Serenity After the Storm

Days ended with beautiful bedtime stories

Fairies, mermaids, princesses, goddesses

Dreams of flying through fantastical lands and other worlds

Strolling through Parisian cathedrals,

Staying at luxurious English hotels,

Sleigh riding through Swedish forests

Adventuring through castle ruins

Climbing trees and believing in magic

Spoiled with love and time

Composed of every and all things dreamable

Magical, beautiful, unreal

Living in all life’s glory  

The childhood many can only dream of

That was hers

Perfect until darkness came for the light

She would come to understand:

We don’t know good until we survive bad

We don’t know light until we’ve been in the dark

We don’t know happiness until we’ve been sad

Your dad is going to have surgery, they said

He will recover in a few weeks, they said

She did not question the doctors

A year later, her dad was the same

Even as

Pill boxes filled the drawers

“We’re going to your favorite museum”, he said

He brought home an IV in a light blue case

“I booked a three week vacation in St. Paul de Vence”

A nurse started visiting every Saturday

“Would you like to make chocolate mousse?”

Worry showed on her mother’s face

Hushed conversations

Knowing looks

“Daddy, why aren’t you better yet?

It’s been two years since the surgery”

She wasn’t waiting for an answer

She dreaded a confirmation

“I’ll get better, it might take some time”

If only that were true

One day she told someone,

“I tell my father I’ll see him tomorrow every night

But then I wonder

What if I don’t”

The kind woman told her,

“Then you shall tell him,

Je t’aime et je t’aimerais pour toujours”

“I love you and I will always love you”

That winter, the family had a beautiful Christmas

Three months later, the girl and her mother went to visit her father

He was half asleep in a hospital bed

When she last saw him

Looking back, I think she knew

that visit was the last

“Je t’aime et je t’aimerais pour toujours”

Sitting in the back of Laure’s car

Expecting to go to school

She was driven home

Her mother answered

Eyes red, no sleep

A tear ran down Laure’s face and she closed the door

For that second everything blurred

She wasn’t living this moment

She was watching it change her life forever

“Lily, D-daddy died”

She and her mother sat hugging and crying

Her mother went to lie down

The girl took a seat on the hospital bed in their living room

She thought about how

The bed had just arrived

Her father had just died

Numbness crept in as

She spent the day morbidly playing with the bed remote

And smelling an orange cedar candle

Her father’s last gift to her mother

There was nothing else to do

“I’ll be fine mom”

She walked into the morgue

The door shut behind her

She spoke to her father for ten minutes and

Left a note in his suit pocket

A strange peace settled over her as they left

It was sunny

Everyone wore black

She didn’t give a eulogy

When it was over

She and her friends played tag on the church steps

In that moment, her father was still alive

In the years following,

She would dream often of her father

He told her there was nothing to fear

He wanted his family to be happy

For they would see him again