It's not at all what I thought it would be, this monster we wrap up so tidily under the simple guise we named Grief.
I can wax poetic about eternity and my beliefs until the sun ceases to rise in the sky, all of which I still believe, but it doesn't touch me right now and would not be authentic. It doesn't fill me up the way that it did when I could anticipate it all, but then go back to his room and envelope myself in the comfort of Griffin's physical presence and assuage my heartache with its balm. And now he's gone, forever from this lifetime, and the sun still rises every morning despite his absence. It feels like the worst kind of betrayal that it does; and yet I know he would want me to find him there in the muted but glorious colors that fill the sky and he loved to watch. So I drag myself out of bed.
Never. Last. Words I've used a host of times but are no longer weightless against the truth of eternity. Griffin's death has made them as heavy and insoluble as the stones that line the river beds and we used to admire and collect - but I don't want them anymore. I just want him back, and I want those words to be irrelevant in the face of knowing I'll see him again. But they're not right now, and I don't know when they will be again.
Words...words that held so much power to comfort and console, to encapsul and define. They are trite and insignificant - entirely inadequate as I wrote his obituary and tried to encapsulate all of who he was in a few too-short paragraphs, but realizing I could write a novel the length of Tolstoy's, and it will still never feel like enough. Words intended for comfort but are drowned out by the incessant and roaring static in my ears and I can no longer understand what's trying to being said - I just feel the overwhelming and relentless waves of noise crashing down on me and want to scream until it stops and is quiet again, feeling consumed by frustration because people now speak in a tongue I don't understand.
I want the world to be still and silent so I can hear my heartbeat and be reassured it's still pumping, still doing its damn job even when it's against my will. So I can remember this is real and I'm still alive, that time is passing and taking me with it - I am not simply suspended in this moment and unending, awful place, because I can't feel it anymore in the numbness that envelopes me and is the only way I can possibly get through the day. Yet I fear the silence I know will come all-too soon when everyone's life goes on, and mine does not. I don't want the faster pace of normal life to sweep me away with it and take me from this still place that mourns and honors with every breath, because I cannot imagine it ever being acceptable to not be eternally near this place where everything roars with each exhale, "He's not here anymore."
I'm so tired, and yet no sleep leaves me feeling rested.
This feels endless - too much, too deep. I understand, only now, why some people choose to live life just on the surface.
I stare at this many-faced monster we've named Grief and look him in the eye knowing I recognize him only because I know great, resounding, profound love...and I try to find comfort in that sacred knowledge.
Perhaps in that light he isn't a monster at all. I hang onto him because of it. But I want so desperately to shove him away so he can't leave the scars that I know will forever change me. I love him because he reminds me what came before his arrival, but I can't stand to live with him either.
But live with him I will because, somewhere in the back of my mind, I still remember why he's here. I still have a family that deserves the best parts of me too. I never want people to forget Griffin was here and what he did. I want Griffin's story to go on and keep touching the world, making it better. Because, and despite his ever looming presence, the other creature I live with - though smaller and more fragile, but whose presence is equally as profound, though it is distant right now - is Hope.
But Grief is the great love I am left with in this new world without Griffin. So I'll sit quietly and alone with him, regardless of this fractured and broken space we find ourselves in, until we make our peace.
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