Something Had to Give

by Trish D.

  From the minute I got to Wilmington to stay with Shanna, I felt relieved. I wasn’t sure if it was the change of scenery or being with Shanna, but it was exactly what I needed. I needed a break from the routine of work and home. After my first week, I knew I would need more than two weeks. When Shanna offered, I eagerly agreed to stay the whole summer. I didn’t really see a need to be in Charlotte. There was no Derrick and no family trip to Detroit. Shanna got me a job at a restaurant across from campus and I spent my off days at the beach or with Shanna when she wasn’t with Craig or working. I kept myself busy rarely allowing myself to think about the fact that I would eventually have to go back home. I took the time to enjoy the temporary feeling of being at peace.

  ∞∞∞

  I had anticipated my senior year of high school for years. It symbolized such a sense of accomplishment and a transition into adulthood. It was also supposed to be an exciting time to prepare for college. I was no longer excited about my senior year. The only thing I looked forward to was the last day of school. I felt so nauseous driving to school the first day that I thought I was going to have to pull over twice. I tried not to look at that spot in front of the office that I would always meet Derrick. I couldn’t help it. I wanted so much for him to be there. The fact that he wasn’t and would not be there for the following 179 days brought tears to my eyes. By the time I got to my homeroom building I had to stop by the bathroom to pull it together. I got to homeroom late and I guess my puffy eyes were excuse enough for the teacher to let me in without asking too many questions. As I sat in my desk, I noticed Tre staring at me. We made eye contact and I hoped the look I gave him showed that I was in no mood for his foolishness. He simply nodded his head and turned in another direction. With a sigh of relief, I sat at my desk with my eyes closed trying to gain my composure. Something had to give. It was only the first day of school. Breathe Cheryl. Breathe.

  I don’t know if things got better or if I got stronger, but by the end of the first semester, school was no longer a burden I dreaded daily. It was time to apply to colleges and everyone found it to be an exciting time except me. Before Derrick passed I had almost sold him on the idea of applying to UNCW with me. Filling out the application alone didn’t seem quite as appealing. I only wanted to apply to one school with full confidence that I would get in and didn’t feel like I needed a backup plan. My parents didn’t think it was a good idea to put all my eggs in one basket, so when the guidance counselor suggested I attend an information session on Winston Salem State University I agreed to get them off my case. The admissions counselor pitched a great case for the school and if I wasn’t so set on UNCW, I may have been interested. He offered to take back my applications with no application fee required. That was all I needed to hear to fill mine out. There, everyone could relax; I had a backup plan.

  By the time spring semester started, I joined all the other seniors in just wanting to be done. However, each day seemed to creep by. After being gone all summer, Tim had hired someone else to take my spot. As much as I wanted to be angry, I had to understand that I did leave them hanging. I probably needed a change anyway. However, I never thought it would be at a daycare. Kristin told me about an opening at the one she worked at and at the time it made sense with me wanting to be a teacher. They hired me on the spot and I began what I thought was the best job for an aspiring teacher. My parents encouraged me to get back into track or any after school activity that would keep me busy. Track was out of the question. I avoided the coaches daily to keep from having the conversation of why I wouldn’t be running. It should have been blatantly obvious and I had nothing else to say about it. Running track was a thing of my past and I felt it was best to move on. Instead, I picked up more hours at work. I was able to get early work release from school and worked Monday through Friday with weekends off.

  In the beginning, I was ecstatic at just the thought of being off every weekend. Reality quickly set in when the first few weekends came and I realized I had nothing to do and no one to call. Kristin spent most weekends volunteering as a way to boost her chances of getting into college and Shanna rarely came home on the weekends. It didn’t seem so bad when Daddy was in town, but when it was just Mommy, I felt like I was the only person on the planet. During these lonely times I would think about Derrick and Jackie and it all seemed so unfair. Shanna suggested I find a weekend job, which didn’t seem like a terrible idea, but did I really want to work 7 days a week?

