Anniversaries-

• For those of you who don’t know, we lost our 22 year old son, Tanner, on June 5th, 2022. I have done some personal writing in regards to the nature, of death, grief, and loss.

ONE MONTH…

Today is one month.

You leaving has left such a vacuum of space inside me.

One month, since the universe opened up, and took you back.

And this nightmare odyssey began.

Grief.

I am going to be totally restructured and reborn from this process of grief. I can feel it.

I now look out at the world through the eyes of a foreigner. At a faraway land. Possessed by textures I can’t quite perceive with my senses.

Everything is brand new here. Even though nothing around me has changed.

I don’t recognize myself in the mirror.

Thin face, thin body, ghost.

Here, not really here.

Part of me, the part that exited the moment I heard that you died, is chasing you into the afterlife.

It’s left this dimension.

I’m clear that I am not fully inhabiting my body anymore.

I’m roaming. Unmoored.

Perhaps this is a good thing. Or the right thing. The natural thing that happens when we grieve?

To be totally and utterly undone by the loss of a person most expensive, most valuable, most precious.

A person who is a part of me, a part of my body. Yet at the same time was fully their own person. With their own thoughts, opinions, and life. A person I admired. And am so proud of.

Every moment is so full of you, and yet, empty of you at the same time. How can that be?

I’ve always been sensitive. But now one thought can unleash a River of tears.

I wake with them already on my cheeks.

Cutting new shapes into my face. New ridges and wrinkles occupy my smile lines. But I’ll gladly wear them. As living reminder that you were here.

Like stretch marks from my pregnancy, the tear lines will be another part of my body, I’ve given just to you.

Lately, the thoughts and memories bring up so much beauty. Because you were beautiful.

It’s Collateral Beauty.

Now I reside in a mind forest of memories.

I could shut the door. Become a hermit recluse, in city populated by memories of you.

And gladly stay here forever.

What would you have me do Tanner? I ask myself this question every day.

What shall I do now, on the other side of the unchangeable. The unthinkable. The unknowable.

The thing I can’t control? Or make different?

This is an ending. A finality.

The thing I feared the most in this world has happened.

Our culture isn’t good at endings. We are horrible at death and loss.

We focus so much on bright beginnings. Constantly giving ourselves over to the tyranny of hope.

So I am unpracticed at bumping up against them. And not being able to fix or rearrange the details somehow.

I am unpracticed at this level of existential pain and loss. Though existential pain and loss is eerily familiar for this orphan girl.

This ending is so utterly complete.

The ending I grew up inside, had hope for a living reunion. It wasn’t quite an ending. More like living inside a secret.

What can I do Tanner?

“Live” is his answer. Every time he says that. Im clear it’s him.

But there is no further instruction on how to do that.

Just “live”.

In order to live, I know I have to submit to this full unraveling. This scattering.

To the lostness. To having no map, no directions. No sense of place.

In order to live, I have to surrender fully to the mystery of death. And be able to breath here.

My mind struggles to make sense of things. But my soul knows what it knows.

I know you are loved. I know you are at peace. And I know you are with me.

But knowing all of those things brings me little comfort now.