So being back in that café, doing the drive here, it brought me back and it made me realize that even though I would do anything to have Yvonne back in our lives, because her absence is so sorely felt, we can’t live in the past. Our lives have changed, in some ways for the worse, but in other ways for the better. Because even though the loss of Amethyst’s mother is what ripped us apart, it also brought us together. We came together like bookends over the experience, bracketing something so awful and scarring with something more meaningful than life itself.
Love. As my father told me, love and loss go hand-in-hand, and though it took a lot of pain and self-sabotage to work my way through it, it turns out he was so right.
We’re all going to have loss, so thank god that we have love.
That’s how I like to see it. And life is all about the balance between the two.
“Here,” Amethyst says, passing me her mother’s urn while she slides her sneakers and socks off, toes sinking into the sand. It’s March, and normally it would be a dicey move for a human judging by how cold it is on the beach, the wind whipping off the Pacific, but Amethyst is a vampire and the cold doesn’t bother her.
She gives me a satisfied grin as she wiggles her toes. “Ahhh.”
Then she takes the urn back and starts marching toward the pounding waves and the setting sun.
Yvonne never wanted a funeral, so we didn’t give her one, and she didn’t want a celebration of life either since she hated people making a fuss over her. We ended up having a little ceremony for her in Dark Eyes anyway, with just Solon, Ezra, Amethyst and Lenore (oh, and Odin).
But then Amethyst wanted to do something special with the ashes. She says her mother always loved being by the ocean, and in passing once said she wanted her ashes in the Pacific.
Well, we’ve taken that to heart. Today Amethyst woke up and told me she had a dream about her mother and though she couldn’t remember it, she took it as a sign. So we borrowed the Mustang from Solon and drove up here with the urn, hoping to scatter the ashes in the ocean.
Of course, we didn’t plan for the whole wind factor.
“If I throw the ashes, it’s just going to come back in our faces,” she says with a shake of her head. “Mom wouldn’t like that.”
“We’ll get closer to the waves then,” I tell her.
I’ve never sprinkled anyone’s remains before—most of the dead bodies I’ve seen were left in the Black Sunshine—but the urn is heavy and I have a feeling there might be some bone fragments in there too. I take the urn from Amethyst and we walk right to the waters edge, close enough to get our toes wet.
“Do you want to say anything?” I ask her.
Though Amethyst has been surprisingly stoic this entire drive, her moods change on a dime. This is normal of course, she’s still grieving, and while she can be fine for days on end, suddenly a memory comes that knocks her off her feet. She always gets back up again, and when she can’t, I help her.
“I saw her,” she begins, staring out at the waves.
I adjust the urn in my hands, the sea foam spraying on my jeans, and I eye her curiously.
“I saw my mother when I died,” she goes on, giving me a fleeting smile. “I know I didn’t tell you that, for a while it kind of felt like it could have been a dream, but I know it wasn’t.”
I had no idea. My heart softens. “What was that like?”
Her smile turns bittersweet. “I felt love. So much love. And from the moment she passed on, you know, all I wanted was to have another chance to just be with her, to talk to her, to see her, and then I died and I did and…it makes me realize that it will never be enough. Having her back for that second, or however long it really was, wasn’t enough. I just want her back here, forever.”
“There’s never enough time,” I say, watching as the sun dips down, the ocean glinting with each wave. “Even for those of us who have nothing but time.”
“But that’s why I did this,” she says, gesturing to herself, meaning vampire. “Because I needed more time with you. I couldn’t fathom losing you after losing her. I couldn’t do it. Maybe that makes me weak, but losing my mom has made me realize how badly we need to hold on to the ones left in our lives, the ones that we love. I decided to hold on to you with everything I had.”