  I convinced myself to swallow my pride and go ask Tim for a weekend position when I happened to come across an ad in the church bulletin. Typically, I wouldn’t read the bulletin but this particular Sunday when Daddy passed me a note to pay attention, there was an ad that caught my attention. It was asking for teen volunteers to work with kid cancer patients. To apply, you had to send a short essay to the volunteer coordinator telling why you would be a good fit and include 2 references. The references were a breeze thankfully, as the Pastor and one of my teachers agreed to write letters for me. The hard part was the essay. It was hard to write about Derrick without feeling like I was writing a sob story. After three days of going back and forth with it, I finally submitted everything. One week later, I heard back that I was accepted. I volunteered on the weekends in the same hospital that Derrick died. My first day being back in the hospital was rough. I was also nervous to be working with sick children. I was surprised though at how easy it was to interact with them. The little things we did for them as volunteers gave them so much joy.

  I managed to stay busy with schoolwork, work, and volunteering. I had also heard back that I was accepted into both the schools I applied to. There was no doubt in my mind that I would choose UNCW over WSSU, which made my parents and Shanna happy even though she would be graduating in a few months. I had visited the school on multiple occasions, yet I still took the time to read through each pamphlet and letter that came in the thick acceptance envelope. I smiled from ear to ear as I signed my acceptance letter and when I came to the spot where I had to put my proposed major; I had to think for a while. Teaching had been my focus since I was a child, but with everything that had happened over the last few years, I wasn’t so sure. After some thought, I erased the filled in bubble next to teaching and filled in the one next to nursing. It was such a big switch, but if I could be as wonderful as Shirley and the other nurses who cared for Derrick, the switch would be well worth it.

  ∞∞∞

  There were moments where I would see the simplest things that would remind me of Derrick. No matter how hard I tried to avoid it, there were moments of sadness that felt like so overpowering that I felt like I was being smothered. It took time, but things got easier and I slowly began to feel good about my life and my future. That was until prom season came around. Prom was out the question my junior year after Derrick passed, however, everyone seemed to think that no one should miss his or her senior prom. I had looked forward to prom for years, but with Derrick being gone, I had no desire to go. Who would I go with? I had been all about Derrick until his death and didn’t interact with any other guys really and since his death, I felt like guys avoided me like the plague. I couldn’t blame them though and was actually kind of glad. I wasn’t interested in dating anyone and I doubted they could handle the emotional rollercoaster I was on. Kristin suggested I go along with her and two of her other friends, but I wasn’t really feeling that idea either. I didn’t really know the other girls and didn’t want to risk being around people who would question me about Derrick or pity me.

  I told Kristin I would think about going to get her off my back about it, but I really had no intentions of going. The night before the last day of ticket sales, I avoided her phone call not wanting to give her chance to guilt trip me into going. I talked with Shanna that night, who could tell that my other line was beeping and that I was not answering. I was hesitant to tell her why I wasn’t answering because I knew she would also try to change my mind.

  “What do you mean, you don’t want to go? This
is not just a little dance like we had in middle school. It’s senior prom, one of the best nights of your life.” Shanna reacted just like I thought she would.

  “Yeah, I’m sure it is if you have a date. My date is dead.” I didn’t understand why it was important to everyone, but it was starting to annoy me.

  “Cheryl you have gone through a terrible thing losing Derrick, but you can’t stop living. I doubt he would want you to miss out on making such a great memory. It’s not fair to yourself to cheat yourself out of your prom.”

  “Well, I’ll sleep on it. I may change my mind.” I wanted to yell at her to shut up! I didn’t though because I knew she was right.

  The next day I continued to avoid Kristin while I went back and forth in my mind about whether I wanted to go. A part of me felt like it was disrespectful to Derrick to go but then again, I felt guilty when I did anything fun. I wondered if he was looking down from heaven watching me laugh and having fun and if it bothered him. I needed him to know that I still missed him and that his death was still hard for me to deal with. The other part of me knew I wasn’t thinking clearly about this. I was making myself miserable because I felt like I didn’t deserve to be happy with Derrick being gone. It took me until after lunch when I was done with classes to go to the office to purchase my ticket. The line was so long that it was outside the door, which left plenty of time for me to change my mind. I stayed put, even though I had to wait in line for 15 minutes. When I finally got to the lady selling tickets it hit me what I was doing and I wanted to run. I held it together for the simple fact that I didn’t want to look crazy running out of the office in front of so many people. Once I got my ticket, I stood outside the office staring at it in disbelief. I was going to prom.

