Jumpline magazine April 2024 - Flipbook - Page 10
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Mother of a Daughter Gone Too Early
Sherry Bullock
In The Mess She Left Behind
It’s an obstinate, in-your-face, dogged vise-grip on life.
All perfectly displayed in the mess we leave behind.
Sherry Bullock
Teacher, Lee County Schools
Sherry taught history and language arts to middle and
high school students for twenty years until her daughter,
Emma, died in a tragic auto accident in February of 2021.
Today, she continues to work part time for the school district and also directs Emma’s Echo, a nonpro昀椀t in honor
of Emma, which supports the physical and spiritual restoration of disadvantaged and disabled children.
I’ve been thinking lately about the messes we leave behind. When I leave the house for an extended period, I
always clean just a little deeper. My vanity reasons that if
someone needs to enter my home while I’m gone, I don’t
want the dirt to show.
I can’t say my daughter, Emma, was quite the same. She
didn’t clean often, and all of her friends joked that wherever
she went, she left a “trail of Emma,” but when she moved
into college, she left her bedroom upstairs remarkably clean.
But her apartment at college…
Her apartment was a mess that day. It spoke of a fun
weekend and a quick exit. It af昀椀rmed a rushed throwing of
things in a backpack with a clear intention to return to clean
up later. It screamed of her “don’t-worry-I-won’t-be-gone-forlong” plans.
So a mess was left behind.
Bed unmade. Clothes on the 昀氀oor. Perfume with just a bit
left in the bottle. A Cheerio resting lightly on the carpet. Ticket stubs in the wallet. Notes of debts owed to roommates – a
few dollars here and there for coffee or lunch or gas. Plans
to pay it back. To make the bed. To vacuum the 昀氀oor. A Costco-sized pack of toilet paper in the closet. A year’s worth of
laundry detergent waiting....
A clear resolve to use the perfume again. A bold and audacious plan to spray it all over her body the following day and
the day after that and the day after that and the day after that
until she’d buy a new bottle and then another.
Things said and unsaid.
Memories—
—Fading memories.
Flashbacks of my sweet girl in a casket.
A casket!
Of her mangled car.
Of her broken body.
Of that night.
Of what she might have been thinking or feeling. Was she
scared? Did she see the t ruck coming?
Fantasies of her walking in the f ront door again. Of her
hugging me f rom behind in a dramat ic surprise – the longest hide-and-seek game ever recorded. The Guinness
Book of World Records following her with cameras to
catch my react ion.
I can’t remember her voice most of the t ime.
And I wonder what she’d say if she were here or there
and–
I’m not sure anymore. I can’t predict it. I can’t remember.
She’s distant.
One more day without her.
One more month. One more year.
Trying to hold on to her.
Trying to move forward without her.
Trying to do both of those at the same t ime.
Trying to be posit ive and gratef ul and keep it together but
the realit y is that it is all just
one
more
mess
that she left behind.
Makeup on the counter. Half-used soap
in the shower. A backpack with a few items
thrown quickly inside – just enough to get her
through a couple of days – because she’d be
back to her apartment soon enough. To clean
up the clutter. To tidy up the mass of papers
and dirty plates and un昀椀nished plans.
But – just like her room – there is life in this
mess, too. There is an intention to carry on
to the next day and the day after that. There
is something about a mess that testi昀椀es that
you’re living – really living. Maybe not perfectly.
Maybe not in a way that you’d always be proud
of or want to plaster pictures all over social
media about – and de昀椀nitely not the way you
would choose – but you’re in the now, nonetheless. It’s a snapshot in time. It’s a photograph
of a moment in action.
You don’t leave it behind unless you “know”
you’re coming back. In the middle of the mess
is a smug claim on tomorrow. Strewn among
the wrinkled sheets and the cereal on the 昀氀oor
is an unwavering commitment to another day.
Cleaned-up spaces don’t quite give the same
April 2024 | JUMPLINE Magazine