Velásquez Tobón Virginia, Metamorphosed Grief

METAMORPHOSED GRIEF

Written By Virginia Velásquez Tobón

“Lara, you’re not capable of taking care of Meg! It’s just the reality. Please don’t interfere with our job and let us take Meg. It’s the best for the two of you,” said Karen, the blond witch, with a cynic smile, who has haunted me for a few months from now.

You may believe that a Monday afternoon by the sea on the beach of Molokai would be the most memorable and delightful experience someone could have, and it usually is; however, this was not the case for today. Everything was awful gray; from the sky to the sea, everything seems soulless. We thought there would not be more bodies. We could not believe this thought.

We were the typical FAMILY MATTERS type of family, with two lovely parents and two daughters, who spent their free time together and always seemed to be very happy, and we were, or at least I was. Yet, now that’s just an illusion or a lucid dream where I wish I was, but could never be in it. How could you go from being at the top of the world to being abandoned, just on your own? Well, that is not true. I still have Meg, my sister, we call her the little Einstein, she is an adventurous, tenacious, and compassionate 16-year-old, but sometimes her rebellion makes her choose the worst decisions; and Meg has me; we have each other’s back. But still, the loneliness is crushing us in an empty room, with the coffins of our parents, which gleamed in the early morning light that streamed through the windows of the room.

I was conflicted by the original idea of the coffins. After all, it was expertly crafted not to bring comfort to the departed but to soothe living. These bodies or what they said it was our parent’s corpse were unrecognizable from the multiple impacts they received while the car was going down the hill into the sea. In the middle of our pain, a woman with blond hair showed up, she glanced at us and then smiled. I have

never seen her, so I guess she might be someone from my parents’ work. But to be sure, I decided to ask her, “Excuse me, did you know my parents from work? The thing is that this is a private reunion, and we will appreciate it if you give us some time.”

The women then said, “Hi, I’m Karen, I work with the family welfare, and I’m here to talk to you and your sister. You’re Lara, aren’t you?”

At that moment, I was in shock. Why would someone from the family welfare be here?

Then I responded, “Yes, I’m Lara.” For a moment, I look at her. Then I decided to ask her, “What are you doing here? I am eighteen, and I can take care of Meg.”

Karen stared at me and said, “Lara, I know you are a responsible and hard-working person. We were able to identify that, at the moment we heard about your situation. However, you don’t have any work whatsoever. We need to take Meg with us.”

I have known this woman for about five minutes, and I already hate her. How could someone have the audacity to go to a funeral, where the family is destroyed and pull into a half, and then said that she needs to take away one of the two members left? How could someone be so cruel?

I stared at her and said, “I would get a job. Just give me some time. We will be okay. Just don’t take Meg away from me.”

That despicable woman, trying to fake just a little of compassion, said, “look, I’ll give you a month. If in one month you don’t have a job, Meg would come with us. Do you understand?”

At that moment, the only option I had was to say, “Yes. I understand.”

I would not let them take Meg from me; that’s just wrong, which is why in that month that I tried my best. I swear I did.

But things did not work as I planned. I went into too many interviews and did not get an answer, and the ones that call me back in less than three days fired me because they said they had found someone more appropriate for the job. What did they mean by; “someone more appropriate?” How could they know for certain that this person was better than me? I guess I would never know nor understand. It seems like it would be impossible, because it feels like there was something or someone always pulling me back, and I didn’t know how to escape from them. Every single day, in every job interview, I could only hear Karen’s voice saying that she would take Meg. It was like if she was haunting me.

One week before the month ended, I went to my last interview. It was for an outstanding company, where they value your work ethic and the way you treat the customer. And I believe it went well, or more than well, it was terrific. It was as if I had seen the green light, the one that F. Scott Fitzgerald describes in the Great Gatsby. It was my last hope. But in the end, it wasn’t.

