Untypically in Love: Everything Changes

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Read the full story, chapter by chapter here.

Some names and events have been changed to protect the identity of certain individuals.

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Chapter Eighteen
Everything Changes

Matt and I sat around the large wooden table in the dining room of the Woodruff house. School had been particularly long. I had been avoiding Megaera because she insisted that Matt and I would never last and we were being overly dramatic about the seriousness of our relationship. The argument started when she found out I went to Church. She said I was being trapped. Being changed. I wasn't going to be 'Jia' anymore.

I was beyond exhausted. I was tired of explaining. Tired of trying to find a balance.

She didn't understand. This wasn't just about Matt. This was about me too.

But as much as I wanted to know about the Church and have my questions answered, my sleepy eyes fell heavy as the young missionaries sat across the table, trying to tell me the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I leaned on my hand to prop my head up, but I fell asleep so instantly that my arm gave out and I nearly smacked my face into the table.

I looked to my side and Matt too, was sleeping.

It wasn't the fault of the missionaries of course. It was hot, we were tired, and there was nothing shiny to keep our attention. 

"Sorry," I yawned. "I need a cup of coffee."

The missionaries exchanged nervous glances.

By the time they left, they handed me a Book of Mormon and asked me to read several passages, ponder and pray about what I had stayed awake through (my words, not theirs). I felt bad, but I didn't even crack open the cover for the whole week until the following Monday rolled around and we were back at Matt's house, sitting across the table from the missionaries again.

They taught me about God. About Jesus Christ and his ministry. Where we came from before we were born, and where we go when we die. Coming from a family that experienced death as often as the passing of the seasons, the subject was very close to my heart. I asked so many questions that the missionaries had to write them down, insisting that they would prefer to think about some of them, pray and return with answers. I accepted.

As weeks passed, things began to change.

Matt and I grew closer in new ways. The original passion was changing into something new. I no longer desired to spend every moment together locked in long tempting kisses. I'd rather sit close, his arms wrapped around me, our fingers intertwined. I stopped being afraid that I'd lose him. I started realising the potential we actually had. Words like 'forever' took on new meaning.

Going to Church became a typical thing for me. I even began attending early morning seminary. My family always knew where I would be at any given moment. I was happier. I was kinder. My aunt even took me off birth control, which in our house seemed to be a rite of passage when you turned fifteen, regardless of whether or not you were actually having sex. Paula liked to be prepared. But she said I didn't need it anymore.

She trusted me.

I'd never been trusted before.

Another Monday came by and I was wide awake as I sat across the table from the missionaries. I had planned ahead and drank three cappuccinos before coming to meet with them. I wanted to be alert so I could learn more. I had more questions and they had promised answers. So far everything they had told me I accepted. I'm not certain I believed right away. But it made sense. It felt right. Nothing bothered me. 

"The Lord has given us a way to be healthy by avoiding things that can cause us harm." The missionary with the thick glasses said. "He asks us to avoid things like alcohol, drugs . . ."

"Well that makes sense." I smiled.

"... and tobacco and coffee." He finished speaking.

I paused for a moment, the smile wiping from my face. They had to be joking. Alcohol and drugs I could understand. Having my mother killed by a drug and drunk driver made it easy to 'just say no'. But I drank more coffee than water on a daily basis. And I had been secretly smoking on and off since I was eleven. I thought for a second about my supposed 'additions' and then sighed lightly, folded my hands and smiled.

"Well, it was nice meeting you both." I said and then turned to Matt. "I'll see you tomorrow at school." I stood up and made a bee line for the door.

"Wait!" One of the missionaries said, the other flipping through his scriptures, hoping to find something to help me stay and listen to the rest of their lesson. 

"Sorry guys, but there's not a thing on earth that will stop my from drinking coffee." I informed them stubbornly.

"What if we give you a coffee substitution?" The shorter one without glasses asked. "My Mom drinks it. It's not actually coffee, but I guess it tastes like it."

I understood their determination. Almost a month had gone by and they had invested a lot of their time and energy in teaching me. I sighed, guilt getting the best of me and I sat back down. 

"Fine." I muttered. 

The missionaries stayed true to their words, bringing by a canister of this instant non-coffee. The first time I tasted it, I gave them a look and their silent response told me they thought immediately I might through it at them. But like I made my own coffee in the mornings, I tweaked here and there and soon discovered that it tasted less like coffee and more like a fancy latte, but more than half the price.

"It's acceptable." I said slowly, sipping from the cup as I sat back down and we continued.

