I remember specific dates like weddings, parties, or big family events by what others were wearing, or other minor, but oddly specific details. It's almost photographic, but not in the helpful 'ace my test because I memorized the book' photographic. Most people are like "oh, was that Christmas 2014?" and I'm like "Whichever one where my sister wore the green jacket."
I remember people's birthdays faster than their names. This is a super power my friends have tried me on, and it almost always works. (November and March are kinda hard, I don't really know why.) It's almost like there's a special file cabinet in my brain where birthdays are stored.
Similarly, dates seem to take up a lot of space in my brain. I associate dates with everything. I left my favorite job in the whole wide world on August 17. I gave my last dance performance ever on February 24. I graduated from high school on May 20. I promise you I am not crazy. I think it's because I am calendar and schedule oriented.
As you can imagine, this trait seems to be on blast on days that are REALLY important. May 25 is a day that will never leave my mind. Listed directly below it are all the days associated with it - funeral and visitation days, court dates, the day we got to go through some of Brenna's things. January 10 is one of those days.
I woke up this morning with no recollection of the date or it's significance. This is a first for me. When I have these dates engrained in my brain for bad reasons, I tend to know they are coming - it's like a gray cloud that slowly gets closer and closer to me and then hangs over me for that day, and then the day after, it leaves. It's like magic. Annoying magic, but magic nonetheless.
January 10th is the day engrained in my brain as the cold day over winter break of my freshman year of college when I came home from lunch with a friend to find my mom at home in the middle of the day on a Monday. Once I put my stuff down, she said to me "I came home because there's something I need you to read." She sat on my bed while I sat down at my computer and read the CJ online article that had been released on that day because it was Dustin's last court date before his sentencing. It went into horrific detail about how she died. And it broke my heart. My mom laid in my bed with me and cried for what felt like forever. I remember exactly how that felt. It was a weight that I cannot describe to you. All the guilt that had come over the last few months had reached it's peak - irrational and ridiculous questions my friends and I asked ourselves thousands of times about ways we somehow could have prevented this - now seemed like a direct stab to the heart.
That night I sat at a Coldstone with my friend Natalie and went through the details with her. She listened to me with great empathy as the tears streamed down my face. Nine months of processing this death and it wasn't getting any easier because court is the slowest process on the planet. It just keeps coming. It felt similar to getting a really bad cut and then accidentally putting on hand sanitizer the next day. The way it manages to scream at you exactly where that cut came from, and how it felt, and where it is.
My friend Hannah met me for pizza on the three year anniversary of Brenna's death. We had been friends for maybe, two months. But we lived forty minutes from each other in the summer so we met in the halfway spot on the highway and drank coke and ate pizza and talked for like three hours. She was a great listener and added so much joy to my day.
Hannah and I have been through more together than I have with almost any of my other friends that I have made since starting at K-State, and she knows me better than I do. She will tell you that one important thing about me is my need for a schedule. I like plans, I like warning when things are going to change. One cancelled class or moved meeting can throw my day off entirely. Hannah and I always joke that I'm the one that keeps us on track and she's the one who keeps me sane when being on a perfect schedule never works. I think that is one of the things most frustrating about grief is that it does not go according to schedule.
Today, I was sitting in the library between classes when I opened up the "On this Day" feature on Facebook. I was scrolling through when the photo of Brenna next to Dustin's hit me like a ton of bricks, along with the link to the article. It seemed like the previously loud library was silent as all those emotions came flooding back. I was so angry at myself - how could I have forgotten this day? More importantly, why did I forget? January 10 was a different kind of pain than the whole grief journey had been so far. I felt the same anger at my local newspaper as I did on this same day five years ago. I texted my friend Katie before class just so that I could tell someone about it. Simultaneous thoughts of "Why is this bothering me five years later" and "How could I have forgotten this day" ran through my head. Either way, I didn't plan for this.
"That's a sign of healing, Em." were the words she said. and she is so right. "You can't sit and wait anymore. It's okay to remember the good times, but also to forget the bad." One of the reasons that article made me so furious five years ago and today is because I was afraid that the sickening details of Brenna's case would cause people to forget the brilliant, inspiring, kind person that she was.
I've written previously about the difficulty that comes after someone dies when the months or years have gone by and you realize you feel yourself starting to change. You aren't completely weighed down by that thing anymore - but now you're weighed down because you don't feel weighed down. I remember when the WWBD finally came off the back of my car, when I took the yellow bracelet from her funeral off for the first time, and now, for this first, forgetting an important day because it didn't creep up on me like it has in years past. January 10th has always been more quiet - just a dull pain, remembering the feeling that surrounded my community when the news was finally out. It was hard. It is hard to not feel as though January 10th should be a day to grieve this anymore - but Katie is right, it doesn't need to be. Today, for the majority of the day with the exception of half an hour this afternoon, January 10th got to be about having lunch with my friends for the first time in three weeks, exciting new class schedules, and talking about starting my first long rotation in May. It felt really good. I like 'new' January 10th.
It is unfair for Brenna to be known by the scary details of her death, and it is unfair for me to allow the space in my memory reserved for her to have anything less than brilliant, inspiring, and kind things inside of it.
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