Dearest Squad,
[WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS]
Yeah. I had to write this chapter. Sorry-not-sorry.
I was crying so hard when started writing, and it was at the end of a chapter that was already over 3000 words. ALL these last chapters have clocked in at around 3000 words. [Edit: this essay was written before I broke them all up for Tapas] I swear I didn’t intend for the end of this novel to be so weighty! But, to be fair, I did know that Thursday’s book had a lot of story to carry. I guess that’s why it’s taken so long.
I wanted to give this moment the space and emotional punch it needed to have. I wanted to tell it right. And in order to do that, I needed this moment, tears and all.
I wrote this chapter for me.
I am no stranger to crying while writing. I just try not to do it in public when at all possible—my emotions tend to be contagious, and they do have a tendency to worry people.
When I started writing that famously beautiful essay about my nephew Josh’s funeral (Alethea and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Magical Day), I was in a Starbucks. Thankfully, I caught myself before I got too far and moved to the foot of a tree in the courtyard outside to finish. And cry. So much crying. I watered the hell out of that tree.
I didn’t, however, leave the Subway while writing my journal entry after Kate Baker’s dad passed away in 2019—I was storm chasing at the time, and I didn’t want to leave my crew (or get left behind!). We were in Burlington, Colorado and it was Memorial Day, and I was remembering that the last time I had watched a Memorial Day parade was with Robert while I was visiting Kate in Connecticut a few years before. I had that busted ankle at the time and could barely walk—he and I sat together in lawn chairs on the side of the road to watch the festivities. And because Robert was a veteran, he stood and saluted every time anyone in the parade had an American flag on display. I will always remember the biker gang who stopped in the middle of the parade and saluted him back.
If you have never experienced watching a Memorial Day parade with a veteran, you really should.
Emotions are fleeting, and I’m a poet. Emotions are everything, especially when writing. I knew I had to write that journal entry, about that exact man, on that exact day…and I had to be quick about it because storm chasers always need to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. So I scribbled frantically as the tears fell—silently, thankfully. I don’t think any one of my crew even noticed.
But someone did.
As we stood up to leave, an older woman came up to me—a complete stranger—and asked if she could give me a hug. Of course, I said yes. Because in that moment, it was exactly what I needed.
And if my storm chase crew—the majority of whom I met for the first time that season—didn’t know I was the type of person that random strangers offered to hug out of the blue, well, they learned that day.
I was in an online writing session with Nisi and Tempest when I wrote the first half of this chapter, and I apologized while wiping the tears off my face during our break time. They’re writers. Friends. Family. I knew they would understand. Nisi told me that the ability to make one’s self laugh or cry like I do is the mark of a special person.
And you know, in that moment, that was exactly what I needed to hear.
May all we who are lost someday be found.
Love y’all!
xox
Princess Alethea
PS – I don’t drink, so I interviewed Chris as reference for all my descriptions of “what alcohol tastes like to people who enjoy it” in this chapter. Thank you, Lucy Lakestone! Y’all should go read all her books. Especially the cozy mystery series.
PPS – Like Magpie, my little sister also smuggled a flask into my grandmother’s funeral. She shared it with Josh. I’m glad she did. She might have even done it again for Josh’s funeral the year after—I don’t remember. But I don’t blame her.
✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨
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