In an Instant

by Suzanne Redfearn

He keeps this side of himself hidden, plodding forward as milquetoast, and I wonder if it’s for self-preservation. Now that I’m dead, I realize how awful people are to each other, how a pervasive cynicism exists in most of us that stops us from seeing the best parts of one another.

Remember me, I scream. Celebrate me. Do not box me up and throw me away. Stop avoiding every memory of who I was. I lived, and I do not want to only be recognized for my premature death. That was only the end. Before that was sixteen years of life—good, bad, funny, fun. Finn.

Mo hesitates, still unsure herself. “History is getting blurred,” she says finally. “All of us that were there that day remember it slightly different—not just from different perspectives but with different facts—and I want to get it straight. I’m not sure why, but it’s important to me.” “Makes it easier to understand,” Burns says, matter of fact. “Helps me when I write a case report for the same reason. Takes the emotion out of it and boils it down to what it really is: usually rotten luck, coincidence, bad decisions, and sometimes lousy people.”

I wonder about this, about whether our humanity is determined more by circumstance than conscience, and if any of us if backed into a corner can change.

“How do I get past it?” she mumbles, not necessarily to him. Hate. Hurt. Guilt. And grief. So much of it that I feel its thickness and its weight, like she is drowning and can’t breathe. “A single step at a time,” the man says, speaking from some profound experience of his own and with deep understanding, making me wonder if all pain might be the same regardless of its origin. “You’re still here,” he goes on. “So there’s not really a choice. An inch, a foot, not necessarily in the right direction, but onward nonetheless.” My mom shudders a deep breath, looks up at him. “Until eventually,” he says, “the present becomes the past, and you are somewhere else altogether, hopefully in a better place than you are today.”

Every journey begins with a single step. Clear your mind of can’t. Fear is what stops you; courage is what keeps you going.”