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Nothing could ever have prepared me for what happened to Grace. I’d gone from a time where elation and hope filled my heart and it had instantly turned into despair. Instead of a lifetime of happiness ahead, we were thrown into circumstances where life and death played out simultaneously.
When the prognosis was days rather than weeks, Grace’s impending final moments I’d imagined a harrowing scene in my tortured imagination as one where I fell to the floor, my legs giving out as I screamed loudly and unashamedly in my grief, begging for God to give her back to me.
However, in the very moment when her death came, and I thought my delicate heart would combust or shatter beyond repair, it did neither.
Staring down at her lifeless body, still warm, but at peace, a tight band formed in my chest, the likes of which I had never experienced before. My heart, instead of becoming filled with excruciating pain, felt numb and frozen.
I looked at the girl I thought I would love forever, and for a moment, I felt detached as a multitude of emotions crammed into my head, and I couldn’t think for the static noise and a crushing pain that dulled my senses.
Despite my grief at losing Grace, I thought I would love her for all of my life. Instead of allowing the threatening mountain of grief I’d suppressed to overwhelm me, it was anger that took over. Robbed of our future as a family, I felt far too incensed at the world to allow my heart to break. Then the dam of misery caught up to me and it broke me.
For that first month after my girl had died, I couldn’t see the purpose of her life, nor mine for that matter. After all, I had felt she was meant to love me, and me only her, so what was the point of going on without her? Layla.
The sunny, if somewhat reserved, disposition I’d always been known for, changed the day I found out Grace was dying. Up until then her optimism had always fueled mine.
From the day the oncologist sat wearily by her bedside and discussed her palliative care until the day she passed five days later, Grace never shed a tear. Not in front of me anyway. I’d like to say I was as brave as her, but I wasn’t.
In truth, I was warring with the enormous emotional misery I felt because of something so profound and life changing; no amount of resourcefulness could ever combat it.
Severe bitterness took over, and although I hid it well from Grace, everyone else bore the wrath of my fury. Naturally, I was as angry as fuck… with my wife, with her OBGYN team, and I blamed them for their lack of diligence, for ruining what should have been a lasting love story between Grace and me. But most of all, I was angry at the world for leaving my beautiful little daughter without her mom.
Throwing down the bourbon, I winced as it burned my throat then my chest, before the pain slowly ebbed away as it settled in my stomach.
Placing the glass on the bedside table, I unbuckled my black leather belt and slid it through the loops until it was free of my jeans. Winding it around my hand, I walked over toward the dresser and set it down, taking my wallet out of my back pocket and leaving it beside it.
Placing my hands on the dresser, I bent to look at my reflection in the mirror and I hated the gaunt, haunted figure of the man who looked back. Time had changed me. Grief had stolen my smile and dulled my normally bright, hazel eyes.
There were dark purple circles under those dull, bloodshot eyes, the same eyes that even I knew once held a mixture of wickedness and amusement in their glint. I had a beard that made me look like some evil pirate from a B-rated movie, so overgrown and unappealing, but it covered a lot of my ashen complexion.
My loss had made a significant difference, ravaging my once appealing appearance, and it had left me looking like a disheveled shell of the man Grace knew.
Standing tall, I exhaled heavily and sounded defeated as my heavy heart tightened painfully in my chest. The burden of work reminded me of my public face, It was in conflict with my fears as the anxious, private man caring for a motherless child; the only real, tangible evidence of the love and life we had shared.
It was a much different life than the one I’d envisioned with Grace, but I knew no matter how deeply my personal loss had affected me; I had to go on for Layla.
Postponing the tour once again could kill the band, I knew that, and following the advice of everyone else had given me purpose—a mission—but it was making my daughter fret, and I knew before long it would eventually lead to her feeling unhappy.
I hated the thought of my daughter being unhappy because of what I did. When Mom had hired Harper, it was on a seven-year contract to ensure Layla’s stability in her formative years. Her thinking at the time being that Layla would then be old enough to travel with me with a personal tutor and chaperone, or by then my music career would be on the slide.
At the back of my mind, the time-limited contract was never far from my mind, especially with Layla getting older. With a sense of panic and a little over a year to figure out what was next for Layla, time had begun to look short.
Without her nanny, I knew I’d feel hopeless about facing the future. Plus, Layla idolized her, and in turn, so did I. She kept my daughter happy, grounded, and secure, and those were the most important things I had to focus on. Having Harper by my side was far better than facing Layla’s future upbringing alone.
The problem for me was Harper was young and very pretty. Being a nanny to a rock star should have been an exciting adventure for her. Instead, she’d been hired into a house full of grief and had pretty much had to figure things out for herself.
Before coming to us, Harper had been a bright college student learning all aspects of early childhood development and she had taught Pilates and yoga to fund further training as a nanny. Everyone in the household worried because of her age and thought her position wasn’t a role Harper would have aspired to do for the rest of her life, given her looks and abilities.
This thought depressed me as I unzipped my fly, dropped my jeans to my ankles, and stumbled out of them. Picking them up off the floor, I slung them over a high-backed chair. Eyeing the wet bar, I strode toward it without thinking, opened it and took out two dinkies of Irish whiskey.
Making my way back to the nightstand by the bed, I cracked the seal on both bottles, refreshing the half-drunk bourbon from my time in the elevator, before I shrugged myself out of my jacket.
Drinking usually eased my pain and helped me get some rest, but even as I crawled onto the huge, empty bed; I could tell it was going to be one of those nights where my mind kept my memories active.
True to form, one question led to another inside my head. What will happen to Layla when it’s time for Harper to leave? How can I work and travel with a seven-year-old? Who’ll help Layla with all the girl stuff growing up? Puberty, tits, bras, periods, boys. Fuck. How do I balance my little daughter’s life with the kind of work I do? Hundreds of questions: all about Layla, my precious, vulnerable little girl. With no answer to my questions forthcoming, another familiar emotion came over me— helplessness.
Helplessness turned to restlessness, which turned into anger once again. “Fuck!” I screamed in frustration to no one in particular, then at everyone… mostly at God.
Whoever said, ‘The good Lord doesn’t give you more than you can handle,’ had a warped sense of justice, because I hadn’t been handling anything very well at all since Grace had died. In fact, I was barely coping with my job, and that was all an act.
