The Only One in the Room- Chapter One
Once again, all the credit goes to WTB? staff, crew, actors and staff. This takes place in current day 2024.
trigger warning: this will discuss grief and bereavement as well as character death*
Angela pulled into a parking spot underneath a building held up with huge white pillars. The front doors were made of top to bottom thick glass, the kind where you would need to put your entire body weight in to it to open them. She could see from her vantage point inside the Jaguar a security guard sitting at his post, fully engaged on his cell phone. She wondered if there was an actual emergency, would he be able to be of any assistance? She thought the likelihood would be no.
She leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes. She was dreading her scheduled appointment with an intense passion she didn't know she still possessed at seventy five years old. She opened her eyes and grabbed her own cell phone and her pair of reading glasses. There was a reminder on her phone flashing angrily at her, reminding her of the appointment time. Twenty minutes until it started, until she could no longer live in this state of denial. She decided to do what most people did to kill some time; she opened up her phone and clicked on the little icon for Instagram and opened up the app. The page refreshed itself and the smile on her face once again returned. New photos of her grandchildren popped up on her feed. There were times she couldn't believe she and Tony had five grandchildren and as of last year, one great grandson.
She kept scrolling along, admiring and liking photos of Wendy and her grandchildren as well as Isabelle and her family at a reunion somewhere up in the mountains. She made a mental note to reach out to them soon to go for a girls night out, if she could ever get herself out of the house. She scrolled past a post of some of her clients' advertisements. She had been in unofficial retirement for years now but every once in a while, she would dabble back into the ad game, sitting in on a few meetings, throwing out some ideas. She was still on the board at the Bower Agency, but her retirement role had become much more permanent the past six months. She wasn't even sure the last time she stepped foot on Madison Avenue.
She kept scrolling up until she got to a photo that never failed to take her breath away. It was a photo of the five of them from their first Christmas. They had just danced the Lindy, completely embarrassing Samantha and Jonathan and absolutely entertaining her mother. It was the first time she started to realize there was more to her relationship with Tony than just friendship and attraction; there was respect, admiration and the emotion that she spent the next seven years trying to suppress… love. A tidal wave of emotions came flooding back to her- their first kiss, Jonathan setting them up at that fancy French restaurant she long forgot the name of, her mother moving into the apartment above the garage, Samantha's prom with Jesse… all those memories of the first few years they shared as their little family. The emotions were threatening to bubble to the surface when she abruptly shut her phone and threw it in her bag. Anger, the emotion she was feeling more and more in the recent days, started to come over her. As she was getting to be a pro at, she pushed the anger down deep inside of her and tried to think about the other errands she had to do after her appointment. She soon found herself focusing on things like buying stamps, the grocery list and other mindless tasks to occupy her mind.
Way before she was ready, the alarm on her phone beeped once more, telling her not so subtly that it was time to go inside. She grabbed her purse and opened the driver's side door. She loved her Jaguars… this was far from the one Tony had painted Diablo red so many years ago but whenever it was time for a new car, she was always drawn back to the Jaguar. This was probably her fourth or fifth one since then… still in the safe tan and beige color scheme. She shut the door and walked up to the glass doors. She was right… she almost pulled a muscle opening the heavy door.
"Hello, my name is Angela Micelli and I am here for the bereavement group" she said to the security guard, who finally pulled his head up long enough to make brief eye contact. He nodded and found her name on the list.
"Take the elevator to the third floor. Once you get off the elevator, make a quick right turn and go through the double doors. Ask for Kelly" he said as he went back to whatever video or entertainment he was watching on his phone. She waited for a few moments until the elevator opened and she stepped inside. She pressed the three button and soon it began to take her up… she had a brief thought that maybe the elevator, that looked like it had seen better days, would somehow breakdown and get her stuck in there. She wasn't so lucky as the door opened to the third floor. She took a deep breath and stepped off the elevator. She found the set of double doors and walked through.
"Hi yes… I'm looking for Kelly. My name is Angela Micelli and I am here for the bereavement group" she said to a young looking woman who couldn't have been more than twenty five years old.
"Hi yes welcome Angela! My name is Kelly and I will be leading the group today. Please sign in for me and if you'd like we have free coffee, tea and hot chocolate if you are interested" said Kelly.
