A Dent in Time

Ray lay sprawled across her bed staring at the wall. The same small dent that had bothered her for years caught her eye. She stared at it mindlessly not truly observing, lost in her own head. Her thoughts travelled far beyond the tiny blemish on the wall. They moved over the past several years. Memories – good, bad, ugly – all flashing below as she glided over them. Even as a bystander from above, she could see no explainable reason for the way her life went.

A series of unfortunate events, everyone agreed. 30 years old, raising her two now teenage nephews and feeling a bit lost in life. After the separate losses of her mother, her father, and her middle sister, she assumed their responsibilities. With each loss, she lost a part of herself too. She started just existing: robotically getting through her everyday tasks but not really living. Somewhere along the way, Ray stopped believing, she stopped being the bright-eyed cheerful young woman she once was and became lost in the daily bustle.

One afternoon, now a decade ago, mom asked me to help move her teakwood bookshelf. We took all the books off, dissembled its two pieces and, with all of our might, pivoted each heavy piece it until we got it across the room. Just as I was putting my side down, I bumped into the wall leaving that little dent. Mom was mad of course, annoyed that I had messed up her freshly painted walls, but much like always she forgave me quickly. That had been the weekend before she passed away and our lives so suddenly changed. The dent became a long-forgotten memory, lost in the chaotic turmoil. Today, Ray was reminded of the beauty of it all. What she would give to relive those moments…

Ray could feel the changes bubbling within, she felt her inner-voice becoming stronger. Fear had become a normal feeling. She often found herself wondering how to move on in life when her actions affected her whole family. Somewhere along the way, she lost her light. As someone who followed all the rules and checked all the boxes, Ray wondered what purpose she had to offer.

As Ray’s therapist would say; in religion or spirituality or belief in the universe, the idea is that - to succeed, you must learn to go with the flow. You must release all conditioning and fears to operate from the heart-space. Ray was finally getting in tune with herself, but she still didn’t know what she truly wanted. Writing had always been a passion; a form of self-therapy, but how could her writing benefit others as well? Ray’s eyes came back to the dent, and for the first time in a long time, she really saw.

Ray walked over to the bookshelf. She was looking for a writing book her mom bought her in the first year of university, but recalling the memory of that day, she had a change of heart. She began methodically removing the books, then slowly heaved the top portion of the shelf down. It was time to give this bookshelf a revamp. It was a nostalgic feeling. Ray hadn’t taken much notice of this shelf over the years; life was too busy. As she hunched over the back of the shelf to wiggle it forward from the wall, Ray noticed something wedged behind. Stretching across the bottom half of the shelf, she stuck her right arm between the wall and the wooden backing, reaching downward until her fingers clasped the dusty leather. Slowly, she pulled out a little black book.

Her mom’s notebook. A landslide of memories rushed in. This book represented so much of her childhood: school memos, soccer practice times, upcoming birthday parties. Her mom had carried it everywhere. She grazed her hands over the front and back. The aged and tattered grey cover felt like home. She opened it and slid her hands over the yellowing dog-eared pages. Ray began glossing over lists and notes; dates, swirling doodles, important events, each one a gentle reminder of a life that used to exist. She flipped through the pages, losing herself in her mom’s world, in the large bubbly writing that she remembered so clearly.

As she read through the pages, a small slip of paper fell out. She lightly set it aside, her eyes caught on a memo for her grade school zoo trip. She laughed aloud, recalling how much fun she had had on that trip. Her mom had come along as a parent supervisor, she recalled, realizing at once how lucky she had been.

Setting the notebook aside, Ray picked up the small slip of paper and unfolded it. Her eyes lingered over its contents – confused, she eyed the printed name, the date, the numbers. She read over her mom’s signature, that casual looping J and P, at least five times. She felt the blood rush to her head and squeezed her eyes closed for a brief moment, fighting to gain a sense of calm. Opening them, she looked over the thin paper. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t possibly be. But it was. A cheque signed to her by her mom. A cheque for twenty. thousand. dollars.

As she sat in stunned silence, sadness overtook her. A mesh of emotions. Loneliness. Loss. Missing. Is this the last thing she left to me? Her savings, savings of hands that worked for years and years to make sure her children would be taken care of. Things like this don’t happen to me to, Ray thought, puzzled at her fortune.

Sitting on her bedroom floor with her feet crossed under her, Ray stretched her arms over her head and forced herself to take deep calming breaths. She unplugged her phone, punched in the numbers to call her best friend, but received no answer.

In the silence of it all, Ray thought of all the times her mom pushed her to reach her goals. “Mom may not always have had the means to help, but she was always my number one supporter”, Ray thought as she gazed out at the night sky. “I know she would want me to move on to the next chapter of my life. Maybe all the trials and traumas over the years were life pushing me to find myself. A force urging me to let go of my negative patterns and push me into the best version of who I can be. Maybe I could mean more to someone by letting them know that they are not alone in their darkest times. I think it’s time to take some time off and get to writing more, I have always wanted to write a memoir. It’s time to leave fear behind, stop living for everyone else, go out and start chasing my passions. If everything truly happens for a reason, then I think it’s time I start believing and trusting in the alignment, I am ready.” For all her belief in the universe, this was the first time Ray was actually seeing the signs.