In our final lesson, I was taught about temples and eternal marriage. About how families could be together forever, even after death. I almost cried thinking about it. Thinking about seeing my Mom again.

I had seen her before, in my dreams. All my life she came now and then, my personal guardian angel, talking to me when I needed comfort, and scolding me some nights when I had disrespected my family. And even though it was never anything like seeing a ghost or some theatrical thing like that, there were moments all my life where in the silence, I knew she was there beside me. 

The idea of seeing her and being connected to her forever, even after I died, was a glorious thought.

The missionaries talked to me about being baptised into the Church, and I promised that I would pray about it, think about it and get back to them later. It was something I did not want to take lightly. I wanted to be absolutely certain that I was doing the right thing, for the right reason.

Summer fell into autumn quickly and Halloween came upon us. Matt came over to our house and we all dressed up. I found an old dress suit that was too big for me. The plaid green pattern never looked right, and the jacket had giant 80's-tastic shoulder pads that made me look man-ish. But on Matt, the outfit looked perfectly ridiculous, and seeing that he didn't have a Halloween costume, Kristine and I took over, painting his face and putting sparkly clips in his hair. Ru Paul would have killed over had he/she seen it. He looked like Janet Reno with facial hair.

Grandma loved it.

Matt walked into her room to say hello as he always did, and she looked him up and down before bursting into joyful laughter and kicking back and forth in her rocking chair. Despite having paralysis in half of her face, her grin spread across her jaw equally, nearly reaching her ears. I loved it when Grandma laughed. There was no other laugh in the world that was as full of heart and encompassed in joy. 

She giggled, pulling him close to her, looking at the skirt and patting his hairy legs with her frail little hands, giggling the whole time. Naturally, the goatee he wore made the outfit all the funnier. She laughed and shooed us out of her room, silently insisting that if we stayed she wouldn't be able to stop laughing.

That was the last time I remember hearing her laugh.

A week later I sat in the top bunk of the room that Kristine and I shared, flipping through the Book of Mormon that the missionaries had given me, marking scriptures that stood out to me, made me feel things, or that I had questions about.
 

"Can you hit the light?" Kristine moaned into her pillow, trying to sleep.

"Yeah, I'm done." I said, closing the book and turning the light off. I said a prayer that night, asking for answers. Asking for a path. Perhaps even a sign. And then I fell asleep.

At around three in the morning, our bedroom door creaked. My groggy eyes opened and I looked at the figure standing in the doorway. "Grandma?" I asked.

She moaned, taking a few steps inside the room, painful cries escaped her lips as she reached around, touching her back with her good hand. 

"Your back hurts?" I asked her and she nodded, crying.

I had no immediate reason to worry. Grandma was always in some sort of pain. The stroke had taken it's toll on her and this was not the first night she woke me up because of such discomfort. Doctors insisted that she wasn't on the right medication, or she was sleeping wrong, or it was complications from her overworked left muscles, and underused right muscles. I hated going to the doctors offices with her. They never helped, and they rarely seemed to care. She was old, past seventy after all. People in their seventies who suffered strokes, blood clots, hernias and heart attacks in the last ten years were going to be in pain.

"I'm sorry," I sighed. "Go back to bed and try to get some sleep." I encouraged her, not knowing what else to do. 

To this day I hate myself for brushing her off so easily.

Grandma cried once more and then slowly turned, limping away back to her room.

I felt terrible. Guilt overwhelmed me. I wished that there was something I could do. I thought about getting out of bed and going to her room. I could sit by her side and run my fingers through her hair like she used to do when I was a little girl. I wanted to do something.

But I had to be awake in a few hours. I had to go to school. I had to go back to sleep.

"God," I whispered. "Be with my Grandma." 

Several hours later a sharp pain shot through my chest and knocked the breath out of me. For a second I thought I had fallen off of the bunk bed. Then a voice shouted. I recognized it immediately. I had heard it every so often in my dreams. It was the voice I knew to be my mothers. But this time instead of being soft, quiet and gentle, it was loud, fierce and urgent. The words didn't come to me at first, but when I opened my eyes and sat up straight, holding my chest as I tried to catch my breath, I heard it again.

"Get up! Don't let her die alone!"

I jumped off the top bunk, hitting the ground hard enough to send burning pains up through my feet. The loud sound echoed in the room, loud enough that Kristine woke up with a jolt. I nearly tripped into the door before opening it. As I stepped into the hallway, I stopped breathing for a second as I panicked, turning to face Grandma's door. 

And then I heard her scream.

>>> Chapter Nineteen