Chapter 6 - #HeavenGainedAnotherAngel- Remi's Story

~~ Warning! Trigger warning now, going to be a hard solo. Loss of a loved one~~

#HeavenGainedAnotherAngel- Remi's Story

*The call came in early morning, not like I had enough on my plate with work, but as my mom spoke, I sat there, as people rushed in and out for paperwork handing it to my Vice as I waved my hand and told them to leave, all I could see was a blur and felt numb.

The emotions that flooded me from pain, to anger to sadness. The deeper I got into it, the deeper I wanted to scream at God, why. Why did he have to take him? I wanted to grab a bottle of whiskey but that was out of the question with reasons of one and another. I had barely had time to even make a relationship with Steve, and it wasn’t fair. Why? Why now? My mother had my son, why did my son have to see this.

I wasn’t one to show my feelings and be in the open, but things kept coming. I had to be the strong one for my mom and for my son #Nikko putting my emotions aside I sat up as many voices around me clouding my head as people tapped my shoulder. I was literally in a trance. I starred like I was a zombie.

Hanging up with my mom I wiped one tear away as I got up looking around as I saw my VP walk in looking worried for me, I cleared my throat as I looked at Clark, “Listen Clark, I am going to be taking a few days for bereavement, “ I put my hands up “My mom is okay, okay as she can be, #Nikko is alright too.” That’s all I could say before I chocked up and turned as I grabbed a tissue and looked out the window.

I walked up grabbing the window sliding as I looked down and back up clearing my throat trying so hard not to cry. “Clark you know how to handle the affairs, idf anything comes up you know how to get ahold of me. But I have to go,” with that and him saying don’t worry boss we got this take time for you I couldn’t. I couldn’t be there.

I walked with a fast pace in my step as I grabbed my bag putting my hand to my mouth with the tissue to hold it in, but as I hit the elevator to open and walked in I hit the door to close and just stood there as the tears couldn’t and wouldn’t stop I couldn’t control it. It was like I was losing everything. I had lost my real dad, and never could get that relationship back on track for the life of me; but now the only father I had ever confided in and he tried so hard to help me both in relationships, my mom hell even my own son he considered his grandchild and gave that boy the world.

I wanted to break right there; my knees almost buckled beneath me. I grabbed the railing in the elevator as I got my footing and ran out of that elevator once it hit open so no one would see the pain walking in from their lunch, even the security stood up thinking something had happened as I waved them off and went out to the parking garage.

I found my car, throwing my purse in as I turned it on, and as I pulled out not caring what was with me or what I had, I needed to be my mothers’ side. She would be hysterical. The man who showed her true love and gave his all to help her was gone, “WHY GOD WHY” I screamed as I hit the car steering wheel. It hurt, it was like my heart was being pulled out of my chest.

The only men that ever loved me were vanishing, fading away and I should have been used to this, but this one. This one was like my whole world was being shattered into pieces that I could hardly pick up any and everything. He was a healthy 40ish year old man, why, why now why here when I barely could make time to see him, he deserved so much more than I gave him as a stepdaughter. He pulled me out of everything and gave me everything, it wasn’t fair.

As tears fell a song hit the radio that just made it even more a reality,

"I Wish Grandpas Never Died"

I wish girls you love never gave back diamond rings

I wish every porch had a swing

Wish kids still learn to say "sir" and "ma'am"

