A Angel's Grief

I woke up in a sweat, bruised and battered from the inside out. Only to awaken into my real-life nightmare. Another creditor, asking for five thousand dollars. Money was the last of my worries. A picture on the nightstand tore my heart ablaze. I touched the side where the man in the photograph used to sleep, snoring soundly.

I threw my phone I shared with my daughter to save money, a number she knew by heart and would call if anything went wrong or she needed to talk.

She never needed me in the way I needed her. She transformed into the mother while I relapsed into the daughter.

I had lost my custodian job because I couldn’t focus. My therapist talked me into going to the psych hospital last week, a place I’d only been in my early twenties, before they got me on the right medications and therapy regime.

My husband was a hard-worker. He fully appreciated what this country had to offer. He came over as an immigrant and got his citizenship through our marriage. My dad sponsored him since I didn't make enough money back then.

If my life was difficult before, this was hell incarnated. Last year cursed me with a beating I will never be able to completely heal from.

My husband, Christopher, and I both tested positive in a random COVID testing survey done by the local University. The news came as a surprise. Neither of us had any symptoms.

Until a few days, he collapsed in the kitchen with no warning.

I froze, he was the one who was calm and together in a crisis. Same with our teenage daughter, Bethany, who often mirrored her father.

She called 911 while checking for a pulse.

“He’s not breathing.” She screamed into the phone to the 911 dispatcher.

The lady on the phone directed her to begin CPR. She frantically pounded on his chest, her honey-brown hair waving back and forth. At only 100 pounds, she needed me. Both of them needed my strength and previous knowledge of CPR training. I worked when I could, so my husband wouldn’t have to get a second job. He worked hard in Bogota. At an early age, he had to leave his abusive home, and work up to three jobs at a time to make it in a developing country for next to nothing pay.

Even with my help, there was no saving him.

There were no goodbyes. No glass window or hazmat suit.

Only an empty void, deep and rough, that only he could fill.

The autopsy said Chris died from COVID-19 or inflammation due to an overactive immune system that resulted in myocarditis and eventual heart failure.

At first, I blamed myself. Why didn’t we go to the hospital after we were diagnosed. He always ran warm or hot so I hadn’t noticed a fever. Why didn’t I see it? I hated myself. I hated the world. More so, I hated myself for wanting to leave my daughter to be with Christopher.

Christopher and Bethany belonged in their own world. Their own language. Sometimes I felt like the intruder. She always followed him around and stayed up with him late with him discussing boys and school. Something I had hoped she’d share with me. Something I now would give anything to be able to feel left out of. Anything to feel my man again. To have him near. His kisses had always taken me into his bubble. There his warm hands always healed my anxiety, insomnia or/and headaches.

Bethany had shed her tears off and on for months, but she stayed strong. Remained in online high school and even got a part-time job I tried to talk her out of. I wanted her to focus only on her studies.

I hadn’t shed one single tear. My body froze and never thawed. After my parents received their COVID shots, they came over. That helped me some. I was able to find the energy to take care of myself again. To do the things I used to love doing. I went to see a professional psychic.

“You will find a black book. This book will assist you in getting through the ocean of loss in front of you. Look for this book in your husband’s things.”

I drove home, faster than I normally do, barely hitting a car. Leaving a trail of honks behind me, as if I was in New York City and not Salt Lake City. I wasn’t the good driver. My daughter, like her Dad, was already safer on the roads than I was.

I stormed through the garage door, startling my Mother, as she placed a dish in the dishwasher. She had taken over all the household chores. At her age, I was concerned, but she loved to stay busy. So I let her be, even though guilt seeped inside of me.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, careful not to step near where he had died, as I passed the kitchen, my daughter’s trophy-case from gymnastics and dance, and headed to one of Chris’s drawers I hadn’t opened since he died, almost a year ago to the day.

I tossed out bills, old passports, video game consoles. Nothing. I searched through his drawers of clothes, still smelling faintly of his lemon and wild-berry scent.

Still nothing.

I walked to what we always called his ‘cave’ and began to search there. A room barely touched since his passing.

