Page 7 of Emily’s Moments (Shorts #3)

Emily’s POV

It had been six months since Jefferson died.

Six months of therapy, individual and group.

Six months of working hard on just surviving, one day to the next, felt like a battle, and I didn’t always know if I was winning or losing.

Most days, I felt like I was losing. I still felt as raw as I did the day he died.

I still felt as open and hurt as the day I had to say goodbye to my soulmate.

It was six months of not hearing him, seeing him, or talking to him.

The smell from his pillow and his side of the bed was long gone.

Sometimes I would wash our sheets using his body wash so the whole bed smelled almost exactly like he would.

I hadn’t been sleeping all that well since his passing.

I had tried just about everything I could think of aside from prescription drugs, and I didn’t want those.

I would have dreams of him, of the things we didn’t get to do, but he was with me, doing them.

And I was so happy when I would wake up, that for one brief moment between sleep and waking, I could forget that he was gone.

I was trying to move on. It was just insanely hard.

I did, at the urging of Stormi and my therapist, start going through our belongings.

There were a lot of things I still needed to do that I just couldn’t.

For example, seeing if I still want to continue with our retirement plans of traveling the world.

Now? I wasn’t too sure. I’d be going alone.

But I did think a spring cleaning was in order.

Kai, as he insisted I call him, was coming over to keep me company today while I started going through everything.

He was going to give me privacy, just be there if I needed him.

If I found something that just sent me spiraling, and needed someone to help me work through it.

He was going to be there to make sure I kept my wits about me.

Kai and I had been talking a lot more. I had learned a lot about him over the last six months.

He knew exactly what I was going through, and I found out when he told me stories of his late husband, Hendrix.

Told me of how his children got their names, and that Parker was even okay with using Briar for Rosie’s middle name.

She was only called Rose Briar when she was in trouble.

He shared with me the song, ‘Sink In’ by Amy Shark, and how he would just play it on special days to them as a couple.

On one particularly hard day, he had brought out all his ‘Hendrix stuff’ and he showed me, telling me that he would do this occasionally, when it first happened, so he could just ‘be with him.’ Now he brings the box out when the kids ask about him.

It was after Parker became a friend that he started being able to let go of the stuff.

He had been going to a few group meetings for people who have trouble letting go of loved ones after sudden losses.

Throughout all of this, it was nice having someone who understood, who got it on the hard days when getting out of bed felt like the biggest hurdle I just couldn’t seem to get over.

He had been an absolute angel, helping with all of this.

He was the only one, aside from his father, who knew what it was like to lose a life partner.

I had made a few new friends at these meetings when I would join him.

Soon, I started going on my own, more and more, almost obsessively at times.

But it felt like a lifeline, seeing and talking with others who had been through the same thing.

But the problem with that was that we only ever talked at the meetings and right after, and it was usually surface conversation or reliving the worst days of our lives.

One was a woman named Deirdra. She looked like she was around Raven’s age.

She had lost her son to cancer. That just sounded…

horrific. Sebastian was fighting colon cancer, which came back last year and was noticed during a routine scan.

He was staying strong, and we were all staying positive.

We were all taking turns with the kids, and since I didn’t get out much, I helped with meals and the kids more often than the others.

I was helping to take them to and from school and sports.

I also helped Sebastian get to and from his appointments.

Sometimes those days just wiped him out completely.

I always livestreamed the games to him so he could watch from home.

Stormi was working on another book and doing contract work for DYAO.

The other friend I made at the grief group was a man named Mark.

He was closer to my age, and he had lost his partner to suicide.

It was very sad. He tried so hard to get them therapy and did everything he could to help them through all of the issues they were going through.

His partner was struggling and didn’t think they could handle it anymore, and made a permanent choice.

They were together for ten years, and it had been close to fifteen years since they took their own life.

He was still very wrapped up in their death.

He was trying, though. And it was nice to have some friendly faces to see every week in the group meetings.

There was a knock on the front door, and then it opened wide, causing me to pop my head out and see who was stopping over.

“Em! It’s Kai! I’ll be in the office. I have a few cases I’m working on. You know, if you need me, okay? I’ll keep the door open so I can listen for you, too, yeah?” I smiled at his voice.

“Thanks, Kai,” I called back and heard his feet padding across the hardwood on his way into Jefferson’s former office.

Kai only ever cleared off the desk so he could use it.

He wouldn’t touch anything that I hadn’t asked him to.

Even the stuff on the desk, he set aside for me to look over.

I had not been able to be in there to start clearing it out yet. One room at a time.

That was how I felt some days, though.

