Im still here

Being a young mother is not an easy task, but when I look at him at his beautiful perfect little face I know I’d do anything for him. I trace his eyebrows with my fingers and gaze into his honey brown eyes, his lashes are long and full his dimples that he got from his grandmother his dark curly locks, even at just 18 years old I could never imagine leaving his side. Pregnant at 17 I was terrified and after a bout of postpartum depression and contemplating suicide, my connection to him my unconditional love for this perfect human ensures that I’ll remain on this earth for him as long as I’m allowed and today; I choose Life. After having this apifany I feel a weight lifted off my shoulders and I decide to do something special tonight. I want to surprise my mother with a great dinner and stay in and just enjoy our time together and fully embrace this new outlook on life. Mom agrees to watch the baby and so I set out. It’s no secret that Washington gets a ton of rain so I’m still comfortable in this sudden downpour to set out to the store because well at this point it’s completely rutine. I start my old 67 Dodge Dart GT and without hesitation I begin my fateful trip down marridian avenue, the very same street I’ve taken to the store regularly for the last four years. My windshield wipers were hardly helping at all the rain was so heavy I stare cautiously through the soaked windshield and see break lights close ahead. I slam my breaks and hear my tires screeching to a stop I’ve skidded off the road and am teetering on the edge of a large swamp. Scary but not much cause for concern I mean I’ve never been in the swamp but it appears quite shallow. Just as I get the door open I’m standing on the door frame something slams into me with so much force it forced the car with me still holding it further into the swamp.

To my surprise I find my self in what can only be described as an ocean the water is very deep and very dark my clothing is caught on the door and the car is pulling me down so swiftly as I struggle to remove my shirt. Finally I break free I can see light at the surface but it is so far from me. I think of my son Marques and that will to survive for him. I’m swimming as hard as I can telling myself the whole way up “you’re almost there, you’re almost there” “keep going, don’t stop! Finally one arm reaches above the surface and then the next, I gasp for air and I begin to cry and scream out. I hear sirens and see lights off the road I’m doing all I can to get them to notice me to no avail. Just moments later I hear a young woman’s voice coming from above me, she’s in a very old tree. I think she must have been pushed in as well. I pull myself up the tree to get a better vantage point and now we’re close, close enough to make out what she’s saying which turned out to be nothing I could have ever prepared for. She says “ I’m so sorry, but there’s no point in yelling they can’t hear you anymore” I tried desperately to understand her words. I ask “what do mean, can’t hear me anymore I’ve only just got up here?” A part of me already understood the significance of her statement, but it couldn’t be. My Promise to my son to always be with him seemed like it had only been made seconds ago? The girl explains that she’s been here for a very long time nobody ever found her and so she waits here for the crash that may lead to them finding her remains so that she could be freed. I become angry, I’m not like you I made it out of the water IM ALIVE! My mind quickly traces back to my desperate attempts to hold my breath and get to the surface. Only in my memory now just before I reached the top my foot snagged on some brush I freed myself I made it still. The girl says “yes you did make it to the top but you had already run out of time” see look she says pointing her finger to the dark water beneath the tree. Suddenly I feel more afraid than I had ever in my life. It takes me a few minutes to gather the strength but I do. I look down just in time to see that the swamp is swallowing me whole. I can’t look away, I watch helplessly as first my torso sinks deeper and then my head finally the very last part of my body that’s visible my right hand I can still see the black heart ring my mother had purchased for me for just another moment until the swamp completely devoured me. “I’m gone” I can’t accept this! I’m frantically searching the ever growing crowd listening. I hear people scared, injured, worried about their cars and families. But what about me? I hear nothing of the car that was shoved into the swamp. No one is saying anything! They’re not even going to look for me?!

