Silent Echo by Rita Savage

Author:Rita Savage [Savage, Rita]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-22T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

The therapist's suggestion to choose a birthday seemed ridiculous as I left my appointment. I couldn't understand why she thought it would be important for me to select some arbitrary day out of the year to celebrate being born. Her forcing me to think about my personality and who I was at this moment compared to before that day in the woods, and what would happen if my memories ever return, gave me perspective. As much as I craved knowledge of the life I lived before, of where I came from, my parents, my education, my friends, my career, I had to realize it would never be the same.

No matter what happened in the days or years ahead, I was never going to fully be that person again. Everything about me had been shaped by these last three years, and I would forever be changed by it. It was going to be up to me what I decided to do with that.

I went home and went into the office. The calendars on the wall would soon flip over into a new month. More days. More Xs. I walked up to one and ran my eyes over the dates. For a brief second, they hesitated over the day I woke up in the woods. That would probably be the choice many people in my situation would make if they were tasked with choosing their own birthday. And it would make sense. That was the day this particular life started. In a way, that made it my birthday.

But the thought of turning that day into a celebration brought an uncomfortable, twisting feeling to the base of my spine. I commemorated that day each year. Maybe not in any sort of overt way. There was a lot of discussion on the website about how people dealt with the various milestone dates in their situations.

Whether it was the date of the crime they endured, the day their loved one was murdered or went missing, or, like me, the first day they remembered after losing their memory, these specific dates on the calendar carried weight, and each person had their own way of commemorating them. For some, it was just a matter of getting through them each year. They did everything they could to distract themselves so that they didn't think about it too much and wallow in grief. Others chose to actively mark the date with rituals and tradition, visiting the crime scene with flowers and pictures of their loved one or writing letters to the perpetrator, the victim, or even themselves, and burning them.

I didn't have any rituals like that. I leaned much further into the concept of just getting through. And that was the way I felt like I needed to keep it. I didn't know if I would go so far to say I thought of that day as sacred in any way. Maybe the complete opposite. But I hated the idea of turning it into any kind of celebration. It would feel like a mockery.

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