Junie

by Erin Crosby Eckstine

“You ain’t the only one with hurt, Junie. This world is full of it, and going through it thinking you’re the only one carrying something is an easy way to lose the bit of love you might have.”

‘Looking for comfort in the past is like looking for a needle in a haystack; you can search forever and see a whole bunch of things that almost look like that needle you’re missing, but the truth is, you’re never going to find it and you’ll drive yourself mad trying. Best to leave that old needle and get on with the needles you got.’ You understand?”

She told me that when you first lose somebody, the grief feels like the strongest tea you’ve ever tasted, so bitter and sharp you don’t think you’ll ever be able to swallow. But that every day, another drop of water falls into that cup, and it gets a little easier to taste. That bitterness, that pain, it don’t ever go away or get smaller. But it does fade.”

“See, in this life, we’re all just floating down the river. You might have somewhere you wanna be, but like it or not, that river’s taking you where it wants to go. Fighting the current don’t hurt the river, it just wears you out.”

There is beauty in the persistence of her heartbeat, the tenacity of her breath, the courage of her bones.

“I don’t mind the dark,” Junie says. “It keeps your secrets.”