———- there are an infinite number of ways to miss someone.
TALENT. some would only mourn the loss of isobel stevens as a loss of talent, of USEFULNESS. her time spent in the or, though cruelly limited by the death’s gripping hands, was an art. latex-covered fingers gripped the scalpel with pride; the same FINGERS that once counted pennies to feed her mother’s careless spending on psychics. the same HEART who would give three pennies to someone else & only keep one for herself. & finally, the same MIND that fell for the man she once considered an ASS. ———- they slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered. things change, time ticks on, people evolve. they blossom like trees, their roots still snugly grounded from which they came, but growing fresher & more beautiful branches. those who didn’t know the young woman personally would consider her early fate a mere SHAME.
FRIENDSHIP. missing a friend is significantly more painful than losing a talented co-worker. after the death of a friend, one might submit to a week or two of mourning before brushing off the dust & hopping back on the horse. meredith & cristina silently entered her room shortly after her passing, respectfully packing a few of her things into boxes & tucking it away in the back of the closet. alex, of course, protested to anything being touched or even so much as looked at by another breathing soul. izzie knows he’s in pain, though, seeing her stuff everywhere, every day. her bright & flowery head scarves remain draped over the dresser, her bright pink bed sheets hug the bed snugly, the hello kitty snowglobe alex always tauntingly called ‘butt ugly’ still displayed on her nightstand. friends pack izzie stevens away into the boxes of their minds when the acceptable mourning time is over, keeping a few precious things out to remember her by occasionally.
LOVE. the harshest, fatalist version of missing someone is when that someone is a person you promised to love forever. they had vowed to stick together through sickness & in health, the only flaw being she never made it to the in health part. it isn’t fair; it never was. sure, they loved each other years before the marriage, & some would even say that caring about marriage is trivial & stupid. but izzie cares. she cares that her life, her through sickness & in health, was cut short. she cares that they would never get the chance to have a family together. she cares that she knows alex is irreparably destroyed by burying his wife. she cares that their ‘til death do us part came all too soon. that’s when it’s the most unfair.
the vibrant & sunny girl left her memories, her life, scattered around the old house. her bubbly colors litter the rooms, as if they are desperately screaming ’don’t forget me’ at the love of her life daily. leaving behind positive memories rather than sad ones was something the aspiring surgeon, of course, planned out. during her last night at the intern house, just days before she succumbed to the cancer that ate away at her frailed body, fatigued legs carried her around in a mission to leave alex pieces of her.
a little ‘merry christmas, alex. i love you so much & i wish i could be there. please put up a tree,’ note is strategically taped to the top of the box marked christmas decorations. inside lies a perfectly wrapped box, accented with a big bow. in it resides a wedding photo framed in pearly-white embroidery. (they had never gotten an actual wedding photo printed due to the chaos of her treatments & surgeries.) during her last days, she knew that she wanted to be there even if she couldn’t be. FOR ALEX, the man who was so used to people leaving without a trace, without reason. izzie stevens was always one to give three pennies & take one for herself. the stethoscope she consistently wore around her neck for years was placed back into the box & tucked into the closet. its note reads:
‘your heart is still beating. it’s okay to check sometimes.’
heartbeat thumping dully within his rib cage quickens, violently threatening to break out —— deafening, insistent, more akin to a drum beat than anything human. he’s suddenly made glad that everyone attending this pitiful two-weeks-before-christmas christmas party is downstairs in the living room, unable to hear it taunt him. his fingers are shaking when they reach out for the paper adorned with izzie’s(!) distinguishable rounded scrawl: living words of his dead wife, found by chance while rummaging through a closet for a hidden bottle of tequila. a seat is taken on the floor as he pulls the cardboard box out into the hallway, heart leaping into his throat as an unmoving hand hovers above the flaps of the box. this could be the first and only thing she left for him to find, continuing her life even in death just so he wouldn’t feel quite so alone, and the finality of that weighs down upon him; but she wanted him to find it & she knew that would prevent him from just shoving it back into the closet and storming off without a second thought.
so he lets her assist him in debriding the wound she left behind and opens the box, letting a fresh wave of pain run its course. he wants to tease her for this, for the sentimentality of it, but even if he considered lapsing briefly into the world of a kooky widow and talking to someone who wasn’t there, he wouldn’t be able to find the words. two boxes sit atop the decorations & he opens the wrapped one first because he recognizes the second, careful not to rip the wrapping paper. the frame within encapsulates the happiest day of his life; a turning point, a real commitment to someone else, something he never thought he could do. the way she shines in the picture is nothing compared to the way she blinded him that day. he runs a thumb over her face, stares at them —— together, happy —— until something splashes onto the glass & he realizes his reflection is crying. merry freakin’ christmas.
he places the frame on the floor beside him only for the second box, the one their stethoscopes had come in when they got them as interns, to take its place in his hands. another note dies as he reads it. it’s sticky sweet and tender ( and exactly what he needs. ) god, he would have ridiculed her. he would have teased her until she smacked him in the arm & called him an ass for being so callous. honestly, he still wants to, but instead he opts for placing the eartips in his ears, the chestpiece against his skin, and he listens. he listens to a drum beat even more forceful than when her first note was discovered. he listens to his lungs expand and contract erratically. he listens to silent sobs that reverberate too loudly in his ears. the stethoscope is curled around as he leans against the closet door’s frame and pretends that it’s her heartbeat he’s listening to, but never once does he wish for their places to trade. this agony is not something she needs to feel again // he will endure it for her.
eventually his heartbeat slows, his breathing regulates, and he removes the stethoscope from ringing ears —– though skin surrounding umber hues remains tellingly puffy and red. he should really get back to the living room before someone comes looking for him & finds him like this. everything is put back into the box of decorations except her stethoscope, which returns to the closet for him to retrieve later; it’s perhaps a bit too morbid to don his dead wife’s stethoscope ‘round his neck while at a christmas party, no matter how pathetic the party may be. when he lumbers downstairs, he is met with a strangely cheerful chorus of voices wondering where the tequila is, as if they are afraid he might shatter should they be any harsher in tone. in response, the box of decorations is plopped down onto the coffee table with a nod towards the skeleton of a tree in the corner. ( izzie would have been horrified at the sight of it. )
❛ someone help me put this crap up. ❜
it’s late by the time they finish & everyone but meredith winds up going home. the last beer is shared between them, both sets of eyes darting around the room at the trainwreck of christmas decorations until they mutually land on the wedding picture he discreetly put above the fireplace, her head plopping onto his shoulder in a gesture that he knows means I’M SORRY. ( “dude, this place is ugly.” “so ugly.” “how did she make it look so freakin’ nice?” )