Not yet

“mom...Mom! MOMM!?!!?!!” My voice breaks as I hear the steady beats become one.

I hear all of the doctors yelling over one another, “we’re losing her! -CLEAR! - hold pressure!” And then everything’s silent. Everything but the slight buzz and excruciating pounding noise in my own head.

BUM BUMM

BUM BUMMM

BUM BUMM

I didn’t even get to hold her as she died.

She’s just... gone

My entire body shakes and trembles, but I can’t move, I can’t think.

My mom, the woman who brought me into the fucking shitty world!

She can’t be gone. She can’t be.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -Day 3 after- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“What do you mean we can’t hold a funeral there?” My dad yells exasperatedly at the phone.

“I’m sorry sir, but with everything that’s going on lately, we are trying to help flatten the curve, you have to understand, with the stay at home order issued by the governor, all venues are closing down to help with social distancing”

“Fuck social distancing!” He shouts, “my wife, the love of my life, my children’s mother, is dead. I have a 17, 12, and 5 year old, and you expect me to explain to them that their mother is just gone?!”

“I am truly sorry, there’s nothing we can do sir”

“Of course not,” he responds rubbing his temples, “I’m sorry, it’s not your fault, thank you for trying.”

“Really, sir, if there is anything else we can do-“

“No, it’s fine, I’m good, thank you, have a good day,” my dad says curtly as he hangs up the phone.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -1 month after- - - - - - - - - - - - -

I close the computer, shoving my math work to the side of the table. I just finished my school work for the day, and it’s just about lunch time. I walk over to the charger in my room to grab my phone, and pull open the news app as I walk to the kitchen.

“President hoping to call off social distancing acts to jumpstart the economy”

I stare at the headline for a second, marveling at the stupidity. I know the entire economy is a total mess right now. Millions are attempting to work at home, and millions of those who can’t have been laid off. But, we don’t even have a vaccine at this point. Hospitals are still lacking necessary materials. My mom died from this, but somehow the best plan of action is to spread it around more and take more children’s parents and grandparents from them.

Great. We have an idiot in office. And the world is going to shreds. Wonderful time to be alive, isn’t it?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -6 months after- - - - - - - - - - - -

I sprint down into the living room after hearing my dad say the magic words we’ve all been hoping for.

“They created a vaccine”

Tears start streaming down my face. We’ve been waiting for this since the day Mom died. If only she’d had access to it, maybe things would’ve turned out different. But, it finally exists now.

The entire economy is a mess now, but this is the road to recovery.

Over the past couple of months, the stay at home mandates have slowly disappeared, as the government tried to encourage people to return to work. But, as I imagined, people are weary of going out. Nobody wants to get infected. However, without the economy moving, we still have huge problems.

Even with the vaccine, life will be different... and I’m worried.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -1 year after- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I’m applying for colleges right now. Or at least trying to. I’m not a bad student, I have a 3.4 unweighted gpa right now. But that doesn’t tell anything about me as a student... does it? It doesn’t explain my work ethic, my passions, or anything about my intelligence. It’s just a number a group of randomly selected teachers assigned to me. But somehow colleges thought it to be a great plan to not require SATs or ACTs. Where does that leave me?

I don’t have many extracurriculars, jobs, or volunteer work that I did. Not for lack of trying, but after what happened with my mom, my dad has been extra careful about us being in public spaces.

It seems like everybody wants to go in-state now, so I’m just hoping I’ll get in. I’m not even worried about a scholarship at this point. However, college prices are crazy expensive after everything that happened, and I don’t have that kind of money. I can’t afford college without taking out debts that’ll follow me the rest of my life.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -5 years after- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I haven’t read any of this since I was filling out my college applications. And a lot has happened since then. You’d think everything would be over by now. But no, not yet.

No amount of time will erase the millions of lives that were lost. Nothing will make me forget my mom, or the flatline sound of her heart stopping. But not everything stopped. The cycle of life and death continues. Babies are still being born, completely innocent, and unaware of the complete disaster we went through. And people are still dying of disease, and old age. Everybody knows that war changes people. I’d never planned to go to war though. And its over, everything’s balancing out again. So I should be good. I should be able to move on with my life.

Everything is done and over with. We are all moving on with our life’s. But the small voice in my mind, the image of my dead mother, my rejected college applications, my community college debt, the eviction from my apartment, my declined job applications, all of it tells me, nothing is over, not yet.