Saving Noah

by Lucinda Berry

He was like curling up on the couch with a blanket and stepping into my favorite book.

Time had dragged. Nobody told me time slowed down with tragedy and how each minute became excruciating when it was painful to merely exist. Just when I was gaining my footing, something would remind me of it and send me into an emotional tailspin. Most of the time it was the little things, like a college admission packet in the mail, an email about ordering hot lunches for the next month, or lyrics to a song he liked. The grief would pummel me, and I had no choice except to succumb to it until it passed.

“See, that’s what I mean. You say you want to talk about things, but you don’t. You want to talk about the delusion you’ve created rather than reality. You run away anytime it gets close to the truth.”

“Sometimes God does things we can’t understand.”

The guilt would never go away.

Death was intensely private,