On September 15th, my cousin drowned at Lake Almanor, California. This is day five of my experiences during the week that followed.
We figure it out. My husband switches shifts, my friend is going to pick up the kids, I’m frantically doing laundry, and I’ll be able to head back up to the lake. Then my aunt calls…
The boats have stopped looking. They’ve searched every inch of area where they think Logan could reasonably be. So only one boat is on the lake.
Our next best hope is to wait for his body to surface. Based on his body type and the temperature of the water, that will probably be Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. I add this to the list of “Things I never really wanted to know.”
My aunt is coming home. But she has an epiphany. Logan is “hiding” from her because he wants her to spend time at the cabin. When this first happened, we all just wanted to pack up, leave, and never come back. The cabin has always been her happy place. Now that she’s been forced to be there, to sit in silence, to walk the shore, she’s getting that back. She talks to him. She’s finding some peace.
I spend the rest of the day making my mind go numb, catching up on The Daily Show and watching The Bachelor Pad. When some contestants start crying hysterically because they get voted off the show, I don’t feel like I’d have enough energy to throat punch one of them even if they showed up on my doorstep.
I try to write. I know for a fact that I’ll never be able to write anything else until I write this. All that bitching about organic fruit loops and annoying homework assignments will have to wait.
I read emails and texts from friends. I cry because people are trying so hard to take care of me.
The kids come home high on friends and forgetting. My husband comes home with a migraine. I tell him it’s from all the crying. It makes your head want to explode.
Read the next chapter: Thursday — We Start Planning the Memorial
Tammy Soong is a writer, wife, and mom from Reno, Nevada. She takes an absurd amount of pain medication, but not enough to have actually named her children "Newt" and "Elfie." She spends most days stressing out over clutter, writing stuff for this place, and working on podcasts with her gal pals, the Blogging Betties.