Like, I was drowning in sorrow, but then a memory would hit me and I would get lost in it for god knew how long.

Last night, I was going through the closet to try to figure out what to keep or donate.

I came across a box that he’d been adamant we start for things to donate.

I had promised him we would start one, but then life got busy, and he never mentioned it again.

This was a huge box. Like the size of a hat box.

I remembered this being from a hat he had ordered for me to wear on vacation one year ago.

He kept the box, loving that my sunhat had a fancy box.

Smiling at the thought, I opened it. The top wiggled, slowly off the bottom of the circular box.

It came off with a soft pop, and a smell hit me.

It still smelled like him, and I sniffed the air that came out of the box greedily like someone smelling food for the first time. It was the most amazing smell.

I almost didn’t want to see what was in the box, didn’t care. I cared more about preserving the smell of him than the contents. But eventually curiosity won out, and I was tempted.

Right on top, I saw a few things from our grandchildren.

Little treasures they had given him to hold on to.

These were precious. This whole box was a keeper, I could tell from the first few things I pulled out.

Setting out more things, I saw all the ticket stubs from concerts were in there, tickets from our vacations, seashells, and little trinkets we picked up on our travels.

I also saw our girls’ programs. Souvenirs from their weddings.

I remembered going to Stormi’s wedding. It wasn’t long after her engagement, which he was unable to attend because of the Court.

He had requested a week off for her wedding, letting them know his stepdaughter was getting married.

She’d asked him to walk her down the aisle with her dad, and Jefferson was over the moon!

He was grinning ear to ear! He had always been that way, ready and excited to show off his girls.

Jefferson was the sweetest, gentlest, most caring man with the three of us girls, claiming even though they were grown women, that they were his daughters.

He was a proud papa and cried at both weddings.

He cried, giving both of them away. He said those were his proudest moments.

Aside from when he became a grandpa for the first time with Ryder.

Ryder had taken a while to warm up to him because he hadn’t had much male influence in his life other than his horrible father, who only messed with his mind and emotions.

And then with all of the other nine grandchildren, we were blessed with. I got through the memories, one at a time. Just letting myself fall into them, loving the feeling of being back there, in a happier time. When he was still with me.

It was nearly dinner time by the time I’d gone through the closet.

I was keeping the hatbox tucked away. The grandkids would get their gift from Grandpa this Christmas.

I was thinking of making a shadow box for the girls with things he’s saved from our time with them.

The rest? I would keep that somewhere safe.

There were some…personal things…in there that I didn’t need to broadcast to anyone else.

I also found his bucket list. He wrote everything down.

He had his personal bucket list and then a couple's list for us. We checked off most of that, and with him not here, I don’t see some (read: a lot) of that getting done.

But, his personal bucket list? I think I could ask the kids at Friday night dinner to help me with that.

Looking at the list, quite a few of the items had been crossed off.

· Have children – Raven and Stormi

· Marry my soul mate – Emily, Vegas?

· Learn five languages and speak them fluently

· Then go visit those countries – must take Emily

· Buy and fix up a chateau in France as a surprise for her 61st

· Live to see my grandchildren – 10 awesome ones

Some of the other things he had on there weren’t crossed off.

Like, ‘Get a tattoo. Travel to all fifty states. See every national park. See the pyramids. Move to France-take Emily with me.’ To say I was flabbergasted was an understatement.

He had our lives planned. The fun things he wanted to do with me and our family.

I had no idea about any of this. I pulled out all his journals to read through them.

I also made a note to talk to Kai and see about the chateau, see what happened with it.

That might be a nice way to see a different part of him again. He was still surprising me.

Thank you, Jefferson. I love you.

“Hey, Kai?” I shouted out from the closet in the master bedroom, unsure if he could hear me from Jefferson’s office downstairs.

I heard him coming up the stairs, sounding like he was taking them two at a time.

He came through the door, looking around, and then, seeing me on the floor, he came over to me.

He just said next to me, looking concerned.

“What happened?” he asked, concerned, wiping the tears off my cheeks. I blinked rapidly. When did I start crying? Ducking my face away from his hands, slightly embarrassed, I didn’t even know I was crying, I handed him the journal that was open to his bucket list. I glanced up at him as he read it.

“I want to do this. I want to take the whole family to France to see the chateau he bought and fixed up. I want to go to all the national parks over the summer with the kids. I want to plan a trip to do all of this, with the whole family. You guys included, you’ve been family long before his passing.

I want to spread a little bit of his ashes around everywhere we go. That way, he’s been there too.”

He smiled at me and nodded.