Grief

I’m listening to liturgical music, because my therapist said she listens to it. She giggled when she told me. “Some people think it’s morbid,” she said. “But I find it peaceful.” And I do too. For the moment, anyhow. It’s a nice accompaniment to grieving.

Out the window, my son is spraying my husband with the hose. They’re both yelling with delight. It may very well be this music’s opposite sound.

Meanwhile, my mother’s ashes are across the room, still in the plastic bag inside the UPS box, because they fucked up the engraving on the beautiful box I picked out. Spelled her name wrong. And the replacement won’t be here for another couple weeks.

My husband picked them up from the post office this morning and took them to work. I could hear my mother’s voice in my heart: “Oh, how nice! It must be take your mother-in-law to work day!”

I try to find humor because otherwise, in many ways, it’s still a horror show.

I’ve been talking to my son a lot about heaven. He asks a lot of questions. And today I realized I may be talking heaven up a little too much because he’s become entirely too excited to get there. I can’t wait, Mama,” he said this morning. “I can’t wait to be an angel!” I think I’ll cool it for awhile.

Today marks 8 months since my mother left the planet. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been weighted down by starkness the way I have since.

Not that anyone could see it on the outside. It’s a private starkness that keeps me company constantly.

The interesting thing about this starkness is that I can see its point. It’s quite valid.

In fact it reminds me so much of this dream I had a long time ago that always stuck with me.

In it, I was on a plane that was going down and everyone was freaking out, naturally.


And the guy seated next to me kept grabbing me in the rib cage. Squeezing my ribs. It hurt really, really badly and so I said to him, “Can you please stop! You’re hurting me!”


And he said, “What the fuck difference does it make if you’re hurting??!! We’re gonna be dead in a minute!!!”

That guy is the starkness I’m talking about. And it’s nearly impossible to convince him of all the other valid reasons to soak up any little bit of time I have left here.

Last night, we lost power, and I sat with myself in the darkness, without the distraction of bulbs and glaring screens, and I thought about my ancestors – what their experience might have been like long ago without electricity, if they felt more connected to something beyond their own fates, if they understood how to handle the longing to live with the need to stay safe in a more elegant way than I do.

I'm not used to thinking of myself as part of some evolving spirit – of seeing myself as a holder of beauty and truth that I have a responsibility to share because it doesn’t really belong to me.

But yet, beyond this stark grief, I do realize how grateful I am to have in my heart all the beauty and wisdom and humor my mother took the time to share with me, and I know it’s my duty to do the same and pass it along, instead of letting this heavy starkness diminish it for its own good reasons.

-JLK