Never Forget

My grandmother used to have this old wooden figurine of a bull on her bedside table.

I never knew why it was there, and I never thought to ask. It was simply a part of who my grandma was.

When grandma died, I sat at her bedside and held her hand and cried. Hot tears burned paths down my flushed red cheeks. I wasn’t ready. I needed more time.

But life had decided I’d had enough.

A few months later, my dad and I went through grandma’s house, packing up her belongings and deciding what to sell and what to keep. I picked through her bedroom when I stumbled across that little bull figurine. I asked my dad about it, but he hadn’t known anything. She’d had it back when he was a child and he’d thought nothing of it.

I pocketed the bull, one last piece of my grandma, and got back to work.

It was 2 years later the next time I thought of that bull. I’d put it in my sock drawer, which I never used since my clothes never made it out of the laundry baskets, but I’d run out of socks that day and hoped to find a hidden escapee in the dredges of my sock drawer.

But when I pushed aside all the ugly, uncomfortable, too-long socks I never used, I didn’t find a secret, forgotten ankle sock, but that brown wooden bull.

I took it out and sat down on my bed. My fingers explored its edges and imperfections and I turned it over, surprised to see an inscription carved in the bull’s stomach.

‘Never forget. 1966.’

I frowned and ran my thumb over the inscription. It was roughly carved in choppy letters, but it had clearly meant a lot to my grandma. I bit down on my lip and set the bull on my pillow. I slid open my bedroom door and crept out into the hall. Moonlight drifted in through the windows, lighting up my parents’ bedroom door, but I knew they were fast asleep. No one was around to stop me as I pulled down the ladder to the attic and climbed up into its dark, spider-infested tresses.

I clicked on my phone flashlight and headed straight to the boxes of my grandmother’s old things. I hunted for the year 1966, but there was only one box labeled with that year, and inside of it sat a small, locked, wooden chest. I lifted it out of the box and brought it with me back to my bedroom.

I stared thoughtfully at the lock for a minute before I got up and crept quietly through the house to the garage. The tools drawer screeched as it opened, and I winced at the sound. I pulled out the bolt cutters and pushed the screeching door closed. I held the cutters close to my chest as I hurried back through the house up to my room.

I fastened the bolt cutters around the padlock and squeezed. The lock snapped and I tossed the cutters aside and pulled the lock free. I threw open the chest’s lid and peered down onto piles and piles of unopened and unsent letters.

I picked up the first couple. They were addressed to Diana and listed ‘across the lands’ as the address, underneath which was the date.

I shuffled through the rest of the letters, but they were all the same.

I lifted out the oldest letter and cut it open. I tugged out a little sheet of paper that hadn’t been touched for many, many years, and began to read.

My dearest Diana,

There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss you. No matter what I do, my thoughts always come back to you. I shed tears late into the night wishing you were here with me. I yearn for your touch. I cannot find happiness without you. I am fading away and I fear I will never come back from this.

I sat back and stared incomprehensively at the carpet in front of me. The letter felt heavy in my hands, weighed with a thousand secrets.

There were infinite possibilities. This Diana could have been my grandmother’s best friend, or a cousin, or any number of things. But the way this letter was written, the emotions behind the words, the longing, that told a different story.

I swallowed and picked up another letter.

My dearest Diana,

My life is incomplete without you. I waste away in my parent’s house, with them endlessly tormenting me with my faults and my mistakes. But you were no mistake. You were my greatest achievement. Your love filled me with joy unlike any I’ve ever felt before or since. You brought me a fullness I doubt I will ever acquire again. With you, I fulfilled my life’s dreams in a just a few short months, and I wish with all my heart that we’d had more time. You shattered my heart into a million tiny pieces, and I wonder how I can ever come back from this.

Tears burned the backs of my eyes.

There was no more doubt in my mind.

My grandmother had loved this woman. She had loved a woman.

Something twisted inside of me and I clutched the letters to my chest.

For so long, I had felt so alone, so different, so alienated. My parents had nearly disowned me. My friends stopped talking to me. My classmates cast me ugly looks.

I couldn’t help who I was. I couldn’t help who I loved.

And my grandma…all this time, my grandma…she had loved women too.

I shuffled through the letters and pulled out another.

My dearest Diana,

I have the most dreadful news. Father is making me get married. He says this is the price I have to pay for running away with you. He can’t trust me out on my own. He wants me to settle down. Henry is nice, but he isn’t you. He doesn’t make me feel alive. He doesn’t stir desire deep within me. My passion is only for you. You were the love of my life, my darling Diana, and without you, I doubt I will ever love like that again.

My hands shook.

Henry was the name of my grandfather. Henry Steven Cooper.

He and grandma had always seemed so happy together. They had been the best of friends, but now I wondered, had they ever been lovers?

I had always seen my grandma as this strong, brave, happy woman, but I could feel the grief in these letters, see the tear stains on the paper and how her cursive letters wobbled. This was not the grandma I knew, and it made me wonder.

Did I ever really know her at all?

I picked up the most recent letter.

November 25, 1966.

My dearest Diana,

It is time for me to say goodbye. My wedding to Henry is today. He has become my dearest friend, but my heart will forever lie with you. I have spent these last few months in sorrow over your loss, and I doubt I will ever fully recover. Your beautiful, shining face will remain tucked away in my heart. And I shall not remember you on your deathbed, sickly with fever, but dancing in fields of wildflowers with the sun pinking your freckled cheeks and your hazel eyes sparkling. I often think back to our stop in Arizona on our trip across the country, and that wooden bull you bought just to tease me. You knew I was terrified of the creatures. I remember how, in your final days, you insisted on carving our love into it. One last keepsake. One last forever. I will always love you, Diana. And I will never forget.

Something pinched in my chest at those final words. I set the letters gently down on the floor and crossed my legs underneath me.

My head reeled with what I had just discovered.

This was a side of my grandmother no one had ever seen, that no one had ever known.

I sat back against my bed and read letter after letter. Grandma came to life behind my eyes, and I could imagine her wild, young, and free, dancing with her arms around the woman she loved, unafraid of the world around her that would never accept her for who she was. My grandma was so much more than the woman I had known, and through these letters, she came alive again.

I longed for her arms around me one last time, but with these letters, with this bull and this story, she was here with me, holding my hand and guiding me through who she used to be and who I want to become.

If you enjoyed this story, check out the My Alternates series about a girl with dissociative identity disorder confronting her past.