I Swear You Will Be Fine

Dear Josh,

Previously, I wrote about “Kitchen” by Banana Yoshimoto. I finished her other book last night – “Moonlight Shadow” – and it’s about a girl who loses her boyfriend. There was more to the story than I thought. The girl and her boyfriend are very close to his brother and his brother’s girlfriend. But two people die in this story – her boyfriend and his brother’s girlfriend. Her boyfriend was driving his brother’s girlfriend home when they got into a car accident. Both of them died instantly. She writes about her own grief and how helpful it is to grieve with her boyfriend’s brother. I related to this in a way because his brother reminded me of your sister. Halfway through talking about her grief, she realizes it is worse for her boyfriend’s brother because he lost both his brother and his girlfriend in the same night.

There were quite a few quotes I highlighted in this book because of how much I could relate to the story. Before I share the lines I liked, there was a part of the story that made me really sad. She meets this mysterious lady who tells her to meet her at the bridge where her boyfriend passed in the car accident. She is doubtful, but goes anyway. The lady tells her that no matter what she sees, she can’t cross the river. Some unknown magic happens and she briefly sees her boyfriend waving at her – the two of them separated by the river between them. She knows she shouldn’t cross it, and doesn’t. She waves at her boyfriend and tries to memorize every part of his face, his build, his clothes, as he waves his final goodbye and leaves. At the end of the book, she writes a letter to him, thanking him for saying goodbye, how she will not be able to stop the flow of time, and that she has to go. She writes “One caravan has stopped, another starts up. There are people I have yet to meet. I must keep living with the flowing river before my eyes. I earnestly pray that a trace of my girl-child self will always be with you. For waving good-bye, I thank you.”

I did not love this part. It made me awfully sad that she was acknowledging and accepting that she will never be the person she was with him. It made me sad that she was saying goodbye to him and telling him that she has to move forward, as if she was saying goodbye to that part of her life. Did not like that at all.

Anyway, here are the lines I promised to share:

1. The night he died, my soul went away to some other place and I couldn’t bring it back. It was impossible to see the world as I had before. I relate to this line. There are perspectives and traits of my personality now that I have gained and some that I have lost. Grief has shaped me in a way I don’t think any other life experience could.
   
2. Neither recourse was anything more than a way of trying to lend some life to a shriveled spirit. This was about the things she and her boyfriend’s brother were trying to do to cope with their losses. I could relate to this too.
   
3. In places where a loved one has died, time stops for eternity. There’s a lot of ways to interpret this line, but it reminded me of the post I wrote about freezing time. It reminded me of your room, how we tried to freeze time in there. This line also acknowledges the feeling of stepping into a place where a loved one has died. There’s a feeling I can’t aptly describe.
   
4. That me seems ten years younger than I feel now. I feel like grief has aged me too.
   
5. In the dream, Hitoshi would smile and say, “I didn’t die after all, because you stopped me.” She frequently dreams of her boyfriend and wishes she could have told him not to drive that night. I’ve also had numerous dreams where you didn’t die.
   
6. I felt I was battling something absurdly enormous. Then, from deep within, I began to wonder if I mightn’t lose.
   
7. With a cold, now is the hardest time. Maybe even harder than dying. But this is probably as bad as it can get. You might come to fear the next time you get a cold; it will be as bad as this, but if you just hold steady, it won’t be. For the rest of your life. That’s how it works. You could take the negative view and live in fear: Will it happen again? But it won’t hurt so much if you just accept it as a part of life. I thought this was a nice analogy for grief.
   
8. I desperately struggled to memorize it all. This line described her attempt to memorize her boyfriend’s features when she saw him across the river. This was also me in the beginning of 2025 when I was worried I would forget parts of you. I have not.
   
9. It was so normal I forgot she was dead. This line came from her boyfriend’s brother. He dreamt of his girlfriend and said it was so realistic he forgot she had passed. I’ve had these dreams too where I wake up thinking I have to text you and realize I can’t.

I think this letter was longer than I expected it to be, but I’ve written longer. If you’ve gotten through all those words, thank you.

I can’t wait to see you again. I love you more, always, and forever.

Love always,
Sha