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VidhTwo questions assault me: how are you doing and are you keeping busy. I am not keeping busy. I do not want anyone to know this, do not want it known that I can sit all morning making lists of goals to accomplish this week, this month, the rest of my life and then abandon all resolve. And in its place, passivity, inertia, the lure of staring out a window. Not able any longer to be truthful, I can think of nothing to say except fine. I am fine. The relief on their faces is immediate, as if they have been holding their breath waiting for my answer. I understand. There is nothing more to be said. They do not know what I do not tell: I awaken each morning to the heaviness of your absence, the need to be held. It is then that I imagine you are downstairs having your shower, that at any moment you will be coming up full of the energy of a new day. I can smell the cleanness of your body, the damp hair, and I lie there and breathe you into me. On certain mornings I rise from my bed, find your deodorant, open the lid, and breathe in your morning scent. Come to me I say. Come to me. All through the day I am aware of you, am never without some memory – your laughter, the rounded shoulders of your body, the way you polished your shoes, you in the green recliner reading, both feet tucked up, your long legs veed out to the sides. You, you, you. All through the long day until the moment the house is in darkness. Then silence. A silence I never knew even as a child afraid of the dark or a young girl newly moved away from home. And in the light of the street lamp shining in through the window, I lie in our bed, eyes open, all my senses fine-tuned for any sign of your presence. Come to me. If you should come now, I would open my throat and sing your arrival like the blind birds of San Michele.
I am reading another book about healing grief. I feel like Shakespeare’s Claudius attempting to pray. Make assay.3 Make assay despite all futility. What I read is that although you may think you are going mad, all reactions are normal. Unless they become all consuming. Or last for an extended period of time. This information offers no comfort. I do not cling to grief. My longing to be without grief is as great as my grief itself. But I am beginning to understand the truth about this loss. There is a hole in me, still so large I could put my fist through it. They say it grows smaller – but it does not close. That small hole, perhaps some day only the size of my wedding band, will be there when I die. What it can do is magical: open and expand instantly at the smallest reminder. I have put away the dangerous things where they cannot be seen: the rack of ties, the watch, the black eel skin briefcase. Still, I am not safe. For it is the unexpected – lilies in bloom, snow in moonlight, or the light in our son’s eyes when he laughs – that can take me by surprise and empty me again. At the moment of your death I watched in awe, amazed by its mystery. I only wanted your suffering to end. You had become so small. I thought it would be a relief for both of us. I did not know then about death’s hourglass, its perpetual tipping point returning me always to the starting place. I did not know about the hard work of marking time. Grief goes on forever. It is its own madness. How well we who are left behind keep this secret from each other. 1. Invictus, William Ernest Henley. Write to us: letters@enroutemag.net |
