Grief and Glimmers

For anyone else trying to find the light these days

Hello, Friends! It’s good to be back in this space after taking last week off of writing. One of the many wonderful aspects of creating a Substack space is having readers and friends who are willing to stay in the silence while I pause for breath from time to time. In an ever-forward driving (digital) world, this feels revolutionary. I am grateful.

A beloved family member sent me this brief but beautiful poem in the mail after my dad died in November, and it absolutely nails the experience of loss for me, which been on my mind and in my heart this week:

Separation by W. S. Merwin 

Your absence has gone through me
like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

How gorgeous and true is that?

Grief has been visiting me this week, having shown up like a very enthusiastic house guest, one that I would be happy to see leave any moment now. The thing about a visit from Grief is that she rarely arrives bringing a specific sadness. Oh, no. Grief brings with her all the griefs I have ever felt, stuffed into an oversize suitcase that I tell her I don’t have the room for in my 750 square foot city apartment. Grief doesn’t give a damn and wheels that thing in anyway.

Inside the suitcase is grief for my soft-spoken, easily grateful father who died in November; for my many grandparents, who I’d trade time on this earth to spend one more Sunday dinner with; my kind uncles who still make me laugh, though they have been gone for years; my sweet six year old niece whose arms and hugs I can still feel around my neck; my ray of sunshine sister-in-law whose eyes always sparkled with enthusiasm for everything and everyone in her orbit; for friends lost, dreams that have long withered away, and for unspeakable losses that I’m not ready to write about yet, but that have carved out canyons in my heart this last year. All these griefs are delivered to my doorstep, whether I’m ready to sift through it all RIGHT NOW or not.

After dumping her things in my not-so-spare bedroom, Grief tears through the kitchen cabinets, eating all the snacks I stowed away for myself, and jumping recklessly on my new mattress, threatening to wear out the springs that serve to cushion my weary heart at the end of a long day.

Grief makes herself at home. Locks on the windows and doors only tempt her more. Like fog, she creeps through cracks and around corners until she has me cornered. At some point, I can either flee or face her. Grief doesn’t care which I choose; she is infinitely patient. She knows she will find me in the end, so I might as well put the kettle on and scrounge up the last of the cookies I baked last week to serve her.

Grief doesn’t wait for an invitation. Despite its unannounced arrival, I am doing my best to meet it and surrender to its depths, whenever it bursts through my front door in the midst of an altogether not unpleasant day, now decidedly turned stormy in the presence of Grief. Elizabeth Gilbert once described the heedless habits of Grief when she comes:

“[Grief] arrives — it’s this tremendously forceful arrival and it cannot be resisted without you suffering more… The posture that you take is you hit your knees in absolute humility and you let it rock you until it is done with you. And it will be done with you, eventually. And when it is done, it will leave. But to stiffen, to resist, and to fight it is to hurt yourself.”

Sometimes when Grief arrives, expecting to be entertained, I agree to throw a rager of a party for her, but call up Glimmers to join us for the festivities.