The missed phone calls of people calling to tell me about the news and see the news. I looked at the call log and made the only phone calls or texts that made sense to me- action-oriented ones.
Planning to leave. Telling folk I was leaving. And why.
I remember being real intentional about what I would wear to your funeral. Something colorful like you were. Not Black, cuz I wasn’t mourning you. I actually thought something was wrong with me because I wasn’t. My first thought was gratitude that you weren’t suffering anymore. Pride in the hard work I’d seen you put in to get home.
You told me people died in hospitals.
I called my best friend to tell her and that’s how I found out that talking wasn’t the thing to do because the dam threatened to burst. Another phone call let me know I wasn’t ready to associate you with past tense.
That outfit was the only thing I was intentional about. I knew I needed warmer clothes so I threw things in my bag. I packed some pots, made breakfast, loaded the dishwasher and grabbed things I needed to drop off on the way like it was an ordinary trip back to Cleveland. I sent texts ahead of my intended arrival to coordinate drop-offs and stops. I put my bag in my car and pulled off.
My space shows my mindset. Mine was already in disarray when I got that text. I called people to not talk about what I was feeling. I busied myself with work on part of the trip. I rode in silence when I wasn’t doing that.
My driving DND ignores all texts, I let the calls go to VM…except my sister, who I was taking something to.
Her: “Are you okay?”
Me: “Don’t”, tears welling in my eyes. I was still hours away from my final destination.
I made the stop and shared a meal with her before deciding to drive the rest of the way. My brother and I passed days together. Me doing school and work, him attending to your final details and keeping me updated. We made a picture collage. I saw pictures of you I hadn’t seen in years and pics I had never seen. I wanted everyone whose life I knew you touched to see themselves with you one last time..if I could find a pic. I didn’t know there was a pic of you that I could see my face in your face.
I ignored my father’s calls for days. I texted to tell him I was okay. He wouldn’t believe it until he heard my voice. The conversation was about the gathering that was to come. The things I could not leave undone. Things I was glad hadn’t been left unsaid. Things I was glad to hear were.
I didn’t shower everyday, like if I wore the same things the days could pass slower. Like if the days didn’t pass then you being gone could still not be true. Still, I made a hair appointment, because we were both going to be dressed in our best. I randomly teared up in those days. I took 2 hours long walks. I listened to the voicemails you left me.
The day came. I ironed my clothes, chose my accessories carefully, and watched my brother do the same. You hadn’t seen this outfit before and neither had I. Upon arrival, I walked into one of the most interesting family reunions I have ever attended. Masked, there were people who did not know my face. Which felt impossible to me, because it was yours. Quick conversations with people at a celebration of life that happens when one life has ended.
Your body was in the coffin, but you were not. I knew that when I walked up to you. I took a moment to see you while family and friends waited in the lobby, because I had to walk past you to speak to the gathering. I started speaking and the dam broke a bit more. I told the room who and what you were to me, things not everyone there knew. Things I had come to know in the core of myself in reflection. You were eulogized, the obituary was read, the slideshow played, the dam broke.
They closed the casket and the truth I had ignored for the week became a full reality. The work that had served as a distraction couldn’t hold my attention. Neither could conversation. I sat on the stairs by myself at the repast. My mother entertained people in the front room. My brother was with the younger cousins in the backyard. I listened to all the noise around me then went and say by myself in silence for a bit. My brother found me and took me to his house after that.
I didn’t know how to be in the world. I was apathetic and angry. This unexpected transition on top of the ones I was already planning for was too much. For four days, I did little to nothing. Even though I had packing and studying to do. I couldn’t care. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t explain how I felt in words. I didn’t want to die, but I damn sure wasn’t living. Deadlines pressed me into action. I couldn’t ground myself, but I knew you wouldn’t want that to be my crutch, even if it was my hurdle. I was intentional with part one of my transition, because I was freshly aware of what unexpected transitions felt like. I made a group space for people to say goodbye. I made a space for individual goodbyes too. People came to help me finish packing, my agreeing to their requests to help because I could not do it myself. I did what I had to do because I wanted to do nothing.
My therapist asked me what I needed. She asked me to make sure I gave myself space and grace. I have perfected the art of running from my thoughts, because it’s easier to feel nothing. I looked for external relief that I knew wouldn’t work because it feels too big to do the thing that will. I looked for stones, drink, meditation, company when none of those things brought me closer to myself. None of those things brought me closer to the decision that I must live without you because the only other option is death. I hate that I didn’t know how you tethered me to this world until you left it. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.
I thought I knew suffering until this happened. People keep asking if I had experienced death before and my reply was always “not yours”. The matriarch of my family, my namesake, the person who showed me they loved me as much as they told me in a time when other people in my family were not up to the task. The woman whose strength and stoicism I had inherited. A woman who was just allowing me to get to know her as a woman, who honored my decision-making as a woman. A friendship that crossed generations and broke generational curses. The person who gave me this is now a memory. A tall tale to people who will never experience her for themselves.
A part of my grief is that I wasn’t with her more, even if I came when she called. That my life, my dreams carried us physically away from each other. Still more is that we are now separated by a distance I can only traverse in my prayers. I can’t hear her voice yet, but I see her hand, the hand of the Divine in the prayers that have been answered.
I didn’t know I could have two emotions I could feel so acutely at the same time. Grief that is the lens I see the world through right now and gratitude. I feel like I betray the feeling when I find something to smile about. I don’t know how I’m going to move forward when I fall into grief that makes everything stupid. Anger hasn’t helped. Resolving to be over the grief hasn’t either, because I need to feel these feelings. For me. For the relationships I have and will have. I don’t want to fake it but sometimes anger and putting on a brave face are what I have in the moment.
When they say time heals all wounds, they are talking about the choices we make in each moment. To be healed. To not not be. To find meaning in events that are otherwise suffering that don’t make sense. To question why God allows that suffering and deciding that death happens a thousand times through life, the dreams, relationships, and previous versions of is that were to make room for the version that is. The ones we aspire to. The ones that God calls us to be.
That grief, the many shades and flavors of grief are part of the walk. And people can walk alongside you, but they aren’t walking with you because the grief is so uniquely tailored. It’s hard to talk about that. Cuz even when people say they feel you…
They don’t.
I'm just telling you how I see it 