  “This better be fun,” I said to myself.

  Dress shopping with Kristin and her friends lasted all day long, but it was a lot of unexpected fun. By the end of the day, I concluded that they were cool people and that prom had the potential to be just as fun. Shanna came in town the weekend of prom and went with me to get my hair and nails done. I had planned to get my makeup done professionally with Kristin, but Shanna seemed so excited about the ideas she had that I didn’t want to let her down. I hoped she wouldn’t let me down and she didn’t. I loved what I saw when I looked in the mirror. Shanna made me look like I was going to a photo shoot and Daddy took what had to be hundreds of pictures once Kristin and her friends arrived to pick me up. It didn’t bother us though. We were too excited to be annoyed. I assumed Daddy was being a typical parent taking tons of pictures, but really he was stalling us. He surprised us by renting us a limo for the night and had been waiting for it to arrive. It was a completely unexpected surprise for us all.

  Unforgettable didn’t even scratch the surface of describing prom night. We went to eat at Brazos’s Steakhouse and I couldn’t remember the last time I had laughed so hard. We were surprised once again when we asked for the bill and learned that Kristin’s dad had called ahead and made arrangements to take care of the bill for us. With that piece of information, we couldn’t resist ordering desert. From the time we got to prom until we left, we didn’t sit down a single time. After pictures, we danced the whole time. We danced to songs we didn’t know, songs we didn’t like, and even slow songs. I couldn’t believe that I ever contemplated not coming. None of us wanted the night to end and we ended up staying until the chaperones made us leave. We all fell asleep in the limo and were too tired to make a late night McDonalds run that we had planned. I was the last to be dropped off and was surprised that no one waited up for me. I was exhausted when I finally got in bed. Before drifting off to sleep I reflected on the perfect night I had. I promised myself that from that moment on I was going to stop cheating myself and release myself from feeling guilty.

  Shanna graduated from college just a few weeks after prom. The whole family including Aunt Michelle and my cousins went down to Wilmington for the weekend. We rented a beach house so we all could stay together and enjoy the beach. Shanna also stayed with us in the beach house since she had to be out of her apartment. She had the summer off, but would be moving to Tennessee in the fall for graduate school. She was still with Craig and in my opinion, she was obsessed with him. She called him every hour on the hour and had to know where he was, who he was with, and what he was doing. It annoyed me, so I felt like it had to annoy him too. I didn’t feel like it was my place to say anything, but I did wonder how she was going to handle being away from him for the summer. I hoped that we could spend my last summer at home together doing sister things to keep busy, but I had to accept that there was good chance that it probably wasn’t going to happen. Her college graduation day came and it should have been one of the happiest days of her life. Instead, she spent most of the day angry because Craig was 35 minutes late. Her mood only changed when he showed up to the beach house with a dozen roses. There was a sigh of relief from all of us when her mood lightened. We could finally enjoy the remaining time at the beach with no attitudes.

  My high school graduation was exactly one month after Shanna’s graduation. I had all the expected feelings of excitement in the days leading up to it. It wasn’t until the actual morning of graduation that it hit me that Derrick should have been experiencing the same feelings of excitement with me. I couldn’t help but feel like he got cheated out of so many life experiences. I allowed myself just a short time to be sad then angry that Derrick wasn’t there to celebrate with me, but I upheld my promise to not cheat myself out of enjoying such a special day. Once I decided it was going to be great day, that’s exactly what it was. My whole family was there at the ceremony and afterwards we went out to brunch. Much to my surprise, they had planned a cookout for me and had invited Kristin and the two girls who I had went to prom with. It wasn’t much, but that was all I needed to have a great time. We were all going to different colleges in the fall and had our own things lined up for the summer, so it was nice to be able to spend time with them before we all got busy. It wasn’t until that night in bed that I thought about Derrick again, but it wasn’t the usual sad thoughts. I smiled thinking that he was probably proud of me for getting through these tough couple of years as well as I did. I was making progress and it was those moments that came right on time to show me that I was going to be OK.

  After spending a few days at Myrtle Beach with Kristin, I came home and began working full-time at the day care. I still volunteered at the hospital on the weekends, but cut back on the hours for the simple fact that I was flat out exhausted after running after the kids all week. I needed some down time. Shanna was able to find an office job while home for the summer. During the week when we both got off work, we took full advantage of having our evenings off. We had dinner, we got manicures, and we saw movies that we didn’t really want to see, but it was something to do. It did us both good to keep our minds off missing Derrick and Craig. It wasn’t long before Shanna made preparations to leave and spend time with Craig. I prepared myself for her just going for a few days, figuring I would pick up more hours volunteering. What I was not prepared for was her leaving for two weeks. Craig’s family had invited her to vacation with them in Orlando and then Miami. Two weeks seemed like such a long time not to have her home. I found it hard not to be upset about her leaving. What was I going to do to pass the time?

  It turned out that I was upset for no reason. The two weeks Shanna was gone went by much faster than I imagined. Kristin invited me to Atlanta with her family for a weekend and we enjoyed visiting Coca-Cola World and the aquarium. Daddy was back from a business trip after the trip to Atlanta. He must have known I was feeling somewhat lonely with Shanna being gone. He planned outings to a Charlotte Knight’s baseball games, bowling, and putt- putt golf. On days when we didn’t go out, we enjoyed watching gory horror films or a cheesy chick flick that he agreed to endure with me. My parents both suggested that I give the support group another try before leaving for school. They still feared that I still didn’t have the proper coping skills
to deal with my grief and that it would only get worse when I went away to school. I couldn’t deny that they were right. I was going off to college where I didn’t know a single person. There wouldn’t be anyone to rescue me from my loneliness or sadness. Though I didn’t feel like I fit in, I decided to give the group another shot.

  I had to leave work early to make the support group on time. The group leader seemed shocked to see me come back, but welcomed me nonetheless. The group was larger this time, but I did recognize people from the last time. Just as we did the first time, we went around and did introductions and much to my relief there were two other people there who were there after losing a close friend to cancer. I was still the only one who had lost a boyfriend, but it still made me feel more comfortable that I was not the only one there who had not lost a family member. They both shared their story before me and as I watched closely it was immediately clear that the others in the room were just as sympathetic and supportive of them as they were of everyone else. It made me feel silly that I didn’t share last time and had stayed away feeling like I was out of place. When it was my turn, I didn’t hesitate. It felt so liberating and freeing to let my story out and the support I received was almost overwhelming. I continued to attend group sessions for the rest of the summer and the skills I took away from there were far beyond anything I expected to gain. My last session was hard and I wanted to pack them all up and take them to Wilmington with me. I felt ready though to handle going off to school. I just hoped I truly was.

  Chapter Four

  COLLEGE

  Moving into my college dorm went almost identical to when we moved Shanna in. I was placed in Galloway Hall, which was a 9 story coed dorm. Though, I had visited numerous times before, I had never been inside the dorm. The room was much smaller than Shanna’s room in Hewlett dorm. She tried to warn me that the dorm would be different, but it wasn’t anything like I expected. Shanna’s room was set up in a suite where her and her roommate shared a bathroom and common area with one other room. In my dorm, there was one bathroom for a little over a dozen of us. I wasn’t looking forward to it. When we got to my room, my roommate had already moved in and claimed the bottom bunk. I didn’t know much about her except that her name was Amanda and she was from Richmond, Virginia. She had stocked up the room with snacks, brought a small refrigerator and microwave, and most importantly, all of her belongings were neatly organized. It didn’t take long for me to get moved in. After lunch and a grocery store run, I didn’t really see a need for my parents to stick around. They both seemed pretty hesitant to leave me though. Mommy found any little thing to clean or organize and Daddy was coming up with random safety tips to tell me. As much as I wanted to get annoyed and make them leave, I held back. I knew it had to be hard for them. They were going to be empty nesters!