death changes those left behind

"When we mourn our losses we also mourn ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all."
-Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

losing someone changes you forever. death changes those left behind. always, a part of you is buried with the one you love and that doesn't change. the mourning and the grief will subside and the emotions will calm but your very person is changed. the rhythm of your life has changed. the arc of your joy has changed. forever.

in a country that praises independence we fail to understand this. when you love someone you forge a connection and that changes who you are and when they disappear you change again. it's not as if they never lived but that they live no longer.

there is no shame in connection. there is no shame in the disruption that disconnection creates. it just feels that way because all around the grieving person the world continues on.

"A single person is missing for you and the whole world is empty."

the year of magical thinking - joan didion

i wandered into barnes & noble on tuesday night looking for something. i stumbled upon this book. i had heard good things about the book how it chronicled the loss of her husband.

i cried and cried and cried through this book. it was so truly beautiful. it was so honest and i identified with so much that she shared about her grieving process which is so personal and chaotic. i didn't know that she was episcopalian. i didn't know that her husband was also a writer.

i needed this book.

"i realize how open we are to the persistent message that we can avert death. And to it's punitive correlative, the message that if death catches us we have only ourselves to blame."

"I know why we try to keep the dead alive; we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us... There is a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep them dead."

i'll probably be posting bits and pieces from this book for a while.

the bandaged heart

the slightest thing can move me
one way or the other.

life has been divided
into before and after.

i lived with my grandmother
almost my entire life
she was a second mother.

how does one let that go?

she was a friend
a dear friend
and now we're separated

i miss her wink
the way she called my name
how she would tilt her head
and laugh - eyes closed

and i am so
fucking pissed
that she is not here
for me to love
anymore

but i am trying
very hard
to get over it.

my grandmother has died.

Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion
Dylan Thomas

i feel she has been ripped from my breast.
snatched so quickly.

yet i know she was suffering.
i know this is a blessing.

but i am only human
and i can't understand that.

i can't believe
that she belongs
where i am not.

does god really expect for me to get that?

it will be one week tomorrow.

a week ago tonight was the last time i saw her breathing.
she was sleeping so heavily, not to be roused, but breathing.

i left work and raced to the house.
the undertaker was in the kitchen,

in her bed, she appeared to be sleeping.
i didn't want them to take her.
i didn't believe she was dead.
i didn't believe it.

i watched them wheel her
in a bag
down the deck.

it is that image that
haunts me now.

the bag was only zipped to her neck.
it was brown.

all the flowers have wilted

all the flowers have wilted
and i don't know when the sun will come again.

my grandmother is dying.

she went to the hospital in the middle of the week.
she was there for three days.
there's nothing that can be done.
she came home on friday.

all we can do is make her comfortable.

she needs care almost around the clock.

i spent the weekend at my mother's trying to help.
feeling so horribly inadequate.

when i first saw her she looked like a corpse.
a morphine induced sleep.
her body so still. so pale. i didn't think she was breathing.

cancer has just shrunk her.
she is barely clinging to 100lbs.
her lips, her eyes, everything seems so small.

a storm in my heart.

i see myself disappearing.

i spent the entire day in bed.
half-crying and half-sleeping.

i haven't eaten.
i haven't been outdoors.

i'm not hungry. i'm not sleepy.
i'm not even tired.

my eyes are just leaking.

it seems everyday - i get closer to losing all that is dear to me.
it all seems to be disappearing.

it is my own passion that will be my very undoing.
i want to be indifferent.

death is here.
and he won't let me go.

and my greatest failure
is that i cannot make myself
care less.

to seek God unencumbered

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

my uncle has died.

i put this fact aside. so that i could survive the day. it meant nothing to me. i didn't feel it. it didn't connect.

until it did.

i was at my desk, analyzing a client portfolio. 12 asian currencies.
and i felt it - like an icicle through my chest.
a panic.

i wanted my sister. i needed to see her.
i wanted the dearest of my life close to me.
i thought of my parents, my grandparents.
my lovers, my friends..

and how all of it is so
tentative.

my silly puppy. the grass so green.
a warm & sunny day with a slight breeze.
all of my favorite things.

is heaven really better than what i've got
right this very minute?

for everyone i've ever loved
that has crossed that divide
i sure hope so.

as fucked as my life is -
and trust, it is a very fucked up thing.

i'm grateful for it's beauty
it's magic
it's wonders

and i'm sad that my uncle
doesn't have those things anymore.

heaven is probably much simpler than that.

it's just God
and nothing else.

the presence of God
and the absence of everything else.

that must be it.

no winter

there is no winter like death

i watch him labor to breathe, his face no longer his own, he has become almost a stranger to me now. perhaps, most certainly a stranger to himself.

lifelessness grows stronger in his body everyday. everyday we pray for a miracle and everyday that miracle does not come.

my aunt is a wife. she is at his side everyday. she is fighting with doctors and nurses and administrators to get them to do something, anything to save him. her love is fierce. i've never seen such passion. and she will not acquiesce.

it hurts to witness because there is nothing to be done. i cannot save him. i cannot soothe him. i cannot ease this transition.

if death is relief and transcendence to a painless realm, why does it wear such an unhappy mask?

and this is how i spend my lunch: teary eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. walking back to the office, i take a deep breath and realize spring is here. the bradford pear trees are in full bloom and the cherry blossoms are close behind.

just when i feel completely forlorn, god sends me spring.