How to shake a hand

I wish every state had a Birmingham

I wish everybody knew all the words to Mama Tried

I wish Monday mornings felt just like Friday nights

And I wish even cars had truck beds

And every road was named Copperhead

And coolers never ran out of cold Bud Light

And I wish high school home teams never lost

And back road drinking kids never got caught

I wish the price of gas was low and cotton was high

I wish honkytonks didn't have no closing time

And I wish grandpas never died

I wish Sundays on a creek bank would never end

Wish I could learn to drive again

I wish the first time, seventeen, she was my everything

Kiss in a Chevrolet could happen every day

I wish everybody overseas was gonna make it home

I wish Country music still got played on Country radio

And I wish even cars had truck beds

And every road was named Copperhead

And coolers never run out of cold Bud Light

And I wish high school home teams never lost

And back road drinking kids never got caught

I wish the price of gas was low and cotton was high

I wish honkytonks didn't have no closing time

And I wish grandpas never died

Never died

And I wish good dogs never got grey and old

I wish farms never got sold

And I wish even cars had truck beds

And every road was named Copperhead

And coolers never run out of cold Bud Light

I wish high school home teams never lost

And back road drinking kids never got caught

I wish the price of gas was low and cotton was high

I wish honkytonks didn't have no closing time

And I wish grandpas never died

I wish grandpas never died

https://youtu.be/LyxjNSHNYwk

The song hit me like a ton of bricks, Steve wasn’t my grandpa he was my dad but the pain #Nikko at only 3 would be feeling hearing grandpa is gone and not coming back, how do you explain that to even a 3 yr. old to understand he’s with god. I mean sure, when his goldfish drown because he thought he could play with it with his trucks, I had to explain heaven in a 3 yr old way but to explain the same about his pa pa as he called him, would be the death of even me. My heart.

My mom explained she hadn’t told him; it was hard enough on my mom.

It didn’t take me long as I pulled up to my mom’s house, a big mansion. Steve loved to live lavishly because he had the money to do it, his moto was yolo, as I chuckled thinking about it as I got out closing my car door as I wiped my tears looking up at the house. This huge house for just my mom and him and of course myself and Nikko when we were there.

I could see already Doctors coming out as they saw me heading up the steps grabbing my hand as they went on about being sorry, going on about a coroner had already come and gathered Steve’s body, his body I thought. Those words hit me like a knife as tears came again almost buckling under me

Then as I almost hit the floor I could hear Pastor Sam get my arms as he stated “there there I got you come dear” Pastor Sam was like a brother, a family dear friend to my mother and Steve. Of course, he would already be there.

Silence was running through my veins as they tried to sit down with me. Mom knew it was coming, she had been to church everyday as well her friends and family coming in and out hell even my own father had been calling to make sure she was ok, which came as a big surprise to me; I guess he had gotten out on probation. Everyone was here for my momma, so she knew it was the only way and finally came to terms.

I guess she couldn’t tell me, but as I sat there, Pastor same rubbing my hand as she sat in front of me kneeling, a tissue in her hand as she looked at me and smiled touching my cheeks “baby girl, he had cancer he didn’t want us to tell you because he knew hoe much it would hurt you to know.” As she told me and tried to console me, “mom if you would have told me I would have been better I would have done everything I could. “ Mom said “Darling your father Steve had all the money in the world and he didn’t want to try because he said the best life he had was with me you and #Nikko and if it was his time, it was his time.” I could hardly breathe it was an ache like a hole being made in my soul. I knew in my head he was in the best place now but it hurt.

 I wasn’t ready, I just I wasn’t ready to hear all this, I had bottled so much inside of me for so long I couldn’t hold it anymore. It was more than just the heavy loads of taking on the business fully on his side of things alongside my business, which as my mom spoke she tried to make light that he had signed over everything to me, the house the business everything, and my mom was okay with that because she said she didn’t deserve it, I know she was just trying to make me feel better but I had just lost the only father figure I had and I never got to tell him how much he meant to me truly. Through everything, even when he tried to pay people to be my friend I was furious with him and I never treated him the same since, that was totally unfair of me and I should have told him I loved him that I cared that he was only trying to help

As I sat crying it all came out of me rushing as I couldn’t stop. “He was the one who I hugged and cried to over my real father when I was barely 4, he was the one who took me on my first horse back ride, the one who got me through school even if my heart wasn’t in it, the one who urged me to go into technology and to start my own firm, hell he even bought my first office building. Everything he did he did out of love and he knew I needed that push. He was the one that danced with me when I was such a small girl. What about those daddy daughter days, the talks about boys when I did give a damn about them He knew me inside and out, my darkest of dark secrets even of what really happened to Nik and I. He knew me and I never got to thank him.”

