I believe in showers.

I believe in coming home after a long hard day at school and turning the shower knob to its hottest level and sitting in that steamed box for an extended period of time. I believe in washing off the emotional dirt we pack on from just a day's worth of being out in that great, big, scary world of life. I believe in sitting down in that shower and crying my eyes out, maybe for no particular reason or maybe for every reason you could think of things that could possibly go wrong in one day. I believe in hopping in the shower to clean off before primping and getting ready for a date, or a fancy dinner, or to just to get dressed up and feel the most beautiful you can be. I believe we all deserve that fresh, chilled feeling that washes over us when we step out of that watery sauna. I believe that every time we do, we come out a person with not only a clean body but a clean slate; a person more prepared for what is to come.

The day my grandmother passed: a day I never wanted to come face to face with. It was a day I had been inevitably been avoiding since she suffered from her stroke four years prior. Ever since we found her in her apartment the day of her stroke, she was never the same. Some days when I visited her in the nursing home she’d remember my name. Some days she wouldn’t even know her own. It was always the luck of the draw, and for four years I never really knew what to expect every time I walked into her room. It was emotionally exhausting, especially for a teenage girl trying to wade her way through middle school. Meme was everything to me, and these accumulated visits just felt like one big, cruel goodbye. Eventually the day came where I said goodbye to her for the last time.

The day I did say goodbye to Meme was a blur. I remember walking out of the nursing home I had been visiting regularly for the last time, and saying goodbye to the familiar faces of nurses I had become close with. I remember their pitied looks on their faces as they embraced me. They had been with us from beginning to end, providing Meme with the best care possible, and for that I was grateful. When I made it home, though, the last thing I felt was grateful. I felt disappointed. I had spent years interacting with a dulled version of my grandmother, my best friend, and deep down I think I truly believed she’d wake up herself one day. I would have dreams where I’d get a phone call from her, asking me to come meet her so she can leave the nursing home and we could go grab lunch. It would be exactly what she would say if she did wake up herself one day. I think I was genuinely disappointed when that day didn’t come. After all those years of waiting, she just leaves? I just couldn’t find the fairness in it. So when I got home, I took a shower.

I stepped into the scalding hot shower and let the liquid heat cascade over me. Once I was fully wet, though, I sat down. I sat in a curled ball and was surprised by the sound of my own sobs coming from my chest. I lost track of what were the hot tears rolling from my eyes and what was the water coming from the shower head. I sat in there until I my crying had ceased and my hands were pruned. And when I got out, I had nothing left in me to cry about.
I got out, and nothing was okay. My situation didn’t change. Meme was still gone, and I was still broken. But I felt like a more raw, vigilant version of myself. I was hypersensitive to my emotions, but I had better control of them now. The shower didn’t wash away my pain by any means, but it cleared my vision of where I was at in the moment. I wasn’t disappointed anymore that Meme had never gotten better. I now understood that logically that could have never happened. I accepted that she was gone, and I was glad she finally let go. It had been long overdue. God called to her the day of her stroke and being the strong willed woman she was, she didn’t listen. She stuck around and suffered for longer than she should have, but that was all over now.

After I cleaned my body in that shower, I think I cleaned my perspective as well. Nothing was okay then, but I knew it was going to be one day.

I believe that the happy days I spent with Meme were golden. I believe the darker days were full of purpose. I believe nothing lasts forever, but you can make someone live longer by keeping their memory alive. And ever since the day I lost my best friend, I believe that the remedy to a broken heart is a hot shower.