Shifting Grief
A shift in my grief startles and terrifies me every time.
It feels like I’m trying to hold all of you in my arms as I walk through my days, like an impossibly large and towering pile of laundry, and I drop little bits of you with every step I take. A lost sock here. A forgotten shirt there.
I haven’t thought about you for the last hour. . . and then the panic sets in that I’ll forget the sound of your laugh.
I got tired and forgot to write you a letter today. . . there goes my endless devotion.
I watched the new season of Queer Eye without you. . . and now it begins, the part where I start leaving you behind.
Someone put food in front of me and I wanted to eat it. . . let me replay our last hug in my mind over and over again before the feeling leaves me.
I joined the kids in the living room, enthusiastically bouncing and dancing along, and then I felt a jolt . . . here I am, having fun without you.
All those little shifts create a panic in me, a worry that this is just the beginning of me losing even more, of me losing the only bits of you that I have left. I wholeheartedly wrap my arms around that towering pile again, focusing on nothing else, scrambling to grab each piece before something else falls.
Except when I do that, I can’t move. I can’t take a step. I can’t even breathe.
And so what does it mean to stand up and walk - as I must - knowing that when I do, things will inevitably fall?
I don’t have a good answer to that, except that it terrifies me.
I’ve lost people before. I know how this goes. I know how the little details become harder and harder to access, how the intangibles of a person’s life start to feel further and further away, how it all starts to feel like it’s going through a sieve. You can hang on to the bigger pieces, but the little grains will inevitably slip through.
I’m not willing to do that. I’m not willing to let you slip through.
Maybe the bigger pieces are all that matters in the end. Maybe those will be enough to sustain me, to keep you close. But right now I can’t bear the thought of losing any of it, not one bit at all.
And so sometimes I sit here, buried. Unable to move. Unable to breathe. Horrified and frightened each time something shifts, each time something falls.
It feels like I’m trying to hold all of you in my arms as I walk through my days, like an impossibly large and towering pile of laundry, and I drop little bits of you with every step I take. A lost sock here. A forgotten shirt there.
I haven’t thought about you for the last hour. . . and then the panic sets in that I’ll forget the sound of your laugh.
I got tired and forgot to write you a letter today. . . there goes my endless devotion.
I watched the new season of Queer Eye without you. . . and now it begins, the part where I start leaving you behind.
Someone put food in front of me and I wanted to eat it. . . let me replay our last hug in my mind over and over again before the feeling leaves me.
I joined the kids in the living room, enthusiastically bouncing and dancing along, and then I felt a jolt . . . here I am, having fun without you.
All those little shifts create a panic in me, a worry that this is just the beginning of me losing even more, of me losing the only bits of you that I have left. I wholeheartedly wrap my arms around that towering pile again, focusing on nothing else, scrambling to grab each piece before something else falls.
Except when I do that, I can’t move. I can’t take a step. I can’t even breathe.
And so what does it mean to stand up and walk - as I must - knowing that when I do, things will inevitably fall?
I don’t have a good answer to that, except that it terrifies me.
I’ve lost people before. I know how this goes. I know how the little details become harder and harder to access, how the intangibles of a person’s life start to feel further and further away, how it all starts to feel like it’s going through a sieve. You can hang on to the bigger pieces, but the little grains will inevitably slip through.
I’m not willing to do that. I’m not willing to let you slip through.
Maybe the bigger pieces are all that matters in the end. Maybe those will be enough to sustain me, to keep you close. But right now I can’t bear the thought of losing any of it, not one bit at all.
And so sometimes I sit here, buried. Unable to move. Unable to breathe. Horrified and frightened each time something shifts, each time something falls.