At the funeral service, I stood to read a poem and lost my cool. I choked on the lines and forgot how to read. The mask I worked so hard to create in high school shattered. The confident, at times arrogant, know-it-all me died that day.

BY KRISTEN CUSSEN

IMAGE BY ANNA BONDARENKO

I was a normal girl on December 11, 2016, doing math homework at my boyfriend’s house. Between eager talk of prom and university, I plotted quadratic equations.

Suddenly my phone rang. It took five seconds for a friend to stumble through the sentence “Jaymie is dead.”

After a long pause she continued, “Jaymie’s mom wanted to tell you herself. I was just worried you would see something online.” I thanked her, not knowing what else to say, and hung up.

I blinked away tears only to find myself in a parallel universe. In a desperate attempt to reject this new reality, I focused on a math problem. The news reporter on the living room TV grew louder and louder speaking gibberish. I couldn’t think. I sunk inside myself hearing nothing but my heartbeat pulsating through the firm grip on my pencil.

“Kristy?” Kyle said, “Who called?”

I kept my eyes glued to the textbook. “Jaymie’s dead,” I said, in a voice that didn’t seem to be my own. The world around me was now foreign. I was an imposter in my own body. If only someone had told me to look around just before the call. I would have eternalized that feeling of normalcy.

My sister called too late. She was under the impression that I still didn’t know and was coming with Dad to pick me up. She said we needed to stop by Jaymie’s house — and she couldn’t tell me why. “I know,” I said, “I’ll be ready when you get here.”

I got into the car, irritable and silent. Why was I the last to know? I sat in the backseat crying quietly to myself as I pictured Jaymie sitting next to me. I thought of all the knowing glances we exchanged through the passenger seat visor’s mirror. I thought of the times we watched the sun come up in the parking lot of Dad’s workplace. With the backseats down and the trunk open, we sipped Kool-Aid at 5:00 a.m. while eagerly waiting for the water park across the street to open. I thought about the joy rides we would never take when I got my driver’s license.

When I got back home, I walked into my room without turning on the lights. I saw my blue blanket still spread out with the mess from our last sleepover. Only a few nights ago, Jaymie had spent the night — as she so often did. The only evidence of her visit existed in the form of stale pizza crusts and forgotten clothes. I bunched them up and threw them down the stairs.

I had no desire to process what I was feeling. I crawled into bed and willed myself to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. But I couldn’t. Instead, I opened my phone to a flood of tweets. “RIP Jaymie.” “Heaven gained an angel today.” “Fly high Jaymie.” Why did everyone have to say something? Where’s the moment of silence.  I looked at the text she sent me that morning. “Kristennnn,” she said, with a few funny links. Why didn’t I reply? Any ounce of sadness was devoured by an anger I didn’t know and couldn’t decide who to direct it at. 

I went to school early the next day just to hear Jaymie’s name in the morning announcement. The walk to class felt longer than usual. I could hear students whisper rumours of suicide and overdose.

Yet, with all the self-appointed CSI investigators around, I was the one they questioned: in the middle of class, in hallways, and through social media. For those who had never met Jaymie, her identity was reduced to ‘the tenth-grader who died.’ Every day someone asked, “how’d it happen?” “Was it drugs?” “Was it suicide?” “I heard she had a tumour in her head.” “Did she leave a note?” “Who found her?” The truth is, her death was just a freak accident. She had seizures. End of story.

When I wouldn’t confirm people’s assumptions, they looked for someone who would. The truth just wasn’t scandalous enough. Soon, questions turned into arguments. “Jaymie’s parents are just lying to you. She killed herself. They just don’t want to ruin her image or upset you.”

When the world felt too loud, I worked mindlessly on Sudoku puzzles. For hours on end I would count from one to nine, placing each number carefully. One, one, one, I would recite in my head as I scanned the page with a pen. Hunched over my book, I would glance up at a group of friends sitting together. I searched for Jaymie. Two, two, two, find the twos, I told myself. Through Sudoku, I travelled to a world of structure and order. There were no empty spaces and no mistakes. Each grid had a logical solution. I could not say the same for my life.

When I got stuck on particularly difficult puzzles, I scribbled ‘I miss you’ in the margins of my book. Over time, the notes grew longer and I exchanged Sudoku for journaling. When I first opened my diary to write again, I found myself staring at the note Jaymie left me from our family trip together.

August 23, 2016

“I had a sudden realization today on the car ride down to Ohio, just like in the movies. We’ve been best friends forever and not just temporary ones from school, it’s different you know? Anyways, I was thinking about how we’ve gone through everything together. Some sappy Shania Twain song was on and I was just remembering us growing up, how we used to roll around in yoga mats and play Sims on the Xbox. Now look at us. I was trying to think back to when we were younger, if we ever thought we were going to turn out this way. To be honest, I fucking hate everyone, and the fact that we’re still best friends warms my heart.”

Jaymie

Since then, I’ve dedicated my journal to Jaymie. When it wasn’t socially acceptable to whip out my journal, I found scraps of paper to write on. Three years and three journals later, I still write to her.

December 14, 2016

Dear Jaymie,

It’s hard to have your last goodbye while the entire student body watched the mess that is me slumped over your body, balling up my fists so I wouldn’t feel how stiff you were. 

At the service, I sat in the squishy pews wedged between Robyn (my sister) and Dad. Even their thighs touching mine revolted me. Their awkward shoulder rubs made me cringe. I felt too big and too small all at once.

At the service, I stood to read a poem and lost my cool. I choked on the lines and forgot how to read. The mask I worked so hard to create in high school shattered. The confident, at times arrogant, know-it-all me died that day. I had never felt so deeply judged before. I shrunk like Alice after she drank the magic elixir. Other times, I felt like Alice eating the magic cake, growing exponentially in size. I was the elephant in the room, a circus freak. Watch the sad girl in her natural habitat. Look! But don’t touch. It’s incredibly vicious and highly contagious. One touch and you’ll drop dead on the spot.

How does something so universal alienate us? I think there’s a disconnect on both sides of grief. This, without a doubt, comes from our relationship with death in general. It’s hard to determine who made communication so difficult, the griever or the outsider? Am I perpetuating the disconnect with a word like 'outsider'? It makes my head spin. Was I really the elephant in the room? Or did I project that onto myself? Is it possible for both to be true?

January 2017

Dear Jaymie,

When I find brief moments to dream about post-secondary school, I think of living on residence, far, far away from here. Maybe Montreal or Vancouver, but I don’t know what to study anymore. The list I made with you had journalism and fine art as my top two.  

Kyle and his family made fun of me when I told them at the dinner table. They said I might as well eat yellow paint and cut my ear off like Van Gogh. I excused myself to cry in the bathroom. Even when I try to look forward, I’m criticized. Who am I kidding? It will be a miracle if I graduate.

Grief crawled into every crevice of my life. It was straight 50s on my report card. Grief was piled up laundry. Grief was ten unopened messages and cancelled plans. Grief was greasy hair and stomach acid burning my throat. Even when I dreamt of something better, I looked in the mirror only to see a deflated version of myself. I compared myself to everyone moving on from high school. Meanwhile, I sunk down deep behind my eyelids into a personal time warp.

At the one month mark, I decided to open up to my boyfriend. Parked in his driveway, I told him I was having a bad day. I felt the need to justify my feelings. “It’s January 11th, maybe that’s why,” I said. It wasn’t really just that day. Each time my alarm went off I was in shock. When I forced myself to face the day, I’d find myself hugging the toilet bowl. At school, I stole moments alone in the bathroom. With my feet lifted up and the sleeve of my sweater between my teeth, I let out quiet tears. “It’s been a month, you really need to start moving on,” Kyle said. I sat quietly through his lecture on laziness. I dumped him shortly after. When he cried on my driveway and said he felt like throwing up, I told him he’d get over it in a month or so.

March 2017

Dear Jaymie,

I cried at school today. How embarrassing. I could do nothing but curl into a ball and hope no one noticed. Why did I sit so far from the door?

Ms. Parker must have noticed that I was upset because she walked over and asked what was wrong —in front of everyone.

You know what she said? “I lost my brother a few years ago, but you know, he was blood.”

