Authors: T. H. Snyder
I was a new woman after that Christmas, focusing in on my education and graduating in the spring of 2009 with a perfect 4.0 GPA. Taking my LSAT in the summer of 2009 I was elated when I passed with an abnormally high score of 165, and being accepted to The William and Mary Law School was only icing on the cake.
That first year of law school was challenging, making it so that I only got home a few times and making time for boyfriends all but impossible, ending a year and a half long relationship that I had had with a classmate. Randy and Chad were deployed in late February, their tour planning on coming to an end in July; so when June rolled around my mother and I were planning a big welcome home party along with Chad’s mom, Dana. We had never prepared ourselves for the phone call that brought the notification of Randy’s death.
June 25th, 2010 we buried Randy beside my grandfather, Tracy Brunson, in Spratley Cemetery; the white cross head stone standing out like a sore thumb amongst the dark grey ones. Taps was played, guns fired, prayers read, all with my mother sitting beside me crying endlessly for her son. Chad stood with the other members of SEAL Team 10, all in their dress uniforms, their Commander going to hand the folded flag to my mother.
He saw that she wasn’t emotionally ready for it, so turning to me he said, “With my utmost condolences,” and I nodded my head, accepting the flag and hugging it to my chest while he continued the normal condolences speech. At two o’clock the next morning was the second time that I made love with Chad, the murmured meaningless ‘I love you’s’ mixed with his tearful ‘I’m sorry’s’. It made me love him even more. As he lay sleeping beside me, I poured my heart out to him in whispers, telling him everything I had every felt for him knowing he wouldn’t be the wiser in the morning.
Since that day, my mother had been a broken shell of herself, becoming a ghost of her once beautiful care-free soul. She rarely left the house except to go to the local liquor store. I had to drop out of Law school to help pay the bills, working a 7 to 5 job at Victoria’s Secret in the Patrick Henry Mall
[an hour away] as Assistant Manager. The doctors prescribed her anti-depressants and at first they seemed to help, but then she started to drink again and skip on taking her pills.
Her longtime friend and Chad’s mother, Dana Payne, had tried to help, but my mother never tried to help herself. My only saving grace was Dana and my Sunday dinners with her at her home that Chad had purchased for her; dinners which we had done since I was sixteen. After Randy’s death, my mother always used the excuse that she was too tired to go, so it was just Dana and me, and sometimes Chad via webcam.
I work Monday through Thursday at Victoria’s Secret, driving home to work nine to two at the local hot-spot bar, Muncy’s Pub, on Thursday through Saturday. It’s the place where everyone in town gathers to drink away their weekly stress, gossip about others and hit on each other. Kendall tends bar with me, whereas her day job is managing and styling at her mom’s salon.
Coming home from the bar at two in the morning to find my mom face down on the living room floor was horrible, the blood coming from her nose and ears making it worse. She was cold and had no pulse and I had vomited in the bushes outside the front door as I waited in the cold night for the ambulance. The coroner had showed up only seconds before Dana Payne, the flashing lights of the ambulance reminding me of the night my father had beaten my mom. My mom had suffered a brain hemorrhage, the combination of Prozac, Oxycontin and alcohol in her system creating a deadly cocktail.
Having her cremated as
per her request, I spent my birthday and Christmas day in a zombie like haze surrounded by friends. I didn’t want to feel. I want my mother back, I want her healthy and smiling and baking her famous cinnamon buns on Sunday morning. I can’t have that anymore because she’s gone, but I have my friends and my other ‘mom’, Dana, who is an angel. She has saved me along with Kendall’s help.
“You ready,” comes Kendall’s soft voice, snapping me from my daydreaming into the snow.
Turning, I see that she looks great; her tall thin figure adorned in black pants and a red silk shirt. I’m wearing a red sweater dress and have asked those attending the service to wear the color as well because my mother loved the color red and I know she wouldn’t want us wearing all black, since black is boring according to her. Tears well in my eyes again and I smile at Kendall, nodding my head slightly, grabbing my jacket from the back of the couch and pulling it on.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I say, Kendall giving me a sweet smile and placing her hands on my shoulders.
She is so beautiful, her long blonde hair straight as always, hanging to the middle of her back. Her tanned skin works well with her light brown eyes, her makeup accentuating both. As always she’s in heels and her nails are done with white tips and I weave my fingers into hers and lock up my front door, the large wet snowflakes pelting the side of my face. Getting into the passenger seat of Dana’s brand new Chevy Malibu, I accept a one armed hug and a kiss on the cheek, a tear escaping down as I try to smile at her.
Grabbing my hand, she gives me a second to compose myself as I wipe at my cheeks. “You’ll be okay honey,” she says and I can see tears on the edge of her lashes, her bright blue eyes irritated red.
I nod my head, wiping at my cheeks the tears flowing down as we turn out of my driveway, our destination the Spratley Cemetery. There are a number of people already here, all dressed in either all black or black and red; it makes me smile a little knowing they loved her as well. Songs are played, prayers are issued and roses are laid; all while the snow falls
down on our little Virginia town, covering the ground.
Everyone is leaving, the grounds keepers lowering my mother’s ashes into the hole beneath her headstone because I have no reason to keep them, and I just stand there, my face down turned looking at my feet.
I don’t care what people think of me any longer, so I let the tears stream down my cheeks, the sniffles filling my chest as I scrub at my face with the sleeve of my jacket. Putting my left hand on the top of Randy’s head stone, over the Navy SEAL Trident, and my right hand on the edge of my mother’s rose colored stone, I turn my face to the sky letting the snow melt on my skin.
“I miss you so much,” I whisper squeezing my fingers around the cold stones. Kissing each set of my fingers I press them back to the stones. “I love you.” I issue, turning and leaving them, holding my head high.
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