“Por Dios.” Bethany came in, probably overhearing the loud banging noises as I moved things. She was then only one who had managed to learn Spanish from Christopher. I tried, but I never could. I understood it though, even though it took five years into our marriage. Our dating life was complicated. I didn’t know Spanish. He didn’t know English. Luckily, he learned fast and we always had a powerful unspoken language between us.

She mumbled in Spanish, as she does when she's frustrated.

“The psychic told me there was a black book that would help me.” I said, tearing of my red french hat.

Recognition spread across her face, “Mamita, I know what you’re talking about. Give me a moment.”

I learned on the back of the black leather couch on top of a pillow I had thrown. I waited, tapping my fingers on the tile floor.

My dad walked in. “Should I?”

I shook my head. He was asking if he should ask what I was doing. I didn’t want to explain to a mentally sound scientist what I was doing. We also had our secret language my Mom had never understood.

Unlike my Dad, I didn't believe in accidents. I believed there were patterns everywhere, symbols from the Other Side. I needed to know if Christopher was happy and how to get through my grief so I could be a better Mom and person.

Finally, Bethany's slow-steady walk was close. She came into the room, carrying a black journal I’d never seen before. Chris rarely wrote anything down. He wasn’t like me. If I didn’t write it down, it was lost to the cosmos. His memory rarely failed him.

Seeing Christopher's moles on Bethany’s face and his loving, open-minded eyes, dampened the goosebumps of excitement coursing on my arms. She handed me the journal.

“I found this in his room and wanted to search through it, but had forgotten all about it. I’m sorry, Mom…” she continued to speak, while I drifted off.

This little black notebook fit rested in my hands, as a fear tsunami brushed over me. I wasn’t sure I could open it. Wasn’t sure I wanted to know what was inside.

“It's not a bomb.” My daughter's voice slipped through the cracks of my mind.

I slowly opened the notebook, a wad of 100 dollar bills cascaded out. I recalled when we first got married, he didn’t trust banks, so he kept his money in a Spanish bible his Mom had given him. Disappointed as only money seeped through the blank pages. I wanted a message. A letter. A journal entry. A keepsake.

My daughter counted the money, as I continued to search. “There’s more than twenty-grand here. Probably enough to pay off all our debts.”

At sixteen, she shouldn’t be concerned with debts. Only boys and clothes and gymnastics, like before.

The last page there was words. Actual words. They were too small. Without my reading glasses, I couldn’t make anything out. I handed the book to Bethany, she started to read it.

“Out loud, please.”

“Patience.” she sounded again, just like her father. Luckily, she did as I asked. “Dear Rebekah and Bethany, if anything should ever happen to me, I included this money to help with bills. Rebekah, my angel, the love of my life, who I fell in love with since money was always the last thing on your mind. I wanted to tell you to not lose the big heart you have. To keep it open, even after my passing. To keep living to be there for Bethany and your parents, who became the only parents I ever had who were truly there for me. You all opened your heart and home to an immigrant, always believing in me and never judging me. You taught me love and gave me my most cherished gift; a family. I am eternally grateful. Your psychic friend told me that it is through my dreams I’ll be able to communicate with you in the event of my death. She had sensed I’d leave before you and told me as such. I'll see you in your dreams, my angel.”

A message to Bethany was even more comforting and heartfelt. I couldn’t contain my feelings, inside a prison I’d created, any longer.

A wave of water dropped down my right cheek. Then, I started shaking.

"Oh, Mom. Grandma," Bethany screamed, as sat on the floor next to me, before hugging me.

As promised, Chris visited me in my dream that night. Sharing with me how happy he was, healing others on the other side with his hands. He always had a healing touch. He shared with me that my gift to the world was through my words, and I needed to focus on becoming a medium through automatic writing to help others find healing and comfort in their times of grief. I had only practiced this before. Chris and Bethany were the only ones I had showed. They were surprised by my accuracy.

I went back to the same psychic the next morning, She introduced me to her boss, who glowed with smiles and light. “You’re finally going to join us. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Through the loss of my husband, I had finally found my calling. My stable profession. A job that was a career with a built-in family.

He gave me a second home when I needed it the most.