Maya broke open her fortune cookie with more interest than she had shown in the Pad Thai. The note read, “You will lose what you love.” Maya rolled her eyes and put the cookie down on her plate; she didn’t expect fortunes from a cookie to have any bearing on her life.
Across the restaurant, Zoe was talking to their server about molecular gastronomy. This was why Maya loved her- even after three years, she could still make her feel things like this.
Maya folded up her fortune and put it in her wallet with the receipts from the grocery store and coffee shop stamps that had expired months ago. She wasn’t going to let some silly fortune cookie dictate how she lived.
Maya’s phone buzzed as she was brushing her teeth the next morning. It was a message from her mother: “Call me when you get this. It’s about Dad.” Their father had been fighting cancer for eight months. The doctors said there was hope– they were cautiously optimistic that treatment was working. So, for eight months, Maya had lived as if everything would be okay: her dad would beat cancer and go back to doing his woodworking on weekends.
But now things had changed. During a break at work, Maya called her mother. When she answered, there was something different about her voice– it sounded as if she was struggling to keep it together. After a moment, she spoke: “The scans showed new growth... Dr Henderson wants us to think about other options.”
Maya felt queasy, and it was not the usual feeling after having too much coffee. She thought of the fortune cookie but immediately dismissed the thought as silly. Life’s random events cannot be predicted by drawing connections between unrelated things.
Later that day, Zoe came into the kitchen to find Maya staring into space with groceries still unpacked on the counter. “Hey,” she said, touching her friend’s shoulder. “Your mom texted me. I’m sorry about your dad.”
Maya exhaled and let her head lean on Zoe’s shoulder. The familiar smell of vanilla and cedar wrapped around her like a blanket as she tried to explain how she felt. “I keep thinking I should feel something else,” she confessed. “Like angry or scared. But all I feel is empty.”
“Grief doesn’t follow a straight line,” Zoe replied while unpacking the bags with ease.
She had told Maya before about losing her grandmother and how she didn’t cry for weeks afterwards– it was only when she saw someone else eating her favorite brand of cereal at Target that she broke down (and still does sometimes).
After dinner they sat in silence, trying not to think about anything serious. Zoe told Maya funny things from her job at the museum; things that made her laugh or smile even when she was sad. “You know,” Maya said after one story, “You’re really good at this.”
“Doing what?” Zoe asked with a smile.
“Making me feel better.”
As they got ready for bed later that night, Maya couldn’t help but think about something else. She looked at herself in the mirror while Zoe washed up beside her, hums filling the quiet bathroom.
There are some things I absolutely adore about you– the little curl at the nape of your neck, the way you hum when you’re tired (even though you don’t know it), and this scar.” He reached up and gently touched the one above her left eyebrow. “Do you remember how I used to call it our special secret? You never did find out why.“
“You always have been mysterious,” laughed Zoe, “now go to bed!”
But Maya was not tired but instead very busy working out certain probabilities as an experienced risk analyst would do at her job. There was a possibility that her father might die of cancer within some months.
This meant that she may lose someone whom she loved very much! It was going to happen just like it was written on the fortune cookie and afterwards everyone else’s life would continue as before except for hers because there would be a big emptiness inside her that she felt now.
Maya began to visit more frequently driving back every weekend to her childhood home which took about two hours away from where she now lived! They got involved in one last project together although nobody said it out loud- building a bookshelf in his garage workshop using all his old tools; ones he had taught her how use during those times when they worked side by side there before.
Each Saturday during this time he would tell her “You don’t have to hover, kiddo. I’m not going anywhere yet” but still she continued watching intently as he fitted the pieces together; seeing them align perfectly while making what seemed like final preparations for something important with a satisfied grunt of relief as things slotted into place!
All the time Maya felt like she wanted to cry or rebel any moment now because deep down inside it really felt like their last chance at bonding before something huge changed between them... even though outwardly there seemed little difference from any other ordinary project day!
And then on one of their last days working on this final joint, he ran his palm along what they had made saying proudly “This is good work. You’ve got steady hands. Always did, even as a kid.”
Maya felt tears threaten and looked away pretending to organize his tools but when she looked back over at him he was still watching wondering why things appeared so difficult for young her all over again as if waiting for some long-awaited answer from past years’ archives–
“what’s eating at you?”
She almost narrated everything concerning the fortune cookie at that moment; telling him how she kept it close like a charm praying against all odds that its prediction wouldn’t come true because she also felt terrible thinking “I have been carrying around this mass produced paper fortune and now look at all these misfortunes am I responsible or what!”
Instead, she admitted to being afraid. “Me too,” he notched. “Those feelings are normal.”
Fear is natural but it doesn’t help anything and since fear doesn’t do anything but make us miss out on the present moment for what it is: a scarecrow in the field of our current experience, why let it take up any more space in your mind than absolutely necessary?
It was Tuesday morning in November when Maya’s father died– just three months after their last talk. He passed away so peacefully that it seemed as though he decided there and then that breathing was too much effort for him.
At the funeral people kept telling her how sorry they were- using the word ‘loss’. But to Maya, ‘loss’ sounded like an inadequate word; similar to calling the ocean damp! She didn’t feel like she had lost something rather she felt like part of her had been taken away.
Later that evening Maya sat alone in the kitchen staring at a fortune cookie slip she had been carrying around for months; the paper was now soft from being handled so much. All this time she had been waiting for its prediction to come true and failing to see what it really meant.
The fortune did not predict death; it stated love was a weakness because if you love something then you have something to lose and if there is something to lose then there will be grief! Knowing this beforehand did not make it any easier when grief set in- in fact all it made her do was brace herself further.
Zoe found her there at midnight crying over a piece of paper. “The fortune was right," Maya said softly. “I lost what I loved.” “Maybe,” said Zoe after reading the crumpled slip, “Or maybe what you’ve learned is how good you are at loving; rather than how much capacity for love you’ve lost by losing Dad?”
Maya really looked at Zoe then– taking in everything she did for her without complaint throughout those months leading up to her fathers death (like driving to hospital at 3 am ensuring that Maya wasn’t alone when Dad was struggling).
Organising memorial service while Maya was too upset even think straight- all without ever moaning once about emotional strain being placed upon herself because this was her friend!
Suddenly it dawned on her- she would lose what she loved over and over again but that was part of loving; feels like being torn apart bit by bit only so that somehow you can also feel whole again, only in different way because this thing called love takes up more room than anything else does plus there’s always someone else needs her now!