2015: You are still close enough to touch.

For days now, I’ve felt curiously buoyant, disembodied, floating through in a state of unobservant apathy, and all the while strangely present.

Maybe it’s the cold weather breaking that has my joints aching through the night. This keeps me awake so long that I’m in a dream throughout the day.

Maybe it’s the holidays approaching that have me living in the past, longing for a time that I had everyone I love’s laughter in the same room as my own.

It’s early December, and the days surrounding his passing are bitter, heavy, and grey—much like the weather. I watch as my brother goes missing inside of himself. Of all the things we must bury, how will we lay to rest all that has been seen and felt during these moments, merciless and devouring.

Afterwards, I find sanctuary somewhere outside of myself, outside of my body, outside of the pain. This way does not last minutes, it does not last hours, it lasts months, years…and lingers even still. Sometimes, I’m a stranger looking in on my own life, all the while living it. Methodical in my movements, spiritless in my way, and yet, moving steadily on.

Grief. Oh grief, hushed, quietly encouraging change.

It is with grief that we are reminded of the truth: this one precious life is bittersweet and brief.

We remember that we must chase our happiness relentlessly, even if this means we are asked to move. Move in relationship. Move in distance. Move in purpose. Just move.

Grief says,

“Seek your happiness until you know without a doubt that you have met it. Seek it. Meet it. Again, and again.”

And just as I’m ever-changing, the same is true about my acquaintance with grief.

Grief is heavy, yet still light enough to carry a lifetime through.

Grief is solitary, empty in this room humming with laughter—laughter would come after, but grief cut out my tongue.

Grief is homeless, in this home with four walls and this window and the sentimental remnants of what was and what is lifeless, where this heart is beating.

Grief is reluctant to leave when I have said my goodbyes, as if goodbye is an invitation to take its shoes off and stay awhile.

Grief is uninterrupted like…

Maybe grief will hold my hair back while I puke.

Maybe grief will pour my coffee, black.

Maybe grief will tuck me into bed, alone.

Maybe grief will clean this house…better to burn it.

My heart is sinking in this glass. I dropped it, bare feet on glass, sweeping up the glass with the skin on my hands. Painful, bloody, grief is.

Grief is illusive. That voice you can’t recall, that smile you can’t recall, that memory you could recall if it wasn’t so small in its effort to be big.

That moment you just can’t recall, remember?

Grief is ignorance.

The word that wasn’t said, the moment that wasn’t spent, every picture that wasn’t taken, that should have been taken. We are mistaken to think we can live these moments again.

2020: Now years have moved through me.

I sit with grief. She wraps her arms around me. We share a coffee gone cold in the dark moments before daybreak. We sit here, and time is lost to me in my quiet contemplation. Grief, always so patient while she holds me.

Grief, I have made her my companion, and I’m her pupil. Her lessons are my requisite for healing.

“How naïve you were to believe that I would do anything other than make a home inside of your chest. I will not vacate your body, our body, with this endless ebb and flow. You cannot drown me while you shed these tears. Nor will you rid yourself of me with your cruel tongue, a tongue that makes a mockery of me in these crippling moments your heart hits the ground with a thick, heavy thud.

I’m more than a word in these moments, aren’t I? ”

Her question, a quiet ache.

“My heart doesn’t beat the same,” I tell her.

“That is life’s work,” she replies.

Grief, insomnious. I admire her dedication.

“Steadfast,” she whispers. There is still so much to learn…

2025: December is closing in, and I wonder where you are.

I envision you sitting behind an old iron balustrade hidden under floral garland. You’re engaged in a spirited conversation with a boy who has your smile. Your eyes. Your face.

Or, I see you settled on the porch sipping from a steaming mug. I notice you from the window, you take your sweater off and put it back on many times while busy in your work. I catch you watching a glorious patch of sunflowers move in the wind—they are on their last blooms, and the foliage is already turning.

I think to myself, it won’t be long before the garden will need to be put to bed. You see me, and wave.

Some days we walk through the streets of this little mountain town, we listen to the buskers playing the violin and piano, we smile at strangers, we smell loose-leaf teas, we touch jewelry and pottery, wood carvings, and floral bouquets. We don’t speak. Some days are spent like this. In quiet gratitude. And always, I miss the day long before it is through.

And then there we are. Deep in banter, we agree that we are homesick at times. We wonder if anyone else feels this way—not ever unhappy with this magical life, yet wanting for somewhere else altogether, that place that feels like belonging.

And then, on days like today, you are simply gone.

And I can’t feel you.

And I wonder again, where you are.

Have you made a home somewhere that feels like belonging?

~

An Elephant Classic for anyone who’s walking through grief: