So, we've reached the end of our journey
XVI. I just want you to know who I am
When someone is gone...
Do they hear the screaming matches that happen between those who loved them?
Do they listen as they pass the blame around like it's a stone on fire?
Everyone ends up getting burned.
We know so little yet so much about death. It's our number one contradiction, the thing we never talk about yet all of us think.
Heidi Hansen receives the letter, both of them had decided that out of everyone, she was the one that should have it. It's a surprisingly well written piece, sad as its words are, and she re-reads it a thousand times, until she can see the words behind her eyelids.
Evan was a hypocrite, he had chosen the easy way out, but practically forbade Heidi from following in his footsteps. But she, as his mother, saw the truth in his words, and clung onto it so she could keep on living.
Heidi Hansen gets involved with programs and people, so that what happened to his son doesn't repeat, and sometimes she's successful, and others she's not, but she refuses to stop trying.
The Murphys only know of the letter because Heidi allowed Zoe a copy of her brother's last words. She shoves it in her mom's hands and storms into her bedroom, not to read it until three years later, when the anger has dimmed enough for her not to rip it in pieces.
Connor doesn't speak to her, and neither does Evan, as the letter was meant only for Heidi. There's no reassurances to find in it, but she can see what no one else can, she sees their love, and her heart breaks a little.
Love isn't a solution, it's not a cure, because if it were then Evan and Connor would still be standing here, would've come back from their trip hand in hand, beaming at each other, but they didn't.
Zoe Murphy writes down everything she reads between lines, writes a love song out of a tragedy, and then she writes one with angry tears, and then she writes one about forgiveness. She shares them with the world, and they go viral, and eventually she tells the story that brought them to life.
Cynthia and Larry Murphy learn to rely on each other, to hold on to all the good, and to learn from all the bad; they never really get closure of Connor, and they visit him on his birthday without fail, and they try to make something out of his last words, words that weren't meant for them to see, and they know how heavily that weights on their actions.
What happens when someone is gone?