The day came. It was earlier in the morning when I heard the door ring. Could it be? Couldn’t that woman arrive late? I opened the door, and there she was, that woman again. For a minute, I imagined just locking her in the house and get Meg from the back door and run as fast we can. However, that didn’t seem like a plausible option. I let Karen in, and without even hesitating, she said, “We know you don’t have a job.”

Without thinking twice I said, “I know I don’t have a job, but giving a person just a month to get their life together, it’s just stupid.” I stared at her and then continued saying, “That’s why you should not take Meg because the condition you said made no sense.”

I turned around and decided to look at the window. I did

not want to see that woman anymore or to let her see that I was holding my tears.

Then I heard Karen saying, “Lara, you’re not capable of taking care of Meg! It’s just the reality. Please don’t interfere with our job and let us take Meg; it’s the best for the two of you”, said the blonde witch with a cynic smile, who has haunted me for a few months from now.

I felt furious and powerless. I didn’t know what to do or say. Nor that I wanted her to take my little sister away from me; Meg is the only thing I had left. Amid my internal conflict, I saw Meg across the room and got out of the house as fast as she could. I didn’t know where she was going or what she was thinking. Karen and I tried to chase her through the forest, but it was useless. I tried to think about where would Meg go? What place would she know I would find her and not the family welfare?

I was thinking hard when I heard Karen say, “I’m going back to the house. I would call the police so that they can help us find her.”

The forest path stormed ahead as lightly as a napkin laid on a table, yet each footfall costs me more strength. But that’s for me to deal with; the track is the track. So whatever happened, I kept going. When I got knocked down, I had to get up because there’s no other way. I knew she was out there, though, I told myself. I know because the universe told me. It said, “just walk,” and so I did, and as I suspected, there she was, sitting at the front door of the house by the staircase. I walked up the stairs and sat next to her.

“I don’t want them to take me. I want to stay with you,” said Meg trying to hold her tears.

And I said, “I don’t want that either, but what can we do? We can’t run away from the family welfare forever, and” at that exact moment, I received a phone call.

I didn’t know who it was. What if it was someone from the family welfare? Despite my fear, I answered the call. It was my green light, the company from my last interview. They said that I had gotten the job and that I would start working on Monday. That phone call was the solution to all of our problems. At that precise moment, Karen appeared with two police officers. I tried to explain to her that everything was fine and that now she couldn’t take Meg, but she didn’t care. She told the policeman to take me and Meg to our house, where there was a car waiting to take Meg with them. I was enraged. How was it possible that I had been following the only condition that she gave me “to get a job”, and still not get to be with my sister? That made no sense. I tried to fight her and the police officers so that maybe I could have a chance to stay with Meg but it was pointless.

The police officers put Meg inside Karen’s car, and out of nowhere, she says, “Look, my job here is done. If you do have a job, then you should go to our office and show us that you have worked with that company for at least a month. If you don’t have that, don’t even bother.

I hate her. I do hate her. But if what she said is true, I have maintained that the job and prove that I am capable of being responsible not only for me but for my sister. I’m sure I can be her legal guardian. So that is exactly what I did. I worked that whole month, and I tried to be the first to arrive and the last one who left that place. The members of the company were astonished; they had never seen someone working as hard as I was. But what can I say, I had motivation, a significant one.

The day finally arrived. I woke up early and went to the family welfare location in the south of Molokai. I had been talking to Meg, so she knew that I was doing my best and that we will again be together. She had packed all her things and was ready to go when I arrived. I signed a bunch of papers

and show them proof that I have a job and that I have been working there for a month, which was the requirements Karen told me. They verified that everything was in order and then gave me the last paper. The one where it says that I could be Meg’s legal guardian.

Here in Molokai, there could be some awful gray days, in which everything seems soulless, but if you wait for a moment, you would be able to see that the gray transformed into the light of hope, illustrated in a beautiful sunset, where gray does not exist anymore. In the darkest of nights, the brightest the stars seem to shine, in the deepest of grief your tender will reveal.