As some of you may know, I participated in my creative writing school's senior thesis reading yesterday. A lot of people have asked for a link to the text that I wrote, so I've decided to publish it here. The piece is non-fiction, and was inspired by several different losses that I faced while in college, but most markedly by the loss of my close friend Z Grier. This piece was also published in the anthology, "Fighting for an Audience." The piece is published below.
The Not-So-Well-Known Degrees of Grieving
“He was not of this world,” they’ll say
matter-of-factly, as if that notion is enough of an excuse to make his dying
okay or acceptable. You might cling to these words and tuck them away—a
security blanket to pull out each time the pain begins to weigh too much. Maybe
you will scoff instead, and think that if he were still here, he’d punch you in
the shoulder for crying so openly. Maybe you’ll do neither—perhaps you won’t
even be listening to those around you. Perhaps you’ll be too busy folding the funeral
bulletin that the usher handed you when you entered the church into seventy-six
perfect, tiny squares.
These are still the first days—the hours
when nothing can rip your mind away from the fact that they are never coming
back. Maybe it was your lover, your best friend, your brother, your sister, or
a parent. Maybe you knew them so well that you will generate conversations with
them in your head in the days to come while you sit alone in your car. Or maybe
you barely knew them at all. Perhaps it was the girl in your psychology class
from two semesters back, or the mother of an old friend, and perhaps you will
feel guilty for mourning—or for not taking part. You hardly knew them, so maybe
you will feel as if you don’t deserve a small sliver of the pain that everyone
else around you seems to be sharing, but you would probably also feel bad if
you did not take just a bite.
You probably won’t know what to say to
their families, unless you are a part of their family, in which case you
probably won’t know what to say to each other. If the departed was old, then
you will find comfort in the idea that perhaps they are no longer in pain. If
they were young, then you will shake your head solemnly along with everyone
else, and you will agree enthusiastically when they say that “only the good die
young,” and you will feel guilty the next time that you are lying in bed until
three o’clock on a Saturday watching documentaries on Netflix, because you are
lucky enough to still be alive and you are blowing it. Regardless of their
age, you will try not to imagine how cold the dirt must feel when it begins to
snow at night, or how their skin might be decaying beneath the ground, but
these thoughts may still haunt you sometimes, anyway.
If they were in a car accident, then you
might vow to drive slower (which will probably last for about a week because
you are a human being and the same thing would never happen to you), and you
will find yourself wanting to drive down the very same road where it happened,
wondering what their last thoughts were on the same stretch of asphalt. You
will wonder if this is morbid. You might also wonder what song they were
listening to when it happened. Or maybe you will avoid radios for weeks, afraid
of the memories that songs often collect, if you are anything like me.
The weeks will pass, and if you were very
close to the dearly departed, then you will find both joy and guilt in the
moments when your mind is completely tied up by anything else. Perhaps you’ll
be at work and you will be rushing to meet a deadline and you will not realize
until you have finished working that you just went exactly forty-two minutes
without thinking about it. Your first
reaction will be a sigh of relief that such moments are even possible, and then
you will feel guilty and selfish and you will reassure yourself and your
missing loved one for the rest of the afternoon that you haven’t forgotten.
Those around you that aren’t also hurting
will be sympathetic and gentle in the days that follow the death. At first, you
will feel as if you have transformed into their fragile china teacup. They will
pass you around carefully, making sure not to tip or drop you, but you will
notice their eyes growing less and less eager and their touch growing more
careless as the weeks stretch into the first month. “I am always here for you,”
a friend will say, and you will shake your head, acknowledging that you know
that they are always there, when in reality, you know that they see you as more
of a burden these days.
You will stay up late at night recounting
the last time that you saw the person that you’ve lost, and there is a ninety
percent chance that you will regret something about that moment. Maybe you wish
that you had held them tighter, in a longer hug, or kissed them goodbye before
they went to work that morning. You might not have said goodbye at all. Perhaps
you will wish that you had asked them how they were holding up—really asked
them, and showed them that you cared. You might wish that you could take back
the last words that were left lingering between you—all of the business that we
often leave in limbo because we are sure that we will have another chance to
fix it. If you didn’t know the person very well at all, you will wish that you
had merely said “hello” instead of going about your daily business.
Your afternoons will be long, and you
will torture yourself over all of the memories that you can’t seem to rein in
mentally. If you were friends for years, you will have trouble forgiving
yourself once you realize that you don’t know their favorite color, or what one
thing they were the most afraid of in this world. You’ll stare at pictures and
vow to never let the exact shade of their green-gray eyes slip from your
memory. Their distinct laugh will haunt you, replaying endlessly in your mind.
You will be unable to concentrate on anything else, wishing in vain that you
could just remember the way that it sounded when they said your name aloud.
Perhaps you will sleep too much, or maybe
you won’t at all. You might turn to drinking a glass of wine before bed, just
to be able to lie down without remembering. You might fail the courses that you
desperately needed to pass for the semester. And spend all of your grocery
money on prescription drugs to numb the constant pain. Or maybe you’ll be constructive,
instead. You’ll throw yourself so deeply and aggressively into your job that
you will be promoted. Perhaps such a close brush with death will motivate you
to chase the dreams and goals that your lost one will never have the chance to
go after.
One morning, maybe a few months in, you
will awaken and the pain will not rush in to crush you immediately. All of the
nights of barely sleeping and mornings of waking up to your sad new reality have
toughened you. You’ll reach your toes to touch the carpet, half expecting some
pained version of yourself to grab them from under the bed and drag you back
in, but no hands will reach out. You’ll be able to make it to your bathroom,
and while brushing your teeth you will think about the person slowly and carefully,
waiting for the pain of reality to come, but it won’t
come. This will indicate that the tragedy has completely soaked itself into
your bones. Now, you will be set to marinate in it slowly and gradually for a
long, long time. The shock will linger and fade, and will wait in the darkness
for an unexpected memory to take hold of you, but today you will decide that
your pain is starting to feel less like accidentally touching a hot stove and
more like running on black asphalt in the summertime, if you’re anything like
me.
Eight months or so after the worst day,
you will be driving. A song will
come on the radio and you will immediately be confronted with memories of your
lost love dancing in your passenger seat, or holding you close so many years
before at your high school prom. Maybe, it will be a song that they loathed,
and maybe your gut-reaction will be to smile. And cry. And laugh. And for the
first time, you might not immediately switch the dial to another station, and
for the first time, you might just be able to drag a happy, misplaced memory
out of the pain that has taken the place for so many months now of the person
that you have lost.
When you glance at the calendar on a
random Tuesday and you realize that any other year, you would have been
celebrating their birthday with them, you will probably cry. You might sit
alone on the couch in your living room and sob for hours, even if you have felt
as if you were on the path to normalcy lately. You might bake a cake and decorate
it and eat every piece of it by yourself. Or you might throw it in the trashcan
and sit in the floor, staring at the patterns in the tiles. You might wonder if
a day will ever come when, due to degrading health or the passage of time, you
will no longer be able to remember their name. You will wonder if you could
ever forget their existence completely. And maybe you will feel guilty for
having these thoughts, and you will rise from the kitchen floor and you will
clean up the mess that you have made with the frosting. Or maybe, you will
continue to linger, and you will wish for the type of distant, impossible peace
that only forgetting or never knowing could bring.
If you’re anything like me.
