mother, i was a child yesterday, and now i’ll soon grow up to be an adult, blindsided when grief and death hail themselves. lately, i’ve been thinking a lot about the turmoil of death, the anguish, the wretchedness, the melancholy of someone’s cessation. i see white clothes, camargue white, pacific pearl white, i notice how absurd the contrast is, red, red earth, white, soft cotton. the once-pulsating veins now lie dormant, deprived of life. the fear of this robs the sleep out from under me, and the grief- it would eat me alive if i did not bury it so deep it never sees the light of day. all i ever really want to know is how do creatures live with grief, where do they put their grief, hour by hour, and how do they cope inside of it?
i was taught about dignity, freedom, love, and elation when i was a child, but nobody told me about agony, melancholy, suffering, and torment. as a child you’re often asked, ‘‘what is your utmost fear?’’ i’d conjure up conventional responses- fire, water or heights. but in truth, my dread lay elsewhere, every fiber in my body mouthed a prayer, and i prayed and prayed, one prayer- may i not have to swallow the pain of outliving those i hold close, may i be spared from witnessing mortality, for i fear death because i love plethorically, exceedingly, fiercely. i don’t know how to stop giving. i think i wouldn’t ever. i assign too much love to the tinniest fragile creatures, i assign too much hope to the diminutive mortal beings. i’m incapable of withholding my affection. no one prepared me for the visceral onslaught of grief, its uncanny resemblance to fear, and its capacity to hollow out the marrow in my bones. no one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. i would say i’m not afraid, but that feeling sickens me to death, physically crushing my heart into a pulp until no blood would spatter. the fluttering in the intestine, the restlessness, the incessant yawning- it consumes me, leaving me with nothing but the relentless urge to swallow it down, to stifle its grip on my tongue.
maybe i fear the unknown, i am so, very human and i’ve done very human things but to lose someone is synonymous with never being able to breathe in the close vicinity of their presence, never feeling the warmth of their skin against yours. the end is a bitter pill that lingers on your tongue, you’re left with a void that in the moment seems impossible to fill. a sucking downpull, and then an absence of gravity, a lightbodiedness, bone hollowing; densification followed by emptiness. i fear that vacuity. i don’t know what it will entail. life with them in it and me caring for them is all I know.
‘‘never shall god befall any mother to behold the death of her young child, never though shall a mother mourn the death of her child.’’, whispered my aunt. and in that moment, i felt the weight of her words settle upon me like a shroud, a reminder of the fragility of life.
the reflection of me in the kitchen window shows who i am in the moment of presence. there is something about a thursday evening, late april, and sunshine in my eyes that makes me think about who i could have been, but i’ve survived. i am here and i am respiring. i could let hope be the carrier of my grief, but does that make me weak? and i say weak like its a dreadful thing, like it will gobble me down whole if i let it sit in my chest for too long. does that not merely mask the searing ache within? or is there comfort to be found in the fragile tendrils of hope? or does hope serve as a fleeting illusion, a veneer that veils the rawness of the sorrow? but i think what really makes me weak is hiding the truth, the truth is, grieving doesn’t negate the art of healing. the truth is i can cry, and cry and i will not die as the tears crawl through the sclera of my eyes. the truth is i can mourn, and mourn freely, and grief will not strangle me in my sleep. clutching onto hope, it seems, it is not as dangerous as i once thought. i used to think that hope was something you procured, because hopelessness is a bringer of death, and it won’t hesitate to strip you of everything you once knew. but i think we all grieve from time to time, and we learn to survive it. if only i had forbearance with the razor-sharp edges of my soul and the body that houses it, i’ll learn someday to not let this apathy perch itself in my throat and that grief demands to be felt, that there is a thin line between turmoil and joy, because when we don't allow ourselves to feel pain, we also stifle the experience of joy. intentionally making the time to grieve, to yearn, to love, to feel the pain, is the only way to make it through the rest of the days. and for a myriad of reasons i’m yet to understand, I do feel pain, I feel sorrow, personal and nuanced.
love,
moon
The secrets of evolution are time and death. There's an unbroken thread that stretches from those first cells to us.
Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides
―Carl Sagan, Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium