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Erica didn’t remember leaving the room, didn’t remember walking down the hallway, but as she came to the junction her heart felt as if it was going to burst from her chest. Her breath came out in frantic bursts. A panic attack. She pressed a hand against the wall, trying to steady herself against the cool hard surface.
Everything inside of her felt too tight, like it was suffocating her. Anger…grief…fear… all knotted together as an unwelcome companion. As she collapsed down onto her knees and felt a hand on her shoulder, steadying in.
Christine sat down next to her, silent. But her presence alone helped to anchor her, calming Erica’s heart down. “I don’t need ‘healing’ from him,” Erica explained, anger in the words.
“I know,” Christine replied gently. “But you also don’t need to be okay. I know I’m not…not always.”
“I felt like I was past it all…but maybe I was just avoiding it. The war, the pain, the loss…the anger.” She looked down, somehow it was easier talking to the ground than meeting Christine’s eyes.
“It still exists. Memory lives with you forever.”
Erica just sat, trying to slow down her breaths with Christine at her side. “It felt like death after death. Friends from the Academy. Crew on my ship. People who flew by our side. Whole ships gone. Too many to name. People I knew and cared about. Friends for years and people I had barely met. And you didn’t get time to feel it because you were just trying to stay safe, just trying to keep others safe. You just moved on to the next fight because you never knew how long each moment of calm might be.” As the words fell from her in a trail of thoughts,, she felt tears stubbornly form in her eyes. “When it was over, I didn’t grieve. I was just relieved that it stopped.”
“And now?” Christine asked.
“I am not even sad…not really. I am angry. I am angry that they are gone. Angry that we will never get more time together. And I am angry that we have to sit in a room and talk to one of the guys who made that happen.”
“Anger’s allowed,” Christine explained calmly, “So is grief. You can feel both at once.”
Erica finally looked up from the ground, tears stubbornly held back. Eyes stinging. But her heart was calm, her breathing slowed.
From behind them slow footsteps approached. “Erica. Christine.” M’Benga approached them calmly, respectfully.
“I can’t go back in,” Erica admitted.
“No one is asking you to,” M’Benga replied. “Take it from someone else who knows, grief doesn’t just go away. It waits. It lives with you the rest of your lifetime. Sometimes, fading away until it makes its presence known again. But you learn to live with it, live with the memory.”
Erica felt the tears gently drip from her eyes, a lingering memory of panic and anger. “I miss them. There are days where I want to send a message and remember they are gone. Or something amazing happens and I wish they were there, that they were part of it. I am out here, living my dream and I just wonder what they would be doing. What their life would be like…”
For a moment, no one spoke and then M’Benga offered her a hand up. “Come let's take a walk, maybe to the Port Galley. And you can tell both of us about them.”
Erica took his hand, standing up, and trying to decide if she could actually do it. Put into words anything that wasn't just loss, but memory of what was. She nodded.
Christine wrapped her arm around Erica’s shoulder as they walked down the corridor. Maybe it was time to embrace the memories again, not just the loss. She felt like she was ready to try.