading. And I look up at that shelf. I look up.

Though I find myself slipping
Dropping pieces every day
Always know this
Though my memories fade
I will never let go entirely
You won’t be forgotten
You are everywhere in my life
You still are
I remember you
In those waking moments
I loved you
I love you
I love you
My Elizabeth