I wrote something. It’s a little sad. You don’t have to read it if you don’t want to. It’s not a poem even though it may look like that. I actually don’t enjoy reading or writing poetry (don’t at me). But this is what came out in fits and starts, snatches and snippets typed in between nose-blowing and eye-wiping, trying to capture the feeling of being clobbered out of nowhere, the shock to the viscera that is Grief.
Grief is not always easy to write about because often it is not a fully-formed idea, it’s a fleeting feeling, a nebulous thought in the background trying to surface, like the feeling of trying to remember the exact word you’re looking for or place a too-short fragment of a song lyric. And, quite often, you’re going about your day feeling fine, when out of nowhere a found treasure of a post-it note or a particular song or sense memory destroys you. As I move forward on this journey, bouncing back and managing to continue on with the day at hand becomes, not easier, but a more reasonable ask; pull through rather than crumple, if you will.
As I’ve already written about, grief is a trickster, shapeshifting with time and circumstance. It is terrible, but it is beautiful, because it is a manifestation of love.
This is how a grocery list can make you cry.
It can make you cry in its whispers and reminders of a life lived.
It can make you cry in its nod to routines and rituals.
In its slanted scrawl and sloppyish print, a forever reminder that left handedness was punished.
In the simplicity of an everyday breakfast and unpretentious tastes.
It can make you cry in the proof it offers of the love shown for others.
The evidence of making sure they had what they needed, offered up in each word leaning forward.
In the happiness of pretzels and chips eaten sandwiched together on Saturday afternoons, in between shaking up cosmos for conversations over radio shows.
In its hints at Sunday sauce and meatballs-from-scratch.
In the joy found in cooking and eating and entertaining.
A grocery list can make you cry in its suggestion that the door might just open, plastic bags swinging into the room — a hello from the other side, a mundane yellow post-it tucked in a pocket saying:
I’m back.
Stop crying.
Go make the dip.
Since you’ve gotten this far, you deserve a reward for wading through my self-indulgent sadness: Gerard’s meatballs. If you ever had the privilege to eat his absolutely delicious food, you know what an expression of love it was. My mouth is watering thinking about it.
He always used to say, “And on the 8th day, God begat chopped meat.” So, go forth. Make meatballs. Toast to grocery lists and the joy found in small moments. ILY.