Stained By Grief

I finished a hike recently and wept. I looked down at the wetness on my shirt from falling tears and thought, “I am stained by grief.” 

Today is fifteen years since my sister, Charlotte, died. It has also been two years since my mom started receiving letters from me, expressing how much I would miss her because her time was coming to an end. I am both grateful and haunted by the last two months with her. Yes, I am stained by grief. 

The deaths have added up, along with the gray whiskers on my face and the lines that have visited the sides of my eyes. That’s okay because each memory has a place there, on those lines that now tell a story. Time tells a story because time eventually absorbs us all. I often feel like I am in a boxing match with memories of the dead. They are a reminder of what once was and something I will never have again. Death is final and grief is restless. However, I keep the dead alive by having conversations with them, so maybe death is not so final after all. The ones I loved and lost do answer me, especially in the early hours of the morning when sleep has forgotten me. 

Oftentimes, grief makes you feel like you have suddenly become invisible to the world. There is a certain fog that fills your thinking, or perhaps it kills your thinking, making it difficult to understand what people are saying. You find that it is hard to listen to them and then feel bad. Maybe you feel bad because you don’t care what they are saying. Their mindless complaints and meaningless jabberings have become unimportant during your moments of disbelief from the loss you now must endure. You find yourself alone often and start to wonder if people are ignoring you because it is hard to be around a person who grieves. You suddenly dread the quiet but then long for it at the same time. You wonder when people do approach you and show up, if they will say something to acknowledge your pain? However, death is awkward to talk about and offensive not to, and most would rather be offensive than feel awkward. It’s an easier emotion to make excuses for. 

There was a time when I was younger that I sought distractions after I experienced a death. When my dad died, I attempted to ignore my pain. When my best friend killed himself, I ran rocky trails in an attempt to run away from the pain. When another friend was shot by the police, I justified it through his addiction and reckless nature. Charlotte’s death taught me to lean into the pain. Accept it all and grapple in the dark, lonely hours with the distraught agony that can become my mind. 

We cannot separate ourselves from death because it will eventually come. We owe that. We were given birth with the agreement that we would give back a death. 

How many shirts will I stain with my grief? Several is my guess because the dead that I miss deserve my tears. Their love has earned them.