The ache in my chest was growing, it was like I couldn’t breathe. It was like I was caving in. The Pastor sat down concerned as I was just blank, and pale. My mom sat on the other side of me, “babygirl?” I could barely hear them, both talking that I was not myself. They knew it hurt as they tried to console me. It wasn’t fair of me to be this way, but even my own mom wasn’t falling apart as I was.

How Could I be myself, I just lost the one person in my life I could count on, the one rock I had. The one who supported my dreams and not put their own on me, the one even through his wicked drinking spells would have me right by his side helping him work through his own demons. I was my Fathers mini me, a spitting image of his work ethics, of his emotionless having to be the backbone of the family I was his daughter and he was my father. Through the good and the bad it was just that.

I got up moving away from my mom and the pastor. I needed air as I went to the back porch. As I watched Nikko was playing outside.  I couldn’t do this. Not now. I walked into the room where the pastor and my mom were talking looking at me making remarks how it was tough, I couldn’t help but yell “He isn’t DEAD okay!” I screamed out. I knew he was but I couldn’t come to terms or fathom the fact he was gone.

As all of them looked puzzled at me, I couldn’t be touched as the pastor tried to talk calmly to me, I screamed to leave me alone. I ran off the porch. My aching pain growing as I couldn’t let them see me, I was broken and this was the turning point. There was no coming back from this.

I had Steve’s golf keys. I shouldn’t have been driving in this state, and I knew Nikko was in good hands but steve used to grab me up in his arms after a fight with my real dad or a tiff with momma and fly me on his shoulders taking his golf cart out to the ocean that was just a few miles up the road from his home and would talk to me for hours as we watched the waves and even people watched. I was young and laughed out up. That was all I could think to do, grab his keys and make those dust clouds. Maybe I could see him maybe he would be right there with me. Maybe.

The pastor and my mom walked out and down the porch to start to go after me, I hopped up in the driver’s seat, momma was crying “She is going to hurt herself stop her please. I can’t lose her too.” Momma knew I was her link to seeing papa again some way and somehow because she knew Steve was in me the way I did business the way I did my life it was all Steve. The pastor yelled after me as I could hear mom yell “Foolish girl stop this” I didn’t care what any of them said as the pastor walked up and pleaded he worried about me. I shut it all out, I was shutting myself down. “Please I need to do this, take care of mom, I just need to take a breather.” He nodded understanding what I was going through as he turned “she will be fine, come #Nikko lets go get ice cream.” I nodded smiling to mom as the tears fell.

I flew out of there like a bat out of hell heading for the dirt path that lead to the ocean cliffs where we would sit, putting the country music on blast as it could be heard clear across the beach at the bottom of the cliffs today I didn’t want to just go to the cliffs, I wanted to feel the ocean floor beneath my toes, I didn’t care who was listening or what was being done around me as I went down the beach path, the lifeguards knew my dad’s golf cart so they knew I was okay to be on the beach.

Taking to the paths I hit the brake as I jumped out and hit the beach floor in front of the ocean, grabbing the dirt as it flew around me as the tears kept coming and I knelt there on all floors then coming back up to sitting on my knees.  I screamed out as I yelled up, “Why? Why now? Why didn’t you just heal him. Father Why didn’t you come home and back to me. “I cried out as the tears wouldn’t stop. I threw the dirt. I was throwing the biggest adult tantrum but I was angry, angry that I lost the best thing keeping me together he was the only rock I actually had, from my mom giving up when I was little to my real dad to the love I thought I had with nik, the only solid thing in my life besides #nikko, an adult figure I looked up to was now gone. I was being selfish, to my mom to my son to everyone. But I took it harder than any of them. Today Heaven gained an angel and I lost my best friend. I lost the best thing in my life. And I was losing myself in the process

#TBC