Grief is not linear. There are no steps to follow, no guide or tell-all book you can read to force any of this to make sense. Time doubles back and folds in on itself, and you are caught in the throes of it, nothing to do but hold on as tight as you can and hope it frees you soon and not too worse for wear. Grief is not linear. I turn in the kitchen in the middle of the night, and there you are, up to get a glass of water also, and we startle each other a bit, share a laugh, quietly, so as to not wake the rest of the house. But this is not now. This is only a memory. Never again will I jolt awake at the same moment as you, both from nightmares as similar as they are different.
Our brains are — were — are wired the same. As if I were not borne from my mother’s womb but instead grown from inside your head, materializing a fully formed little human. Or that is what I wish, what I want to tell myself.
You were the only one who ever truly fought for me; the only one unwaveringly on my side, my team. How am I supposed to handle it all without you down here with me, shouldering the worst of it for me, protecting me, always, no matter the cost?
All you ever wanted was for me to be safe and to be okay. I am trying to be okay, I promise. But it is just so hard right now. Right now, it feels like I will never, ever be okay again. But this is right now. Only right now. An hour from this very moment, I might just feel okay. Hopeful, even. Sad, yes, but full of relief and happiness for you, also. Grief is not linear.
We are at lunch, still months away from me coming out — I am just barely coming to terms with it myself. I am talking about how I would like to be Peter Pan, and amidst the protests and jokes from the rest of the family, you tell me I would make the perfect Peter Pan. Your smile tells me you already Know, on some instinctual level, deep down where the bond between father and son lives. This was the last time I got to hold your hand without plastic in between, separating us just that little bit further.
It has only been 31 hours, and I am already terrified of forgetting you, of holding only a vague memory of the way your laugh sounds within my mind, of the living version of you slipping so far away from me you only exist that way in photographs and other people’s stories.
Joan Didion wrote, “Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.” Obliterate the dailiness of life. How am I supposed to get out of bed in the mornings, eat breakfast, shower — do all the things I need to do with the knowledge that these are things you will never do again? It is the simplest things, the smallest things, that hurt me the most.
You will never eat ice cream again; you will never drink a beer again; we will never fight again about me not taking care of my car. It is almost like I have accepted that you will not be here for the Big Things in my life — if and when I get married, I know you will not be there to walk me down the aisle. If and when I get published, you will not be there to celebrate with me. I know these things to be true. But what I cannot wrap my mind around is that you will not be there to take naps on the couch while I do homework at the family computer, that we will never again sit in the sun-bleached wooden chairs in the backyard and talk for hours. If I sneak out in the middle of the night and forget my keys like I did so many times in high school, will I slip backward through time, will you be there to let me in, a wink to let me know you won’t tell grandma I was out at three in the morning on a school night? Grief is not linear.
I have the urge to dig a hole in the backyard, near where you buried my hamsters when I was eight years old, to dig and dig and dig until I can fit myself in it and fall down, down, down through time until it is five years ago, ten years ago — until you are here, whole and complete, telling me stories of when you worked in the mines in Missouri.
I cannot wrap my head around it, the fact of your death. I cannot make it make sense. I feel so small, so young. What do you mean my favorite person is gone forever? Surely when I walk through the door, he will be there, playing with the dog, watching NCIS. My child’s brain refuses to comprehend anything different. He is only on a business trip, a long one, like that time he went to China for two months — but eventually, he will come home to me, even if it feels like years, with gifts and souvenirs and so many stories for me.
I do not think I have ever experienced true grief before now. It is like a part of me has died. Nothing makes sense anymore. Am I still a person with blood pumping through my veins? I don’t know. I don’t know. I no longer feel real. I no longer feel human. I am a raincloud, thundering and storming relentlessly within myself, my grief spilling out of me in big fat raindrops, salty acrid tears that drown everything in my vicinity. The thunder in my heart is deafening now. Pain has fit itself into every little crevice of my body, every nerve ending crying out.
I am placing your obituary in the newspaper I work at, which is perhaps the most surreal and devastating thing I have ever experienced. I could have sworn you were the one who drove me here — what newspaper job? I’m only fifteen, writing bad poetry and failing half my classes. Grief is not linear.
Every day I must relive the moment of your departure. I wake up, I ache all over, I remember you are dead, I ache even more. I am hoping desperately to be wrong one of these mornings. “Oh, Amelia, it was just a false alarm.” Just kidding! It was all a cruel, elaborate joke. Your grandfather is waiting for you just beyond the wings.
Cognitive Dissonance: When a person holds two or more contradictory beliefs at the same time.
Grief is not linear. Please come home soon.
