Happy After All

by Maisey Yates

“Falling in love when everything is terrible is as brave an act as blowing shit up. Except it’s something regular, everyday people can choose to do. A radical act of real-life bravery.”

“This conversation wasn’t supposed to be about me,” she says. “Yeah, but we’re friends, so we’re not keeping score.”

Thank you. For taking the time for my nonsense in the middle of yours.” “There’s room for both of us to have nonsense at the same time,” I say.

“But I am. I’m different, and my life is different than I planned for. Different doesn’t make it wrong, or bad, or failed. When I accepted that, I found a lot more peace.”

It wasn’t until I realized that I could keep her with me, and I could let it hurt, and I could let it heal, that I actually began to find myself again. I’ve had a beautiful life. That loss . . . It wasn’t beautiful. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. I don’t think loss like that is meant to be. I don’t think terrible things are so easily explained. Her life was real, a momentary thing. It was up to me what I decided to do with that love I had for her. I decided . . . slowly, over the course of time, that I could let that love be a gift. That I could remember it well.”

“It’s okay to want that,” she says. “I hope you know. It’s okay to want everything.” “What if I can’t have everything?” “You’ll survive. You’ll keep on living. You’ll smile again. You’ll dream again. You get to be my age, and you realize that you had everything that was meant for you. So you might as well want it all, then see what comes.”

I wonder, not for the first time, if the right thing to do would be to build a monument for my grief. Except . . . I want the monument to be my life. I want my daughter’s life to matter. In that it made me do wild things, it made me embrace more of who I am. I want that to be my tribute to her.

“Don’t accept less for yourself than what you’d write,” he says.

Instead of letting that crush me, I marvel at my own strength. At my own fearlessness. Because here I am with a broken heart. I chose to put myself out there, even though it was scary.