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Remembering a Friend

In 2022, I lost a friend who was so dear to me. He called us “kindred spirits” and we talked up until a couple of days before his mysterious death. We were close, yet so much about him I felt I never knew.

He was gentle in the face of my storms and though he was soft-spoken, he fought his demons every day in a way that took more courage than I have. He was two days away from forty when he passed, and it’s easy to say that’s too young to die. His flame burnt out, but his memory will live on in all the lives he touched.

He described himself as an eccedentesiast, and I am too to some extent, but his smile, though it hurt him, was one of the things I will remember him for. He smiled through the pain. I cannot write a eulogy for him because I didn’t know him like that, but from what I did know, he was a beautiful person who filled the world with positivity, even when he himself felt bleak.

Just a few of the lessons he shared with me along the journey.

He was found dead in his sleep in 2022, and I’m not sure if his family ever got the closure they deserve from this. I hope they do because I know from experience how closure can aid in the healing process, even if you don’t think you’ll ever be able to breathe again without a person.

I have trouble forgiving myself for some of the things I said to him before he died – things said with the intent to help him to live before he died, things said not knowing he was going to die young – but now hopefully, he can finally set his burdens down and he can be at peace somewhere in the heavens.

The last few weeks before he passed, we spoke frequently and he wrote me a poem. In it, he said, “Even in the darkest of nights and days, I know I can rely on her always.”

He called me his pretty Italian girl and encouraged me to write when I felt like quitting. He taught me to appreciate the parts of me I found ugly. He swore he trusted me, but I wonder how much of himself he hid behind that smile.

We talked about getting a cup of coffee together one day and sharing our writing; now, I imagine he writes in the stars and smiles down on me. I don’t know if I believe in Heaven, but I know I believe he deserves peace.

Today would have been his 42nd birthday, and while I have to move forward, when I hear the Beatles on the radio in the car, I still roll down my windows and belt it out just for you.

Just ignore the fact that sometimes when I sing along, I get a little misty-eyed, thinking of you.

Happy birthday, friend.

Isabelle Palerma

The Scent of Loss

The sky is the black of a bruised plum with a cobweb of stars scattered across it. The air no longer smells of stale cigarette smoke nor does it smell of his pungent cologne. It was a cologne kept in a green glass bottle on a high shelf that you sometimes uncorked to marvel at the power of its scent.

The air is empty. It smells of dry, autumnal leaves, and there is a chill. It makes you wish you were at a bonfire or anywhere but here. You are curled up on a reclining chair, wearing your favorite sweatshirt. Inside, there is no fire roaring in the fireplace like usual on a Friday night.

There is no fresh homemade bread baking in the oven. All the grown-ups are outside. Your mother’s eyes are bloodshot from crying. Even your father’s eyes are red-rimmed.

The moment is dark and heavy.

It as though they have forgotten you curled up in your favorite chair. You slip out the garage door past the knot of adults. You plop onto a gigantic geode that sits in the rock garden in the front yard, its many facets shine in the silver of the moon. As you inhale the air, you smell other fires in other people’s fireplaces.

You think of bonfires and candy apples and of Halloween. Halloween is only eight days away. You think of your costume still in its bag slung over your chair in the bedroom. You begin to hate Halloween. The red pencil you are writing with is the only sound as it scratches against the bone-white paper.

You tell yourself you will never forget this feeling, this moment. He is gone, and the world as you know it ceases to exist.

Darkness closes around you, but you do not cry. Though you are only eleven, you are aware of the darkness inside and outside of you. The air is empty.

The night is cold, and you are alone.

Isabelle Palerma

DV Awareness

October is usually saturated with pink for breast cancer awareness, but October is also Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The purple ribbon always reminds me of the line of bruises his knuckles left on my stomach.

I try to speak about my abuse broadly so not to trigger any survivors, but please read with caution if this topic is a sensitive one for you.

I am a survivor. I was only with him for less than a year, but that type of abuse knows no timeline. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been with a person. This type of abuse, like most, thrives in the dark and the shadows.

Some people ask me why I share my story. I’ve been accused of using my status as a survivor to garner sympathy, but this is just a page in my memoirs – not the entire story. The reason I share it is to bring awareness to the problem. To show people how it can happen to anyone.

I thought I was smart enough not to let it happen to me. I thought, I’m educated, I’m smart. I’ll leave if it ever gets too bad. But what I didn’t realize was the dangerous hold an abuser has over you.

It’s been over a decade, and I still have nightmares. I don’t know if they will ever go away, but I do know I saved a shard of one of the plates he threw at my head to remind myself that I’d never put myself in that situation again.

It wasn’t just physical. It was mental and sexual and financial. I no longer could afford to leave him. I was trapped.

Getting out was dangerous, but I needed to escape if I was going to live and for months, I was looking over my shoulder, constantly vigilant.

If you are in an unsafe relationship and need resources, I have some available here.