I asked her if that was supposed to make me feel better because it actually makes me feel worse, so please leave me the fuck alone. Then I got up and left. Fuck the attendance policy.

I was always amazed by the adults who tried — and failed — to console me. There was the art teacher who asked me if I wanted to kill myself when I tried to leave class early. The guidance counsellor who questioned my closeness with Jaymie, a student two years younger than me. And of course, Ms. Parker who believed grief was only felt through a bloodline. They whole-heartedly believed they were comforting me, or at least helping me realize I didn’t need to be so upset. Teachers looked at me like a ticking time bomb they needed to defuse. So, I withdrew, skipped class, and avoided school in general. I hated being pressured to be okay for the sake of their clean consciences.

I’m reluctant to admit that I still carry that hurt years later. That experience has manifested into fear. When someone offers to listen, I fear they won’t truly hear me. I’m scared to confide in someone or admit I’m struggling, undoubtedly labelling myself the emotional liability. Instead of risking it, I become my own bully. I tell myself I’m weak, that I have no right to grieve. It’s ironic that I can denounce their words so easily, but when I say it to myself, these words somehow have credibility.

April 2017

Dear Jaymie,

I built up the courage to pay my late fees at the library today. Lost in grief, Chicken Soup for the Grieving Soul, and more depressing titles that exposed me. Somehow, I accumulated $150 in late fees. The librarian looked at the books then back at me. There was that all-too-familiar awkward silence. I lied and said I would be right back with my wallet and walked out. So I head to Chapters, maybe I’ll have better luck there. Useless. Where’s the grief section? And when did Chapters become a sell-out? 50 per cent overpriced books, 40 per cent knick-knacks and 10 per cent Starbucks. The wellness section made me feel worse. Why not label it “I’m 30 and defeated by life.” There has to be something in the poetry section, right? Nope. Just trendy four-line poetry about love. “I was a candle. He blew me out. Now it’s dark.” Woe is me. Fuck off. You know what’s unrequited? Loving the dead. I went back to the car, found a scrap piece of paper and now here we are. God, I miss you Jaymie.

Books have always been a source of escape for me. After Jaymie’s death, my interests evolved from teen romance and dystopia to, well, anything about death. In all that time, I never found the book that ‘got me’; the one that made me feel understood. The young adult fiction all had the same plot: someone dies, life is hard, girl meets boy who fixes it, the end. In the thick of grief, the last thing I cared about was hearing someone’s happy ending. I wanted someone to honestly tell me how hard it is. When I couldn’t find any reading material to identify with, I wrote.

August 2017

Dear Jaymie,

When I really miss you, I open up that bottle of lotion we used in Ohio. Remember how we rubbed the scent of ‘moonlight magic’ all over our sun-kissed skin? If I close my eyes, I can hear the whoosh of amusement park rides and the wave pool buzzer. Only under dire circumstances do I squeeze a drop onto my hand. I need to make it last. In a small box, I've tucked away photo strips, the souvenir bottle opener, and a baggy of sand we collected just before we left. We said we would always have Ohio, but I didn’t think it would turn out like this. None of these things make up for your absence. I feel like you were just a dream. Like you were never even here.

Our second trip to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, marked a change in our friendship. Jaymie would be going into Grade 10 and I would be entering Grade 12 in the fall. We were no longer playing with dolls or pitching tents in the backyard for fun. Our teenage years snuck up on us. We were older now, concerned with boys and the complications of growing up.

On the last night, we drank our secret stash of stolen liquor mixed with fruit punch. Slightly drunk, we sat down by the pond in oversized sweaters listening to summer night sounds of crickets and frogs. School was just around the corner and neither of us was ready. For the first time, I admitted I was scared to graduate. I always took pride in being the older friend with advice and math notes to pass down. I was supposed to have things figured out by now so I could lead the way. Truthfully, I had no clue what I was doing. Jaymie shared her struggles adapting to high school. She was worried that I would think less of her if I knew. We held each other tight promising to figure it out together from then on. It sounds stupid now, but we felt so old. She started laughing, ending our serious moment. “What’s so funny?” I asked.

“Remember that time we snuck out to catch toads?”

“And somehow managed to sneak the old fish tank and eight toads in my closet.”

“And we spent an hour trying to figure out their gender so we could breed them.”

“I still have the notebook with all their names.”

Just like that we were laughing again, thinking of all the trouble we got ourselves into over the years. There was our baking phase, inspired by the reality show Cake Boss. We put way too much flour in our cookie dough and decided to dump it in the bathtub to squish between our toes. We didn’t anticipate the clogged drain. Our prank phase was short lived; it ended after Dad fell victim to the toilet seat covered in Saran Wrap. How could we forget the time we vandalized the stoner’s hangout spot. Late at night — our bags stuffed with spray cans, scissors, and a creepy doll — we set out into the forest searching for the signature tarp, folding chairs, and cigarette butts. We destroyed the place; slashing the chairs, spraying satanic symbols everywhere. To top it off, we left a threatening note under the severed doll head. By Tuesday we were laughing hysterically at rumours of a cult group. And, oh god, how we wished we could forget that time we convinced Dad to drive us downtown at 4:30 a.m. just so we could be the first in line to audition for The Next Star, a singing competition show. Outside the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, we laid on Dad’s carpet samples from work. Holding cups of hot chocolate for warmth, we watched the CN Tower change colours. By 10 a.m. our dreams of stardom were crushed.

November 2017

Dear Jaymie,

I hate talking about it because I don’t know what the fuck I would do if I was on the other side of this. I don’t even know what I want to hear. Every conversation feels like a game of broken telephone. People only want to know how you died and that always triggers the one-hour meltdown spectacular. Do you think they tune in for next week’s episode? Of course not. Death leaves a funny taste in people’s mouth. I’m a constant reminder of their mortality.

Still, I feel compelled to apologize, to reassure them that I’m okay. They need to believe they’ve helped in some way. There can be no admission of helplessness from either side. Instead, we face reality with a series of prescribed phrases.

I wanted something better than a Hallmark response.

“You’re so strong.” I don’t want to be strong.

“It gets better.” When? I’ll mark it on my calendar.

“At least you had all that time together.” Why can’t I want more?

“It could be worse.” Since when does worse discredit bad? Couldn’t it be better?

“She’s in a better place now.” Where? What’s the mailing address?

“She’s always with you.” Actually, she’s a pile of ashes.

I didn’t really want a response. I just wanted someone to listen. Someone to squeeze my hand and say, “that’s fucked up, the whole world is fucked up.” There is no greater feeling than someone sinking down to your level to simply agree with you. Why are we always in such a rush to find the bright side? Can we stop and smell the wilting roses for a second? It’s so hard to deal with people trying to patch me up with empty phrases. Just hop off the happiness express for a moment and realize how fucked-up dying at 15 is. Stop treating me like some metaphorical butterfly about to emerge from my cocoon of sadness.

November 2017

I wonder if I appear as jumbled as I feel on the inside. Life is on 4x speed. It has been December 11th for ten whole months. Janine (Jaymie’s mom) and I bought fucking crystals to summon our inner strength today. It’s so exhausting waiting for things to get better. I just have to wait it out and distract myself. To be honest, you can fuck it out too, create the illusion of closeness for a staggering five minutes. I’ve learned that people are cruel and take advantage of this kind of vulnerability. Isn’t that awful? I’ve learned that I knowingly give into it sometimes anyways. Isn’t that worse? Oh, the shame.

I did a lot of things while I grieved. I bought crystals, went to a psychic, and developed an interest in Tarot cards. I even read Jaymie’s daily horoscope. In the early days, when I still felt alone, I looked for someone to open up to — in more ways than one. When we can’t find intellectual or meaningful conversation with others, when we feel lonely and out of touch with the world around us, we resort to physical closeness. Hormones don’t help either, just for the record. We have a habit of crawling into someone else’s cave when we grow weary of our own. 

February 2018

Dear Jaymie,

When life starts to feel right, it still manages to feel wrong. What if someone else I love dies? Grandpa just died of cancer. What if dad’s drinking gives him liver failure? A stroke? What if mom’s smoking gives her lung cancer? Is cancer in the family? What if I die soon? I feel alien thinking about all this.

These were all new intrusive thoughts. Where people saw life and joy, I saw death and sadness. When people said I would ‘get through this,’ whatever that even means, I would think, but who’s next?

“Don’t think about that! Live in the now!” Some would say.

So I did. Externally, I lived in the now. I brushed my teeth, commuted to school, finished assignments, but all the while my mind was far from ‘the now.’

At every turn, there was a fluorescent sign that read “DEATH AHEAD.” The headache-inducing buzz is best compared to a motel vacancy sign. When I got tired of running, I let death take the lead. Knowing that death would come, no matter what, I was free to forge my own path. When we ‘live in the now’ we make choices based on what others want, what mom and dad want, what we think we should want or what other people are doing. Why not look up at the shitty, blinding sign and base a choice on the simple fact that one day you will die?

July 2, 2018

Dear Jaymie,

When we were cloud watching I thought of you and the journey your soul took to wherever you are now. (Maybe you’ve moved since then). But I wonder, was it like reverse skydiving?

How can a big soul like mine fit in this impish capsule? Does it feel good to be freed from your turtle shell? Sometimes I think you’ve just left my range of perception. If energy is never destroyed, then I have a slight hope that maybe you’re not above the clouds, but rather in them and everything else I see. Or maybe when you were cremated, all that is you scattered throughout the universe. Maybe you’ve rejoined the grand scheme of things. Maybe you really are always with me, so long as I take the time to notice you.

I laid flat on my back in the park by the house. It was a hot day, the kind where gravity feels a bit stronger and the sun seems to paralyze you. For a moment I didn’t think about the past or the future. I stepped outside my body to watch a quilt of moments unfold before me. I forgot about time, for just a moment, and realized memories have no expiration date. Before this, thinking of Jaymie could not be separated from her death and funeral. It typically resulted in my head over a toilet bowl.

Now that college was around the corner, I felt very far from the me that coexisted with Jaymie.

I noticed how fast I was travelling, each second creating a mile between us. Through memory, I moved between fixed moments of joy. Long lost moments of the mundane could still activate all the senses. Even when detail and faces blurred, I could still remember the distinct feeling of just being with Jaymie.

November 2018

Dear Jaymie,

How could I even begin a new relationship of any kind with this invisible baggage? When is a good time to mention it? Do I drop the bomb when they see the wall-shrine of photos?

How painful it truly is to meet people and know they will never meet you. They’ll never know where my silly side comes from, or my sentimental side. Not to mention the ugly side that comes from outliving you.

Relationships were tough to navigate. I was and wasn’t the same person. Meeting new people, now that was uncharted water. How would I appear normal? If I did not share my loss, I felt like I was hiding a deep dark secret. Yet, when I did share it, I felt overbearing. There was no delicate way to mention it to someone new. It was always spoken of in the past tense and therefore treated like some ailment I had recovered from. “My best friend died three years ago.” But how could I explain that it was still very present tense? That Jaymie died, is dead, and will always be dead?

Even when I found the courage to mention Jaymie, and the appropriate moment to do so, it came out clunky and awkward. The subject was changed almost immediately to spare me the sadness. As if it were that easy. I would hold back the urge to share a picture or tell them about her funny mannerisms. Instead of saying, “Jaymie and I….” I would say, “one time a friend and I…” to save them from discomfort and fulfil my need to remember her aloud. I continued to laugh at all the right moments and answer all the questions. Silently, I stumbled around the dark place inside my head. The place where death seemed to laugh at my feeble attempts to be normal and likeable. “You just blew it,” I would think to myself.

