This Is Not How It Ends

by Rochelle B. Weinstein

“How on earth will you see the world without flying, my dear girl? Flying shouldn’t frighten you, not being able to fly is far worse.”

“I’ve been everywhere I need to go,” I answered. “Places you’ve never been . . . would never understand . . .” I was referring to my books, the stories that kept me alive and took me all over the world—their destinations only rivaled by the depth of what I’d come to understand about living . . . about life. “You don’t always have to physically go somewhere to experience something magical.”

And that’s why I encourage them to read. It’s a free vacation, a chance to visit places they’ve never been, may never have a chance to go. It improves their vocabulary, makes them better spellers and speakers.

Mom’s prognosis was grim—most patients survived less than a year—and I was questioning the universe and why God took those who did everything right: the ones who loved and provided for their children, the ones who sacrificed their own happiness for the sake of others, the ones with only selflessness in their hearts.

One night, I sat up drenched in sweat, panicking that I hadn’t asked her how old she was when she went through menopause.

The remorse remained hidden in a secret vault, and I only allowed myself to take it out from time to time. I mourned my mother by living the life she wanted me to live, even though it riddled me with lingering guilt—to give love and accept love, when she could not.

This isn’t one of those silly love stories you watch on the telly. This is real life, not merely some thesis we’re trying to prove.” I smiled against him, glad that he remembered. “We can’t be the fairy tale, but might we be something better?”

There was a tightrope in front of me, and I was careful to time the first steps.

We weren’t discussing the things central to our lives. Big things. We were coasting as though there was always tomorrow, letting the present slip us by.

“I’m here.” It was two words, but it fed my soul and made the news less frightening.

Thirty-two is a supple number, an age that means you’ve lived, while young enough to enjoy the lessons that come with more time.

None of us have time. We only have moments. Strung on a string that can break at any minute.”

Through make-believe, I could numb my feelings by taking on the feelings of someone else. Stories were the remedy; within their pages, fathers didn’t really leave, broken families were a plot ploy.

If there was anything Philip’s illness taught me, it was less thinking and more living. To stay young, you had to act young.

I asked myself, What was the point of all these feelings when they were so easily snatched away?

No one ever talks about the end. How in days leading up to it, you beg a higher power to take your loved one away, to relieve them of their suffering. And then when they pass, you can’t imagine anything more horrible. The finality. The dissolution. It’s the great paradox, the ill-fated hypocrisy: In life we watch them suffer. In death it is we who suffer. There is no in-between.

The sun came in through the blinds and hit a shelf on the wall. It was the one that housed the collection of snow globes. They lit up, dazzling me with the places Philip had gone without me, but always with me in mind.

I knew I had a choice. I could hold a grudge, or I could embrace the time we had left and relish a fresh start.