i eat a grief sandwich.
i wear a grief coat.
i see a grief film.
—Lorde
My black sweater was threadbare. It was old. I hadn’t worn it in years—completely lost to the black hole that’d become my closet. The pants were my mom’s. They fit funny around my waist, were too tight on my hips. I knew I’d throw away the sweater once I got home.
She let me play whatever I wanted in the car on the way to the church, even all the Taylor Swift songs she hated. I didn’t sing along, or hum, or even think. I spent the entire drive staring at my nose in the passenger side mirror.
I managed to hold it in until I couldn’t. It was the sound of her mother, crying, pulling in heavy breaths, that cracked me first. Something in my chest broke, finally fractured despite all my desperate attempts to keep it together that weekend.
I choked on it once, twice, before I managed to shove it back down. I looked up at the vaulted ceiling and blinked it away. Pulled myself tight. Held it all in the hinges of my hips and shoulders. Felt my fingers and toes go numb.
Always, I’ve struggled with faith. I’ve wanted to believe but found that I couldn’t—maybe couldn’t isn’t the right word, but I’m not sure what is. There’s always been too much I disagree with. Too much history I found too difficult to ignore. I was fine with falling somewhere in between believing and not. Then, years ago, my aunt died. It’s been a mess I’ve tried hard to ignore since then.
I couldn’t look at the coffin. I watched the priest; the lady who sang songs I didn’t know but probably should’ve. It was in my chest, then my throat, and suddenly, the only thing that stopped me from filling the echo with my own grief was my mom’s hand on my shoulder. Tight. Steadying. I sat down, though everyone still stood.
I couldn’t stop thinking about her—the blond hair, the blue eyes, the pretty teeth that’d been covered in braces for most of the time I’d known her. A massive chunk of her life. I could hear her laugh playing in a loop in my head, louder than the screeching of the singing lady, louder than the priest placating.
I tuned back in long enough to get angry. Heard the tone of the priest’s voice. I didn’t like it, how casual it sounded, like he did these enough times a week to be numb to it. Maybe he did, but it stung all the same.
My anger is an ugliness I’m comfortable with. It’s easy to cling to, sink my teeth into to stop my own screaming. The fire raged in my chest. I stared at the pointed heel of my shoe, chest heaving, eyes filling, cursing all of it—that priest, and every god I could who might be listening.
I didn’t get up to receive. Let my mom and a family I didn’t know slide past me in the pew and out into the aisle. I’d been imagining my hands around the priest’s neck when he blessed the tasteless crackers and wine. I’d been screaming at him in my head. Telling him he was wrong. He was wrong and foolish, and she couldn’t possibly be happier anywhere else but here, alive. She couldn’t be at peace because she wasn’t done. And any god who would call someone “home” before their twenty-fifth birthday wasn’t much of a kind and loving god at all.
I stood when commanded. Sat when allowed. I worked hard to swirl all my hatred and anger into a numbness that left me entirely blank.
Behind the church, after her coffin was gone and the procession was waiting, I shoved my forehead hard against the stone and cried.
*
After Her Death
I am trying to find the lesson
for tomorrow. Matthew something.
Which lectionary? I have not
forgotten the Way, but, a little,
the way to the Way. The trees keep whispering
peace, peace, and the birds
in the shallows are full of the
bodies of small fish and are
content. They open their wings
so easily, and fly. It is still
possible.I open the book
which the strange, difficult, beautiful church
has given me. To Matthew. Anywhere.by Mary Oliver
*
We talk about god in the shower.
I’m standing under the steaming water, and he kisses my shoulder. I tell him about my anger.
“I hated that song. The one they sang about how if you believe in god, you’ll never want for anything.”
He hummed. “I know that one.”
“It’s a load of bullshit. How could they not want? They lost a daughter. A sister. They want. Of course they want. How could they not?” I brought a handful of water to my face. Leaned into the scalding of my skin. “And the priest just kept saying that she was in a better place, happy. That she was finally home.” My laugh was broken. “What the fuck does he know? Nothing. He knows nothing. He didn’t know her. How could he think she’s happier gone? She’s twenty-four.”
I leaned my head against the shower wall and tried to stop the crying. His thumbs worked into the muscles along my spine.
“I’m stuck here again, with nothing.” My voice sounded broken, resigned. “I don’t know how you do it. I can’t—I can’t believe it all happens for a reason. Can’t believe in it being her time; can’t believe in his plan. Not when children die. Not when mothers lose daughters. When good, undeserving people die for no good reason. I just can’t.”
“You don’t have to.” He paused. “I don’t know if I believe that either. That the God I believe in could be responsible for that. Maybe he’s not. I like to believe that he’s not. I don’t think that anyone wants to believe that he’s responsible for that, when they talk about his plan. Sometimes, bad things happen.”
I turned around, tired and heartbroken and so fucking angry. “Then they shouldn’t say any of that. They shouldn’t say it was her time, or that she’s happier now, or that she’s where she’s supposed to be. They shouldn’t say any of it.”
“I know.”
“I need you to tell me how to do this.”
I knew he knew what I was asking. He’s more spiritual than I am. An unwavering believer for all his life. Their relationship much less complicated. Less tenuous. Devoid of the kind of violent anger that riddled mine.
He didn’t say anything, just pushed my half-wet hair behind my ear.
“I need you to convince me.” My head was starting to hurt from the force of shoving all my devastation down. I wouldn’t let myself cry. My embarrassment and useless stubbornness always won out.
I knew by the slight furrow in his brow that I wasn’t going to get the answers I wanted. Needed, maybe. He leaned over and placed his lips to my forehead. “Trust me, I wish I could.” He tapped my hip. “Come on. Turn around.”
A second, then his hands were in my hair, fingers massaging shampoo into my scalp. I moved my face beneath the water and held my breath.
*
When he was before her again, his teeth covered by a smile, the sweat and stench removed, she studied him from the crushed bed, admiring his cruel beauty, her body still marked and odorous. His, clean and unstained, amnesiac already.
—Kate Daniels, “Bathing”
*
We spent the night at a party with my friends; drinking, laughing, celebrating a life still in motion.
In bed, he kissed my forehead, cheeks, neck, and chest. I clung to him, needy and aching to feel anything other than everything I had been. Offering up every last piece of myself. Handing over all of my love in return for something that would hurt less, or maybe just as much.
I tried not to think of her. Tried to shed the coat while his hands slid over my thighs and chest, fingers catching in my hair. I called to god in a way I couldn’t that morning. Maybe now it mattered less because I knew I’d get no answer here. In vain. Rhetorical. My desperation rooted in something entirely different.
I knew it wouldn’t fix me—not the wine, or the laughter, or the bites to my body—but there was a cavern inside. It needed filling. And I tried. I tried and tried, but it refused to hold any of it. It was a pit of a nothing—insatiable longing.
I focused; I touched; I begged and pleaded and still, it didn’t work. There was no comfort, no real distraction from the unavoidable truth: someone from my world was missing. Gone.
I had nothing left, and still, let him take from me. Turn me hollow. Maybe, then, I might feel better than this.
He kissed my forehead. Left, and returned to wipe the insides of my thighs with an old cloth that scratched. I let him hold me; buried my face beneath his arm and breathed deep. He smelled familiar—warmth and love and comfort.
He mumbled something against my temple, and I told him I loved him.
Once he was lost to sleep, I pulled myself from him. Turned over and folded myself up, tight, while the waves of everything I’d been trying to shed crashed back in.
I pressed my hand against my mouth so hard my teeth cut into the skin behind my lips. Tasted blood while my other arm held tight around my naked body. I cried until it hurt—my throat raw, chest aching.
Grief descends quickly, easily, wrapping you up carefully before tossing you out into the sea. My chest broke open on impact. Sobs harsh and broken, as if I were drowning. I thought of her; thought of her; thought of her.
I couldn’t breathe. Felt something roil in my stomach.
I slipped from the bed and waded through the dark into the bathroom. Sat on the cold tile floor. Rested my head against the edge of the toilet.
I felt my own heartbeat, hand over my chest. Listened to the air entering and leaving my body. Tapped at the hot tracks of tears down my cheeks; rubbed at the flush of my face. Told myself I was okay. Lied, until I could breathe again without strain. Lied, until I fell asleep on the frigid floor.
*
*
I’ve dreamt of her three times in the weeks since she died.
The first time was the worst. She wasn’t there at first. Just her other friends, her family. They were so excited, so happy. She wasn’t gone. It’d been a mistake.
A mistake.
I didn’t believe it until she was standing in front of me, smiling, looking exactly like herself.
We talked, and talked, and talked.
Then, it all started to crack. She asked me about things she couldn’t possibly know. And there was something about her…a glow. Hazy. Strange. Unnatural. I’d ask, and be ignored.
I think my desperation woke me up. I don’t know how long I sat there in the dark and cried. It was as though it was happening all over again. Getting news I didn’t want the first time.
The times since that first were similar. Too real; too honest.
For a while, I stopped sleeping. I was afraid to see her. Afraid of feeling that way over again and again.
She hasn’t come back to me since.
M, in case you’re reading this: I miss you. I love you. Come home.