Postcards From Heaven
Callie Shaw
March 2021
I sat in a True Food Kitchen in Palo Alto, California. The restaurant was empty, the conversations were low, the eyes of family members clouded and drooped.
“Cal, what did she say to you when you went in?” my mother wearily asked.
“She hugged me for a while. I whispered to her that I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. She said ‘Look up and talk to me. I’ll be there. Promise.’”
I walked through the hallway, a shell of myself. Memories flooded in: the pink tiled bathroom where I had panic attacks, the hierarchical steps leading to the lunch table I earned my spot at Junior year, the painted-over walls where my campaign posters hung- boasting my social anxiety for the world to see. Walking out of the senior quad, I walked into adulthood. Death, separation, fear, and unknown greeted me- swirling around, petting me with their intoxicating touch.
No flowery language or perfectly strung-together syllables could say it better: what a couple of years. The girl who walked out of her high school on a two week break is not the girl I see in the reflection of my dusty, medicine cabinet mirror that hangs over my laminate countertop filled with used coffee mugs and wine glasses. I stare her in the eyes, investigating her pores too closely, lifting my shirt up to see my softer stomach and a wider waist. A woman, I remind myself. No longer that girl, she is gone.
I keep a list in my “Notes” app titled “Thoughts.” A scattered, messy depiction of my brain lies on the off-white page. The very first line reads, “I hope you find quiet moments to love yourself.” I remember starting this notes page and writing this stand-alone thought on the plane home from the Bay Area, March 12th of 2020. My eyes were red and tired, drooping with the weight of my Aunt’s passing looming over us. I remember looking out the window watching the pillowy clouds pass us by, propelling us into this new reality. My mom wiped down every surface of that plane, each inch personally disinfected by her tired hands. We waited on the phone call for two weeks. The “two weeks to stop the spread” became the two weeks between my last words with my Aunt and her final passing. My sister and I sat on the couch of our warm, usually smiling home. Projected on the TV we watched a live stream of my Aunt’s funeral. We watched her casket be laid into the deep, cold earth as though we were watching the newest episode of a favorite TV show. My love for her felt unimportant and untranslatable through the screens and wires.
Sunsets, rainbows, birds, the sparkle of the ocean; I see my Aunt. I look up, I describe to her the pain of not being included or invited to a high school graduation party. I describe to her the dwindling list of people I will say goodbye to when I leave for college. I describe to her the intrusive thoughts and behaviors my anxiety relapse speaks into me. I describe to her how some days I don’t let myself eat until dinner because I miss how I looked in high school; her belts worn on tighter loops, her jawline a bit more defined, her thighs more toned. She reminds me how that girl was sick, suffering in silence.
I was diagnosed with severe anxiety, OCD, and depression in the sixth grade. I went to an intensive treatment center in Los Angeles for months; each day a hell of its own, exposure therapy and fears faced. The years following I would fall in and out of relapses, each one presenting new fears and redefining the old. My senior year of high school I gave a speech to my school for Mental Health Awareness Week. I stood in front of my peers, some of whom were the very amplifiers of my dwindling self-confidence and daily fear. I detailed every painful moment of my journey, summing it up with what I would tell my 6th grade self, giving her a hug and letting her know that at the end of every dark night is a sun that will rise, bringing her another opportunity to try again. Aunt Annie texted me that day. She told me how proud she was to be my aunt, that she wants to always be on my list of options to turn to when times get tougher and life gets heavier.
“I hope and pray that you can feel the pride that we all have in you and that when needed you can transfer some of that to yourself. I love you very much, sweet girl.”
I typed back to her, my fingers light with the freedom of my greatest burdens being out in the open for the world to see. “I will always reach out” I promised her. The read receipt lies boldly beneath the message.
Packing my bags for college I tidily zipped up my anxiety and OCD, knowing they would be joining me on the 2,000-mile trip a long way from home. The last place I checked for anything to bring with me was my bedside table. I dug through gift cards and old surf shop stickers, their adhesive gone from the damp sea breeze that flowed through our home’s ribs every day. My fingers brushed the corner of an envelope. I pulled it out. “Callie” it read in indistinct handwriting. The envelope was sealed, no signs of ever being acknowledged. I pried it open and out fell a card dated August 17th, 2017.
“I want you to know that you are an incredibly strong young woman and know you will handle this with strength, love and grace! Of course, that doesn’t mean there won't be bad moments but those will pass. Let those moments come and then let them go. The times in front of you are an exciting time in your life and I know it will be filled with fun and friends. Just wanted to let you know I’m thinking of you and love you and I’m always here for you if you need anything. I love you! Aunt Annie”
A note written to me the day my sister left for college, left unopened, found on the eve of my leaving for college. There she was. Making her love seen and felt.
The reality is that college is hard. Anxiety is real, medications are taken, thoughts are corrected, exams are failed, hangovers are had, classes are missed. But love is here. Love was in the quarantine housing with my sister my first week of college when I tested positive for Covid. Love was in the phone call home to my parents when I threatened to hurt myself because I didn’t think I belonged at school, the very school I had dreamed of attending my entire life. Love was in the August sunsets in South Bend, reminding me of my Aunt’s never failing companionship. Love was at her celebration of life last fall, a year and a half late, reopening the emotions I experienced as a much younger, scared version of myself that March day.
What I have learned during these years when life can feel lonely is that you must look for love. Each day I can quietly give it away and let it find its way back to me. For so long I spent every waking minute asking for others' approval, tallying my self-worth based on the attention given to me that day. Life is a lot more beautiful when you allow yourself to be imperfect, allow yourself to stand up for what you believe, allow yourself to embody the qualities of those around you whom you aspire to be more like. Life is a lot more beautiful when you choose to water your flowers instead of searching and planting more, waiting impatiently for them to grow.
We love by what we know love to be. Love to me is September in San Clemente, the way the palm trees move rhythmically to the salty breeze, the smell of Grandma’s house and the cars of Aunts and Uncles blocking her driveway. Love to me is swimming out into the ocean and looking back to shore, seeing my cousins dancing in the sand, their eyes glittering with the setting sun. Love to me is my sister’s laugh, my mother’s smile, my father’s hugs. Love to me is the reunions with high school friends- the ones that loved me at my lows when others gave up on me, the ones who check in on me, the ones who allowed me to grow up with them. Love to me is the friends at school who became family; their sister-like advice, their spontaneity and joy, their admiration and appreciation for my imperfection. Love to me is beginning to accept the dips of my hips and the way my nose wrinkles when I laugh.
Love to me is the rainbows that permeate the sky, reminding me of her warmth, her glow, her eternal magic. It's the sunsets that burn your eyes with beauty. It's the bird that seems to appear all over the country in one day, connecting her to each and every family member.
In these trying times, love has appeared in ways unimaginable. When hugs and kisses and snuggles are stripped away, we are left with the sneaky ways love walks with us, holding our hands. I wish I could hug her one more time, I wish I could hear her laugh, see her smile. I’m lucky, though, that I get to feel her warmth every day, even if it means beginning to look a little harder.
Send a postcard from Heaven sometime, Aunt Annie. I’ll be here ready to write you back, detailing the extraordinary things I have found in the most ordinary places and the places and faces that have changed me.
