Day 346 - Grocery Shopping for Grief
But death is more relative than we know.
Death is also more constant.
One thousand paper cuts a day and you'll handle a knife in the back looking like a regular pro.
People will say things like...
'you're so strong...'
'you've got a good head on your shoulders...'
'you'll get through this...'
But that's only because they're intensely uncomfortable with death standing so close to them...and they need you to be strong so that it doesn't come any closer.
It's just so surreal to think that we're doing this again. My mind can't help but make constant comparisons. I think that's how the mind is though. It's frantic to make sense out of the mayhem. Survival is always the default mode of the psyche.
Senses become hyper-aware,
time slows down,
and suddenly you see and feel
...Everything.
Then the familiar riptide grabs you again. You feel the slow terror of the current as it pulls you away and you have to let go of every hope and dream for a lazy day at the beach just to make it back to shore. You learn how to swim sideways.
But there is a limit to survival and after 17 years,
my brother couldn't be stronger anymore.
So now here we are....all of us trying to survive him.
I overslept this morning to get the kids on the bus and I almost panicked, but then I walked in their bedroom to see them both curled up in bed, with the kitten and the dog, all sound asleep, and I decided to let them sleep until they woke up.
I couldn't let them stay home from school.
That was more for my sanity, to be honest.
I knew I'd be way more exhausted if I didn't send them to the public-funded, state-run babysitter.
I got them dressed, fed and off to school...
And then I went grocery shopping,
looking for good stuff.
I needed to see abundance and life and pure pleasure...in nectarines and asparagus, cilantro, cherry tomatoes, and brown-speckled eggs. And I wanted having that goodness to just be as simple as putting it in my cart and swiping my debit card.
I needed it to be okay to just buy something already fixed 90% of the way and know that I didn't have to do much more than warm it up for dinner. I picked a shrimp-and-sausage-stuffed chicken for the crockpot just because I knew the slow aromas would be as warm and consoling as the meal itself.
I needed to chat with the cheery gentleman who works the early, early shift to stock all the produce with his kind, grandpa hands. I admit, I did lie to him when he asked me how I was doing.
"Fine...," I said,
...and then we talked about the surprising snow that we had just two days ago with snowflakes as fat and feathered as goose down.
I needed to buy candles for an afternoon of stillness and comfort. And the coupons promising $2 off were all the encouragement I needed to be generous with my selections.
But then it happened.
With all my senses sharp and time layered at both real time and half-speed.
I heard it.
Christmas music.
And the memories came in as deep, surging waves, grinding 17 years of a heart hoping and waiting and praying and screaming for change in our family, into the gritty sand and jagged broken shells of reality.
She left right before the holidays too.
That was also the last time I ever saw N.
That was the last time I touched her.
And also him.
And I had the audacity to believe that her death would finally be the catalyst to change our family for good. I threw myself wholeheartedly into the suffering for that hope. I threw her away that easily...just so that the rest of us could survive.
I told my heart that something bigger was coming.
"You can do this, heart...
After all, you have a strong pair of shoulders on your thorax."
So, I pushed through
dying a thousand little deaths,
killing my heart softly,
until the dreams were the only way
I felt the pain and the disconnection.
Of both her and him.
The dreams of him were a stone elephant on my chest,
the agony palpable, but completely out of reach.
Her, I could touch and talk to,
but she was gray and sick and it was always hard to know
if she was still alive or dead.
I didn't fully understand it until today,
when, somewhere in the bread aisle
between the English muffins
and raw Texas honey,
with images of my beautiful brother
and her and him
swimming behind my eyes,
and Christmas music promising
all the good stuff of families,
I found what I was shopping for...
...grief.
