Four Days After (Pulse Reflections)

I think I am okay. That is until on the way home from a long shift construction on the I-4 inadvertently sends me right past Pulse’s front door. The sirens still blare in the distance and the FBI trucks are still sprinkled down Orange Ave. Another detour pushes me past the memorial at Orlando Health. Victims of the terror still lay in beds within the hospital walls fighting for their lives. Only a day ago I stood outside the Dr Phillips Center at a memorial and listened to the names of the 49 dead called from a list to be followed by 49 rings of church bells. 49 sounds like a lot of names and it is, but when each one was being read slowly and carefully it felt like an infinite number. And each ring of the bell felt like squeezing a lemon on deep cuts that couldn’t be seen.

I held a candle up in the dark, after the role call and after the bell tolls, in silence and solidarity. I thought that was enough. That I was okay. I thought my crying fit in the shower was the last one. However at 1am as I drive past Orlando Health and see all the candles lit by the Emergency entrance I see something else. By those candles an elderly woman is on her knees praying. I can see the sag in her back and the whiteness of her knuckles. And upon seeing her, despite telling myself I am okay, the sobs erupt from my chest. And as I slam my hand into the cold, leather ridges of my steering wheel I know I’ve been lying to myself.

I’m not okay.