January 2019

Dear Jaymie,

I had an awful nightmare last night. You and I went to an indoor amusement part. It was a mishmash of all the places we went to with family. You ran ahead through the endless activities, laughing all the while. I called for you through thick crowds. The playpark transformed into a huge obstacle course I struggled to navigate. I asked everyone if they had seen you. “She’s 5’9,” I cried, “blond with freckles and blue eyes.” No one cared. Everyone looked at me like a freak and returned to their fun. I, however, couldn’t enjoy a single thing without you. On our phone call, I reprimanded you. You laughed and told me to live a little before hanging up. I begged for the staff exit. I didn’t have time to go through it all, I needed to get to the end where you would have to meet me. An employee pointed to the final exit ride, a dark ominous waterslide. There had to be another way down, I had no time for waterslides, let alone dark ones that take me God knows where. How could a place so cheerful have such a creepy exit ride? Surely this was a trap. I wailed and completely lost it. Suddenly I was back at the entrance. Mom, Dad and Robyn stood waiting for me. They told me we had expensive reservations to get to. I told them I couldn’t leave without you. What if you were in danger? What if you took the creepy slide? They didn’t care, we had to go. When I woke up, I felt like you died all over again.

This dream, and all its reoccurring variations encapsulated how I felt in my grief. All logic pointed to my subconscious crafting this story from deep fears and anxiety. Hope, faith and sheer desperation led me to believe Jaymie was sending me messages in her playful way. When I saw dimes, mourning doves and cryptic BYEJ license plates, I convinced myself it was Jaymie. Then the what if came. What if these were just self-fulfilling beliefs? What if these were just coping mechanisms? Patternicity? God, why did I have to question everything? I didn’t know if Jaymie existed at all anymore, let alone in what way, shape or form. All I knew was that each time I saw a ‘sign,’ I felt happy. Maybe that was enough.

February 2019

I’ve been feeling lost lately. I’ve grown up around religions of all kinds, but I’ve been absolutely oblivious to the focal point of death and enlightenment. I didn’t know I had such a strong immortality complex until it was gone. Before that, there was this romantic feeling about being ‘lost’. But if feeling lost seems whimsical and deeply artistic, then I’ve got news for you. You need to get real lost. Look at your legs and realize how weird they are. Long lumps of tissue. Most of what makes us us seems to manifest right behind our eyeballs. The rest seems like fungal growth on a tree. These thoughts will get you lost.

At this point in time, I was relearning what it means to be alive. For the majority of life, I was simply existing. It was time to get intentional about it. This meant a lot of new questions. We traded in the Pinterest wedding board for philosophy. What makes us who we are? What is the purpose of religion? Comfort, values, order? Why does all of this matter to me?

Unlike animals, we are aware of our presence on earth. We’re here and this means one day we won’t be here. So we subscribe to certain beliefs and tell ourselves we must follow a strict life path. School, career, marriage, kids, retirement — it goes unquestioned and seems more animalistic than humanistic, if you ask me. When we bump into another set of beliefs that don’t align with our own, we grow angry and defensive. This stems from the subconscious understanding that none of these rules or beliefs are concrete. It reminds us that we just don’t know. If knowledge really is power, death is the one thing that leaves us powerless.

March 21, 2019

Dear Jaymie,

I know it’s your birthday, but I’m going out for a change. I still wrote you a birthday card and I’d like to think you’d be proud. I have a third date with an older guy! Look at me going on a real date with a real genuine person. We’ve made it to adulthood, success! I haven’t been able to truly connect with someone since, well, you died. When he asked if I was busy today, I didn’t know how to say, “yeah, um kind of busy throwing a one-man birthday party for my dead friend.” I also didn’t want to say no, is that bad? I dropped the grief-bomb on our first dinner date, and you know what? He was totally fine with it. By the time I’m home, it won’t be your birthday anymore, so I’ll say it one last time, happy birthday Jaymie!

Going out on a dedicated grief day was a huge step. After writing a birthday card, I took a deep breath, blew out a candle and tucked Jaymie’s photo in my purse. I used to spend most anniversaries alone, welcoming the spiral of panic and grief. I even marked them on my calendars. On those days, I would hide from the world. Just as the clock struck midnight, I would morph into a hideous monster. This time, I allowed myself the excitement of being a young woman. Who am I to deny myself romance, excitement and fun?

June 2019

Dear Jaymie,

For some reason, I hoped you would be there in your cap and gown on your graduation day. I knew you wouldn’t though, so I cried. Turned on the shower, cried. Stared at myself naked and older, cried. Washed my hair, switched my outfit twice, cried. What are you supposed to wear to a dead friend’s graduation? I thought of the pictures we would never get, cried. How is it that I’m going to your graduation without you?

