Five Total Strangers

by Natalie D. Richards

It’s like losing one of my lungs, she once told me. I don’t think I’ll ever breathe right again.

A dozen snowflakes hit the road and all common sense pours directly out of drivers’ brains. Half of the people drive fifteen miles an hour and the other half weave in and out of lanes doing seventy-five.

It’s damn hard to fall apart when you’re busy being steady for somebody else.

I’ve been fine. I’m always fine. Because I can’t let myself be anything else.

“I’m fine,” I say. I learned after Phoebe that if you say it enough, people believe you. Say it even more, and you’ll believe it yourself.

I had to be strong for Mom. I still have to be strong for Mom.

This is classic disassociation—my brain’s gift, letting me float away from the harsh reality to keep myself from falling to pieces.

numbness is a gift. It keeps us moving and helps us to survive the things that feel unsurvivable.

Losing Phoebe taught me that when your world falls to pieces, your brain will not keep you moving. Your brain will shut down to a low static hum. Your heart will tear itself in half and ache until you’re sure you’ll die. Until some part of you wishes you could. It’s your instincts that will keep you alive. Beneath the push-push-push rhythm of blood carrying oxygen to your veins, there is something else. An animal directive that will put food in your mouth when you can’t imagine eating, that will stop at the coffee line in the hospital because your body remembers the need for sustenance even when the rest of you forgets.

“Because sometimes it is easier to force strength for others than to allow ourselves to feel weak and hurt.”

“I think that’s what grief does. It reminds us that we are small. That we are not in control.”