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@ Beneath The Ink
2025-02-28 15:26:36
Every Sunday, my brother Alex and I would catch the scent of pie creeping from the oven as we chased Ronnie and Ellis around my grandma’s house.
We were good at keeping traditions. Though we eventually outgrew the days of stampeding through Grandma’s living room, her house remained our gathering place. The four of us—Alex, Ronnie, Ellis, and I—would settle on the back porch, the aroma of freshly baked pie still wafting through the air. We’d trade stories about our first crushes, our first kisses, and our dreams for the future, laughing in the warmth of a home that felt eternal.
Alex was the first to leave for college. He never really came back. Four years away, then a big-time job across the country.
Ronnie and Ellis—the twins—left a few years later. They never truly returned, either. Not the same, at least.
A cruel trick of biology had been lurking in the depths of their genes, lying in wait for the right moment to surface. In college, Ronnie was consumed by schizophrenia, while Ellis battled years of depression. They came back home, but they weren’t the same boys I had grown up with. The ones I had once sprinted through hallways with, laughing until our sides hurt, were lost to something none of us could chase down or outrun.
By the time I graduated, the scent of pie had vanished forever. My grandmother’s grave was my last stop before I, too, left town.
I never went back.
People leave in different ways. Some move to another city or another country. Some lose themselves to illness, slipping through our fingers even as they sit beside us. Some find their final resting place. All dearly departed.
What makes their departure so bittersweet is the time we once had with them—the memories we carry, the laughter that still echoes in the corners of our hearts.
That’s life. That’s what makes it worth it.