I got in the van with Jaymie’s family, fully aware that none of us had slept well. We all sunk down to that level of reality where the world is fucked up and found room for moments of laughter. I thought maybe I could handle the day. But as I watched students float across the stage to the next phase in life, I fell back to a darker place. Jaymie’s memory is encased in the golden resin of high school. She’s fossilized, a plaque on the wall dedicated to students who will never hold their diploma. Those who have lost someone understand that grief is an incredibly durable elastic band. Regardless of how far we distance ourselves through time, work or distractions, there will be countless invisible ticks that snap us back to that pang of shock. This was one of them.

Milestones do that to me. The smallest things do that to me. Just when I’m happy and minding my own business, grief drops by, uninvited, with a bouquet just to remind me it will wilt. All I can do is open the door and accept it. On Jaymie’s would-have-been graduation day, there was nothing I could do except cry, get dressed and show up with grief as my escort.

October 2018

Here’s a good way to explain it:

Imagine that subconsciously, inside of you, there is a tiny person. He exists behind your eyes with the sole purpose of assembling a puzzle of memories. An unexpected completely black piece finds its way into his hands. He flips it over, still black. He knows this isn’t the piece he’s looking for and continues his search. The puzzle expands magnificently around him. As his excitement builds, he finds himself stuck. No piece fits, he has tried every last one. Except the black one. The puzzle piece that had to be a mistake. This is the memory of death. He can’t help, as he goes on, to be bothered by this part of the puzzle. “It’s complete!” He thinks to himself, “but forever it will seem as though a piece is missing.” How peculiar for his existence, so one dimensional, to grow an opinion. How strange for him to suddenly wonder, “why am I making this puzzle?” The puzzle proved to be mural-like in its mass, vibrantly coloured — except for the one stupid black spot. His eyes always seemed to fall back to it. This is what mourning feels like. Suddenly, he wonders what happens when he finishes the puzzle. Will he finish the puzzle? For a while, he protests the urge to build. He wants answers. He finds himself, once again, face to face with the puzzle pieces. “The answer has to come from continuing,” he thinks. If the given pieces inspired all this nonsense, it must provide reasoning. And so, he thrusts himself into completion, always looking back to that black piece. The piece that caused this whole mess in the first place. The piece that never before made completion so necessary.

There were times I wished Jaymie and I weren’t close. I wished she was just some girl I saw in the halls between classes. Wouldn’t that have made this easier? When therapists assured me I would carry Jaymie with me for the rest of my life, I winced. I couldn’t think of a worse form of torture. It’s hard to be forever tied to that time in my life. Is 17 an easy age for anyone? Most of us will cut our hair, change our clothes and evolve in such a way that we hardly recognize the person we used to be. But I know that part of my past can possess me at any moment. Within a split second, I am nothing but a host for resurrected memories.

When I feel tangled in that string of thought, I feel like giving up. The worst part? Even if someone were to hand me a pair of scissors to cut the cord and set me free, I simply would not be able to. I can’t explain the contradiction of feeling haunted and comforted by this black piece. It’s so deeply engrained in me that I can’t tell if it gives me strength or makes me weak. I can’t tell if it makes me frantic or determined. I do know that I regret ever wishing our friendship away. The absence of this piece would be more painful than its presence. It would mean forgetting her. I signed all these hidden terms and conditions the moment Jaymie and I became friends. We all do when we love someone. That black puzzle piece is the price we pay for it.

Kristen Cussen is a Journalism student at Humber College. Her dedication to journaling has shaped her honest and conversational writing style. When she isn’t working on an article, she likes to get lost in dystopian novels, explore visual art mediums and draw satire cartoons.

An earlier version of this story was originally created as part of Humber’s WRIT 400: Literature and Composition 2 course.

Image: Anna Bondarenko, Monochromatic Portrait Stud, watercolour on paper, 2020.

Edited for publication by Kaitlyn Csenkey, as part of the Creative Book Publishing Program.

The HLR Spotlight is a collaboration between the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Innovative Learning at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario. This project is funded by the Applied Research & Innovation.