"Thank you Kelly. Yes I think I will take a cup of coffee" said Angela as she signed in and was escorted to a small kitchen. She was able to make her own cup of coffee and headed back into the main room. Other people started coming into the main room. Soon, Kelly came back out and invited everyone into the main group room. Angela found a seat in the circle of chairs set up in the middle of the room.
By the time the group began, there were about fifteen people in total, but she couldn't help but feel like the only one in the room. It was a feeling she was becoming more and more accustomed to as the weeks and now months passed.
"Hello everyone! My name is Kelly and I will be the group leader for this group, Bereavement and Grief. This group will be both an educational group about what grief is, the different stages and how we can learn to cope with the loss but also a support group, as we have all, including myself, experienced grief and loss. If you are here, most likely your therapist has referred you here, but if you need someone else to speak to individually after group, staff here is willing and available to meet" said Kelly.
Angela wondered how someone so young could experience loss already in their young life but then again she knew life was anything but fair sometimes. She realized there were people in the group from all walks of life- some older, some younger, some with partners and some alone. There were people from all different races, religions, cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds. She figured grief didn't discriminate, but seeing this group of people, she knew it could impact anyone. The lump that had seemingly found a home lodged in the back of her throat for the past six months, making it difficult to talk, to eat and to even breathe at times, seemed to grow as Kelly continued to talk.
"Okay everyone, I like to open the floor by offering this safe space to share anything you feel comfortable sharing… the loss or losses you've had, any challenges you have encountered or successes in your bereavement journey. The space is yours" said Kelly. Angela wanted to sink down into herself and never come out again. She was ready to stand up and walk out, thinking her therapist was wrong, she was not ready for this, when a woman, probably around Samantha's age, began to speak.
"Hi my name is Julia and I've been coming to this group for almost a year now. I lost my mom at the start of the pandemic. She was everything to me- my cheerleader, my support system and my rock. I just fell apart after she died. It was hard enough being in a pandemic under normal circumstances but dealing with loss and grief on top of it? Being isolated and not getting closure? I felt gutted. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. I… I even had my sister bring me to the ER to get help because I was struggling that badly. It took a full six months to start to get back on my feet and even then, it was two steps forward, one step back" said Julia.
"Thank you for sharing Julia. So many have lost so much during the pandemic. The pandemic was a loss in and of itself- a loss of independence, freedoms, heck just our ways of life. Add on to that losing someone you loved. In times of grief, one of the commonalities is normally family, friend and community support. That was robbed from us for weeks, months, even years. Healing from that pain is a process in itself" said Julia.
"I can totally relate to the two steps forward, one step back feeling. It's like one day I've got myself together… I can do the shopping, pay the bills, even plan outings with friends and family. Then the next day, something reminds me of my Bill and I can't even get out of bed it hurts so much. Oh my name is Val by the way. I lost my husband two and a half years ago after he suffered a stroke" said Val.
The lump in Angela's throat subsided slightly as more of the members of the group shared their grief experiences. Some lost people months ago, some lost them decades ago. She related to each story in some way.
"Angela, I know you are new to the group, so if you don't feel comfortable sharing, that is totally fine. If you want to share though, feel free to do so" said Kelly.
"I… ummm… thank you Kelly. Hearing all of your stories helps a lot. I think one of the worst parts of grief is feeling so alone, like no one could possibly know how you are feeling, especially if you've had multiple losses. It's comforting in a strange way to know you aren't alone. The first loss I ever had was that of my father when I was fourteen. It was a pain like no other and something I carried with me, even to this day. It helped to have my husband Tony, who actually was my housekeeper at the time, to relate to as he lost his mother when he was very young and then his father almost a year before we met. It was one of the millions of things that made me fall in love with him…" said Angela as she wiped away some tears.
"Having someone to support you, to love you unconditionally, is so important in the grief and bereavement process. I'm glad your husband Tony was that person for you. You mentioned your father was your first loss. Do you feel like sharing more today?" asked Kelly.
"Yes… my father was my first loss but definitely was not my last unfortunately. I don't even know where to begin, except that my life as I knew it, changed forever almost six months ago…" she said as she burst into tears.