Into This River I Drown

by T.J. Klune

I am here, having chosen to walk into this river, and I could drown. I could so easily drown. It would be simple, really. It would just take a moment. And then it would be over.

“I will take you safely across the river.” And it follows me down until I’m gone.

“Promises are made to be broken,” she says, her voice breaking. My heart stutters in my chest. “Promises aren’t always kept, even if they’re meant to be.”

“There is a point to grief,” she whispers fiercely. “But there is also a point to opening your eyes and living.”

“What?” he asks me curiously. “Nothing,” I say. I reach for the door handle. “This would be so much easier if I could still read your mind,” I hear him grumble

“I wish someone had told you that you’re a terrible liar so I wouldn’t have to be the first one. I feel bad now.”

“You will? Wow. That truck sure is cherry. You’ll let me drive it and all I have to do is take your money that I can’t repay and go shopping, which I’ll probably end up hating because you don’t like it, to buy clothes like the ones I’m already wearing?”

I am a little speck of dust that means nothing. This won’t be any more than that. He is big and bright and strong and powerful. And I am nothing.

I don’t know how deep their own pain goes, but I know it’s nothing compared to my own. Selfish, yes. I know. I know that through and through. But pain is selfish. Grief is selfish. It demands attention, and the more you focus on it, the more it wants from you.

He can’t be dead because I would feel it. I would know. There would be a light extinguished within me and it would be dark, it would all be dark and I would know. He’s my fucking father. He’s not supposed to leave me. Not now. Not yet. Not ever. We had a deal. We had a deal that he was going to stay alive forever because he’s my dad. He’s Big Eddie. Nothing happens to Big Eddie. Nothing.

Everyone grieves differently. No one handles the loss of a loved one the same. Some put on a brave face for others, keeping everything internal. Others let it all out at once and shatter, only to pick up the pieces just as quickly as they came apart. Still others don’t grieve at all, implying they are incapable of emotion.

Then there are the ones like me, where grief is a badge we wear, where it’s hard to let go because we don’t want to. We probably wouldn’t know how even if we wanted to. There’s unanswered questions, unresolved feelings. There is anger that this person could even conceive of leaving us behind. We are the furious ones, the ones that scream at the injustice and the pain. We are the ones who obsess and slowly lose rational thought, knowing it is happening but unable to find a way to care. We are the ones who drown.

“Fuck, do I miss you. There’s times that I find myself thinking something and I’ll turn around to tell you, and it hits me that you’re gone. It hits me all over again, because I could’ve sworn you were just here. Like you were standing right next to me just a second ago. Why can’t you be? Why did you have to go? Where were you going that day? You lied to me. I know you did. You weren’t going to see any friends. What did you do? What did you see?”

“I brought you into this world,” she snaps at me. “It’s my job to make sure nothing takes you out of it.

“Sometimes I float along the river,” I sang quietly to myself, my voice cracking. “For to its surface I am bound.”

I snorted as I rolled off him and onto my back. “That’s life,” I told him quietly. “You never know what is out there. You just have to hope and trust that you’ll see the other person again.”

I frown at him. “Angels are not allowed to go on the Internet.” He winces. “Probably a good idea. That place has so much porn.”

“Security.” No hesitation. It would have been funny had it not been between a high-ranking angel and a man I’m pretty sure is a sadist.

Yes, boy, Abe whispers in my mind. You gotta wake up, because sometimes, all we want to do is to jump into that river and drown. It’s easy. It’s relief. It’s the warm embrace of death. But it’s also selfish. It’s selfish and solves nothing, and that is not who you are. So you wake up.

“Yes,” he whispered as sleep began to chase me. “I’d have been very sad. If we were ever apart, I’d miss you every day until we were together again.” “Because you’re my daddy?” “Because I’m your daddy.”

“Yes, Benji. You. He knew what it meant to sacrifice because of what you taught him by being his son. You enabled him to be a father and to know the true meaning of love, for what is love without sacrifice?”

it’s into this fucking river I drown.

“There is no one such as you in this world, and you belong to me. I’ll believe in you, always.” I squeeze his hand and give him fifteen words that mean everything. “It’s okay to sleep now, Dad. I know that one day, we’ll be together again.”

“Thank you for being my dad and thank you for making me who I am. Thank you for loving me and accepting me. Thank you for protecting me and making sure I could stand on my own two feet. And if anyone ever thinks me brave and strong, if I ever stand again for what’s true, it’ll be because of you. It’ll be because you are my father, and I will always be my father’s son.”

Great. I’m sure the judge I’ll have to stand before when I get arrested for DUI will be okay with me having drunk coffee while high after breaking out of the hospital to go save my guardian angel boyfriend, all precipitated by my aunt, who has Down syndrome and may or may not be some kind of psychic. Or something.