One Summer in Savannah

by Terah Shelton Harris

“forgiveness…is like a door. You can open yourself up to it or close yourself off from it at any time.” Forgiveness can be a powerful tool. It can loosen the knots we often tie ourselves. It can bandage up wounds, large and small. It can heal traumas, visible and invisible. But withholding forgiveness can also cause more harm than good. It can tighten its grip on you and keep you bound to the person who hurt you.

It takes a million years for a star to die. A fraction of a second for its core to collapse. Hours for the shock wave to reach the surface. And then, months for it to brighten for the world to see, and years for it to fade away. We had fifteen years with Naomi, but it took seconds for the truck to swerve across the road and take her from us. The shock wave of her death gripped us and ripped us apart, slowly, like paper, and exposed the huge crack already in our foundation.

Morning sun fills the room, lighting the cabinets and floors with gold. Laughter and conversations bathe me in togetherness.

He smiles. “Actually, particles work somewhat similarly to magnets. They can be light-years separated, but as long as they were entangled at one time, and nothing has interfered with them in the interim, changing something about one particle affects the other one instantly. They are connected, even at other ends of the universe, intimately connected, across time and space.”

Engaging with people on that level was who she was, the fabric of her character. She can’t control it any more than a star can dim its light.

Time, in a way it has never been and may never be again, is ours.