I hate going home. There, I admit it. I hate visiting Decatur. And that sounds awful, and I feel terrible, but it’s true. I never got to” get over” Bailey not being there. When Bailey passed I literally had three weeks in my hometown before I moved away for college. And three weeks in grief’s time, is no time. In those three weeks I was certainly showered with love and prayers and endless support, but then I left. I left home, I left safe, I left known, and I was on my own. Completely and utterly alone. In a place that Bailey had never been. Nor had I really for that matter. No one knew me and no one knew her, and I had to navigate her death through all of that? With that being said, I had tons of cards and calls and support from home, but physically I was alone. And it was difficult. Now during this time everyone was back in Decatur moving on with their lives. They were discovering how to move about in this “new normal.” But I never had that. I never learned how to live in our home without her. I never learned how to walk into Beltline and not see her casket in my mind. I never learned how to drive by Austin and not picture her friend’s devastations. I never learned how to look at my brother’s and not see them in tiny suits for their first funeral. I never learned how to make pleasant memories in Decatur. The last things I have there hold nothing but pain and sorrow, and death. At home, I share a hall with someone that is no longer alive. I share a bathroom with someone I will never see again. And I don’t understand that. I can’t process the severity of that. At this point in my life, Decatur is a place filled with lovely and wonderful people, and my family that I love, but mostly it’s just the place that my sister and best friend, died. And that’s that.
And Troy is a place that Bailey never was.
But then there is Disney. And as absolutely insane as this thought process might seem, Bailey didn’t die in Disney.
So Decatur is where she is supposed to be, and Troy is where she never was, but Disney is where she never ceased to be.
Stay with me. I cannot recount to you all of the wonderful memories our family has in Disney. I can’t remember a time we weren’t begging our parents to go back. From the time Bay and I were tiny, to the time little Carter came around, we adored the place. We walked into those parks together, happy as we could be, sharing in one another’s delight moment by moment. We rode the rollercoasters for Dad and went to every single show and parade for me. Someone endured the Teacups with Bailey each year and Dumbo was ridden in rounds. We posed for as many pictures as Mother could possibly snap and as the boys came around we readjusted to Jedi training and Star Wars rides. It’s so easy to believe in magic when you are in Disney, to dream of an alternate reality where everything is going your way. So when I am in Disney, mesmerized by pixie dust, I also feel surrounded by Bailey’s spirit. She’s not a vacancy. She is in every store and on every street corner. I can turn down Main Street and watched her skip towards the castle. I can ride the rapids in Animal Kingdom and hear her laughter. I can endure Mission Space in Epcot to remember her scream. And I can drag her with me to Beauty and the Beast in Hollywood Studios and hear her grumble. And most importantly, I can cry to Wishes and feel her beside me, tears sliding down just as shamelessly.
I have always had this really strange fear of someday falling in love with someone that didn’t know her. She is such a large part of me I cannot imagine sharing my life with someone who doesn’t know who she is. How can they fully understand me if they can’t understand that part of my life? But I do know that if that time comes, and I need someone to understand who Bailey is, not who she was, or could have been, but who she still exists to be, I will take them to the Happiest Place on Earth. We will remember her together in the most magical place.
In her Neverland, where she will never ever have to grow up.
No comments:
Post a Comment