I wait in the tree with the girl who is silent now through the night long after the emergency crews left, considering what that means. My family last knew I was going to the store, and now I’ll never return. Will they look for me? Will they think I ran away from my son? I can’t let him grow up believing I just up and left him! I have to find a way out of here. I have to get home, maybe my mom will know I’m there? So I think of home I concentrate all of my energy. I just want to go home. Suddenly I’m in my kitchen I hear my mom on the phone saying how “she’ll probably pop up eventually I guess it was just to much for her, I’ve been afraid this might happen” I scream at her NO. Mom I’m here! I crashed I’m in the swamp mom please come get me!! I cried and pleaded all for nothing, she didn’t know I was there she certainly couldn’t hear me. Im alone. I go to Marques room he’s nearly 2 now. He’s sleeping so peacefully. I rub my fingertips over his brows like I always have and I kiss his little cheeks and I whisper to him. Mommy didn’t leave you, mommy’s hurt I will never leave you. My final message to him is a quote from our favorite book. I’ll love you forever I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living my baby you’ll be. To my surprise he sets his hand on top of mine and says I love you mama. Shock cut through my body like razor blades.

He can hear me! Then pure pain exploded in my chest. I can’t stay here or he’ll never be able to let me go. Never have a normal life for god sakes I can’t haunt my son. I have to change tactics there’s plenty of people who can sense the dead as a living person I could myself. I just have to find person that can hear me. At that moment a name came to mind, Christine. We’ve shared experiences with this sort of thing. Again I focus all of my energy I need to see Christine. Again there I am in her kitchen and to my surprise she’s on the phone with my mother. I go to Christine and whisper in her ear “I’m in the swamp” I’m dead nobody is looking for me please help me” again I am crying uncontrollably with little hope that this will work, after all she didn’t seem yo respond to my message at all. A moment later she went quiet I could see that she was thinking and more than that she looked scared. She paused for guite a few minutes then she says it. Kimi that’s my mother. She didn’t run away. Remember the crash last week on marridian she asked? My mom acknowledged that she did, but says everyone on the scene was accounted for. Christine insist not her. Heidi would have taken marridian and would have been there at the time of the accident. My mother goes silent, what are you saying Christine? Christine reply’s, I’m saying I’m not sure how I know this but Heidi is gone. She’s in that swamp. Call the police tell them to drag the swamp. I’m coming right now to meet you there. I’ve done it they’ll find me now. I concentrate again on my mother. Now I’m i. The car with her and Marques they are both very quiet, then as we pull on to the street Marques says are we gonna find mama in the most innocent little voice which brings my mom to tears. She replies I think so lol guy. His response shattered me to my core. He says it’s alright gramma I know she got hurt, mama died. My mother pulled the car over on the side of the street from the swamp. She just sat there expressionless until search and rescue arrived. We watched together my son, my mother, Christine and the girl in the tree as they dragged the swamp. They’ve got something. My mother leaves Marques with Christine and runs to the side of the swamp they begin to pull up a car my mother sees it and immediately cries out that’s not hers!!! I look and she’s right it’s much older and there is a body in the car. The girl in the tree takes a look thanks me and then just like tgst she was gone. Time goes on they get to my side of the swamp I’m simultaneously filled with excitement, grief, regret, sadness and pain I can’t bare to look at my mom as I see the tail of a maroon 67 Dodge Dart being lifted from the water. She fell to her knees and cried. I wished I could comfort her. It wasn’t long after they located my body that my mother identified using my black heart ring. It’s over now I say to myself but I can’t bring myself to leave just yet. I’m in the back of the car with my son. I tell him him how much I love him how special he is and how sorry I am that I’m gone. At that moment he turned and faced me, he put his tiny little hand on my cheek looked me right in my eyes and says, “I know mama. Im sad but I’m gonna be ok with gramma. It’s ok, I love you “ I knew then it was my time I had to go. Older him may not understand the same and the day that I died I promised myself that he would have the very best life and now in order to fulfill that promise, I must leave. I rubbed his cheek one last time and kissed him goodbye. Counting on the promise that wherever I’m going I’ll always watch over him from a distance and spend his entire life protecting him anyway I can. My last words; “goodbye my prince be a good boy for gramma, I love you forever.