Women's Empowerment Stories ...

Why?
~ Bobute (aka Barbara Burtchett)

Bobute asks “Why?” so often but finds an answer.

I went to a grief meeting Wednesday evening. I still don’t know why I decided to go. The last one was before my BC vacation, so why this sudden need to open old wounds once more?

Self inflicted pain, possibly. The last few weeks I have done nothing but find old letters, cards, pictures, death reports, and notes. Looking for one thing, finding another is not always a good thing.

Walking up to push the doorbell I had pushed so often before, I kept thinking “why?” That three letter word covers a lot of time and space inside my heart.

It runs through my head sometimes laughing at me. “Catch mE if you can! When you spin all this straw into gold, I will return your child.” I want to stomp on that word. Crush it under my heel once and for all.

The door opens. I am greeted with the same smile and hug I left behind. It was all there, just as I left it. I glance around the room remembering as “why” sings me a song.

“How are you? Where have you been? It’s so good to see you again.”

Just as we begin to talk small talk, the bell rang. A stranger, in pain, takes her place nervously. One after the other they come, broken hearts in their hands, tears in their eyes.

Yes I was once there too. Living that first year, wanting to die almost every day. The numbers begin to bounce around the room. Eight months, two years, eleven years, fifteen years, and nine years.

Suicide, SIDS, car accidents, drowning, alcohol addiction. All walks of life. All ages, gone. I still don’t know why I am there. Then it happens.

A mother begins to tell her story, slowly building up anger with each breath she takes. Needing, wanting, sobbing, her anger builds. We sit quietly, holding back our tears.

I want to go to her, hold her, comfort her, yet I am not sure if I should. Maybe releasing this anger is a new beginning somehow. We have all felt it, if not, we will.

I glance around the room to see each one locked inside their own pain. The beginning of school seems to have triggered what should have been, but never will happen again.

When the doorbell rang everyone jumped at once. We were no longer captives in a lost world. It was Charles, ready to take me home. No, he did not want to “have a seat. Drink a Coke, eat cookies.”

I managed to stand and take a few steps to our heart broken friend. My arms encircled her as she stood to embrace mE, crying her heart out on my shoulder. I kissed her wet cheek as if she were my own.

I still don’t know why I waited so long, watching her suffer without going to her. The ice was broken. Others came to hold her as I walked away, blinded by my own tears.

Outside the air was heavy without a star in the sky. Nothing stirred. Silence lay heavy in dark places, hidden from view. The world had not stopped because we lost our children.

I do know now I was needed in that place at that time to hold a stranger I may never see again.

~ Bobute, mE

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