She wasn't a little girl anymore, even though sometimes she didn't mind being treated like one. Responsibilities were expected as her junior year came to a close and her high school one began. What was not expected was that she would play marriage counselor for her separated parents.
A lot of things come along unexpected. Grief, in her case, was not one of them. She was used to loss by now, but not of this magnitude. She was not ready to lose her dad emotionally and have him be all but absent for her life. It was not expected that her mother, her strong-willed, playful, hard-working mother, would turn into a shell-shocked traumatic victim who would have to take a week off of work because she couldn't go five minutes without bawling. It was not expected that her parents would separate.
She had always been a very family oriented person, but her tendency to bottle emotions up and turn inward upon herself to cope with situations lead some to believe that she would rather be left alone. When she found out that her parents were splitting up, and, more importantly, that her father was moving out of the house, she couldn't handle.
Her brother was up at college and a little part of her resented him for that. He wasn't there to share in the pain of physically seeing their mother absolutely shut down. She spent countless nights crying both of them to sleep on the couch. Waking up the next day to the lonely realization that they were truly alone together only brought them closer. That's not to say that the mother and daughter didn't see things differently, but for the most part they teamed up and began to blame Dad.
And now tonight, of all nights, she was sitting at the harbor with her boyfriend, pleading with him to "just do this one thing" for her. She was trying to impress upon him how important her faith in God was, and was asking him to come to Church with her the next day. He just didn't get it. How could her boyfriend, who had been with her through everything over the last seven months, not see that the number one priority in her life was God? The fact that he couldn't proven to her that he didn't need to be a priority.
She said goodbye.
And this hurt more than she thought should be allowed.
He left her there on the pier. Alone.
She was alone, and for the first time in seven months, the rest of the family was not. Her brother was on the verge of getting back to the place he loved to continue his college education and her parents were finally happy again under one roof. This made her feel even more alone. Why was everyone else becoming happier while she sat there crying on a boy that didn't think their relationship was important enough to go to church over?
She launched herself upward and stormed about the parking lot, cursing his name. She worked herself up into quite the rage. She marched over to the bank of shells lining the shore and in one fluid motion, swiped her hand down to pick one up, never stopping her motion, and hurled it into the ocean. It was rage. It was grief. It was unimaginable loss. And yet, it seemed to help. Her arm now sore from the sudden jerking about, she was able to take a deep breath and just take in the scene in front of her.
It wasn't pretty, what was happening to her, but a change indeed was occurring. It didn't mean that she shouldn't be devastated over the loss of yet another important person in her life, but the girl took hope in the fact that everyone around her seemed to be making progress, so why shouldn't she?
The tears now streaming down her face in a weird joyful sadness were being almost immediately dried by the blowing, salty wind off of the Gulf. She let it out right then and there in the harbor parking lot across from McDonald's and the BP gas station. She let out all of the pain from the last seven months that had been needlessly inflicted on her. She let out the separation. She let out the arguments. She let out her brother's rage at her over the most meaningless crap. She let out her boyfriend telling her "it's just not important enough" to go to Church with her. She let out "it's a waste of time."
Screw all of them.
And, at the same time, she missed all of them and wanted them all back.
This was pain. This was realization. This was being fixed. This was progress. This was joy.
This was God.
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