Hope blooms like wildflowers, even in the soil of loss.
So, I opened it, ripping the envelope across the top, my hands refusing not to shake as I became anxious...The paper felt cool, like it had been waiting for me in the dark, and the ink smelled faintly metallic—as though the words themselves had been carved into it.
"My dear Hasley,
I see you struggle daily, and I know you can push through this.
Please survive for us.
I believe in you. Always."
The paper smelled faintly of his cologne, or maybe that was just my mind trying to keep him alive
Emerson? My heart sank into the pit of my stomach.
No-Impossible.
But something in me cracked just hearing his name in my mind again.
The words pressed against the hollow places inside me, fitting too neatly.
I let myself believe, for just one fragile, aching breath, that maybe he was still alive.
I closed my eyes, pretending the letter had never been there.
But its words stayed lodged beneath my ribs.
Hope is cruel when you're not ready for it.
I wanted to believe it was from him.
But I was afraid of what that would mean, that I'd finally lose track of what was real.
And if I lost that, I wasn't sure I could come back from it.
I tucked it back into the envelope and placed it carefully inside the mailbox, like hiding a wound no one else could see.
Maybe whoever left it would think I never found it.
Or maybe… that's just what I needed to believe.
Otherwise, someone was playing a cruel game with my feelings, or my imagination was running wild.
I continued across the road to the path, to the family graveyard.
His family.
Liora was a strong last name to have. And that meant all Liora's came here.
The path is uneven, like my emotions today.
A soft breeze tugged at my hair, carrying the mingled scents of earth and blossoms.
The wildflowers bloomed as they had every May on the space where the dead below lay to rest, painting the graveyard in a riot of color. Their sweet, heady scent mingled with the earthy tang of freshly turned soil, a reminder that life and decay were always side by side here. Their petals swayed like whispered conversations, a chorus too soft to understand.
It was the reason we chose this month for our wedding.
The headstones sit in front of the rectangular patch, allowing you to see who the grave belonged to without it being hidden away behind the flowers. Each name etched in stone seemed to hum with memory, generations of Lioras bound together by both legacy and loss.
I never told him how strange it felt, marrying among the graves of his ancestors, the dead and the living all gathered as witnesses, but it was their family tradition. It became my inheritance of love and loss. And the beauty that came from the love and the flowers had grown on me. It became a night of remembrance. Drinks and talks with the living and the dead. The flicker of lantern light, the clink of glasses, the quiet toasts made to those no longer here—memories of that night still lived in the air, woven into the soil beneath my feet.
Emerson was fascinated with it. He said it had been his favorite family tradition, and he loved that it had finally been his turn.
I knelt to smell them before reaching around to his headstone, passing many other Liora's. The vibrant blossoms brushed my fingertips, their fragile stems bowing under the weight of my touch as though they grieved alongside me.
His mother had died just a few months before Emerson from natural causes in her old age. She had died peacefully in her sleep, which was probably a good thing because I don't believe she would have been able to survive this. At least this way, she escaped all the pain and only has the pleasure of seeing him again in the afterlife. Wherever that may be.
For a heartbeat, I imagined them together—Emerson's laugh echoing hers, the two of them free from the heaviness of this world. The thought brought me both comfort and a deeper ache.
The flowers' vibrant colors only reminded me that I no longer had the one I called my everything. The smell gave off the aroma of adventure, yet mine with Emerson had ended.
A single white petal clung stubbornly to my sleeve as I stood, and I let it stay, a small token of the love I'd lost and the forgiveness I was still learning to give.
I suppose a new adventure would take its place as I rediscover who I am without him.
My head didn't agree, as I wobbled a step, trying to regain my balance after standing quicker than I should have. The world tilted, and for a moment, I wasn't sure if it was grief or hunger pulling me under.
I probably should have eaten something before leaving the house, but I had hardly thought about food in days. Just enough to survive. Even on days I didn't want to, but my body wouldn't let me wither away, I'd find myself eating something without thinking about it. I guess the brain takes over when it thinks it's in danger.
The stretch grew heavier with each step, like the past was rising to meet me, until I reached around to his grave.
The sight of his name carved into the glossy stone hit me like a blow, as final and cold as the earth beneath it.
Emerson Liora
Beloved Son, Husband, and Brother.
Remembering you always.
His headstone is shiny and new, black with gold specks.
He died just a few months ago, when the ground was still slick.
I opened the book I brought after placing a single white tulip on top of the stone. I thought it looked nice against the black. Its petals trembled in the breeze, stark against the black stone, as fragile as the forgiveness I carried. They say it means new beginnings, and I had hoped we could find one. I had been harboring anger towards him for leaving. I knew it wasn't his fault, but I couldn't help but feel like he ruined our happiness, the life we were meant to have together.
Today I wanted to let that all go.
I stuttered to get the first sentence out. It felt like meaningless words. I didn't want to read some random passage. I wanted to tell him how I felt.
So I placed the book on the stone as well. Maybe someone else will come by and read it to him.
My mind was still wrapped in questions.
We shouldn't have driven that night.
I wanted to scream at the earth. Beneath me, where he rested, I wondered why he was taken from me.
But my voice cracked with silence instead.
Because this is where I needed to let it all go.
Emerson was going to change the world.
It should have been me who died that cold night, but life had another plan for me.
I wiped away the water leaking from my eyes, surprised by its warmth.
Isn't that right, little guy?
I rubbed my belly, wishing I had gotten the chance to tell him he was going to be a father.
So I wrote it on paper, a poem I meant to just leave at his grave, but I felt it was more fitting to read it first.
I unfolded it and cleared my throat, unsure that it would help me get the words out this time, but I had to try because this time it wasn't a meaningless passage.
The Other Half of My Soul
The day I lost you wasn't when the pain began. It came when I learned you were gone—and I wasn't there to hold your hand.
That same dark day, a truth left me hollow, and I carried a new life with no one to follow.
A part of me died as another began, A soul awoke, though I can barely stand.
For the world must have known, as it shattered my whole, I'd be lost without you—the other half of my soul.
My voice cracked and I dropped the poem, watching it float its way to the ground. The world seemed to hold its breath with me, the only sound the rustle of petals in the wind
"You hear that, Emerson? You are a father," I cried out.
I pressed a trembling hand to my belly, as if the little life within me could somehow steady the storm inside my chest.
I stepped back, then turned away to head back home when a thought brushed against the edge of my mind.
Maybe losing me was never the plan.
Maybe the world still needed me in ways you couldn't understand.
Or maybe
It would need what I become.
Reading Hasley's words felt like stepping into a trap I hadn't asked for like her sorrow had reached through time to press against my own.
She experienced random thoughts like I do. I felt like I had just learned my entire family line carries the crazy gene, that once we lose someone we love, we develop some weird schizophrenic mutation from the pain and begin manifesting their voice in our heads. The thoughts sound like something Thayer would say, yet it's my own voice I hear. I can't be sure the merge worked or if I'm really just going crazy without him.
But this isn't the way I remember Hasley's story, or do we have history all wrong?
I felt like this Journal left me with more questions than answers, and I wished I had more time to keep reading, but I had to get out of here before anyone else would come looking.
I just couldn't help but wonder, Why me? Why now? And what the hell am I supposed to do with this?