Persistent Putrid Wave of Grief

I am a woman of a certain age. If asked, prior to August 5, 2019, I would have told you the world held no real surprises for me. I long ago stopped believing in fairy tales. I haven’t trusted politicians since Bill uttered the timeless lie, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” The allure of being a fan lost its luster when Tupac died. Bankers are thieves in tailored suits. For God’s sake, we pay them for the privilege of holding our money. May they all die in the dark, screaming. Friends are wonderful, until they are not. Family is a blessing, until it is a curse. Nothing stays the same, nothing is forever. Outkast told me and I believe them.

Alas, I was a fool.

There are still surprises, even at this middle stage of life. I am educated, but I know just a little more than nothing. I am blessed and highly favored, but I feel cursed and forsaken. I’m middle aged but, doubt my maturity. I am hopeful but, filled with fear about the state of my family’s future. Basically, I am a human filled with all the messy and unsatisfying quandaries of existence.

I’m grieving.

I’m grieving and I have literally, never been in a space like this before. I have been held in a chokehold by depression in the 90’s.  It was ugly. I survived and am grateful it happened to me at an early age when my safety net was fully intact, and I did not ruin my future prospects due to the inability to remove myself from bed or windowsill. I learned so much during that time, it has literally saved my life numerous times in the decades since.

I’m grieving and I feel bad about it. I didn’t lose a husband. I didn’t lose a father. I lost a brother in law. Perhaps in some families a brother in law is a distant relation or an enigma that is unknown and only someone you brush up against during the holiday. A stark, distant figure with whom you communicate only rarely.

My brother in law was a big guy. I mean, he was larger than life. He triumphed over so much to become a doctor. He was, with no exaggeration, one of the smartest, strongest humans I knew. How can he be dead? How? He could run miles. Set broken bones.  Suture wounds. Answer questions that would confound Google. He knew a lot! He understood so much. There is a difference in knowing and understanding. Our family dynamic is forever changed without him. He has transitioned and joined the ancestors. His absence removes the buffer that somehow comforted us when we lost his brother just two years ago.

I feel as if the safety net of grace that I always felt covering my family has been ripped away and we are sheep in a meadow encircled by a forest full of wolves. My own father, the greatest man I’ve ever known, is eighty-eight years old. He has lived a rich, commendable life. The next generation of men should be prepared to step up and lead our family. Yet, here we are, down two men. Two young men. My brother in law the most recent of our devastating losses.

I want to peel my skin, don sackcloth and sit in ashes while wailing. What of our girls? Our boys? Who will show them what men of fortitude, dedication, tenacity look like? Must it be only my brother? Must it be only my father? Why must a family, with plenty of men, be reduced in this manner? Why must my niece, only a little girl, grow up and live the rest of her life without her father?

The rage I feel is outsized. I read news reports of evil men killing children, their wives, girlfriends, or colleagues and sneer. I side eye The Creator and offer mocking questions. “So, this dude is breathing? This killer of children, women, and unsuspecting office workers? What are you doing? Are you drunk? Dead? Not real? WHERE ARE YOU and WTF ARE YOU DOING? Your plan is trash and I’m done with you. You are a bully and a liar, and I don’t trust you. Holler at me when you get your shit together.”

Don’t judge me. Don’t ask me if I talk to The Creator in such a familiar way. Job did. It netted him very little in response. Still, I have a right to ask questions and if The Creator is as loving as she claims, then she can handle it. She’s a mother. In her time span, I’m probably a toddler. She’s going to get this tantrum.

That’s how I feel. I feel like throwing a tantrum. I’m furious. I begrudge every murderer their breath. Every thief. Every pedophile. Every CEO making decisions that ruin families, countries and ecosystems. Breathing, thinking, and moving around while my family sacrifices a great person.

That, apparently is one of the stages. I cycled through disbelief quickly, even though sometimes I feel this is all a dream I will wake up from soon. I am stuck on anger. How long will this last?

When will gratitude take the forefront, that we didn’t lose more than one family member? When will I bask in the glory of peace? Peace that The Creator has a plan so far reaching that I can’t imagine the stunning glory of our family’s future?  Where is it? When will the hurt stop? When will I stop crying? When will I stop hating on strangers and judging their worthiness when my own is clearly in question?

I’m grieving. I am coming to believe that the platitudes of generations are lies. I am coming to believe it will never get better. I am coming to believe that the ache of a lost loved one will never stop. I am coming to believe that grief lasts a lifetime.

It is like the sea, still, at times. At others, raging with high wind hurricanes laying siege to my heart’s shores in a grossly obvious manner. It silently undercuts the contentment I seek at other times, a riptide, unseen, impossible to prepare for and stronger than imaginable.

I am in this sea of anger, disbelief, and pain. I battle for the shore. I seek peace. I seek an understanding. I seek a reason. Why did this have to happen? Why now? Why him? Why us? Yet, would I wish this on someone else? Never. I say again, unequivocally, never! I wish for no other girls to come to womanhood without their father. I wish for no other wives to lose their husbands. I wish for no other family to receive an international phone call from a bystander. Hello, is this XX? I am with your daughter. She has something to tell you. Daddy drowned.

Oh, never! Never, do I wish this on anyone. I’ve seen these news reports and thought, “Oh, Lord. That poor family.” Now, we are that poor family. I’ve thought, “Bless that family, Lord.” Now, we need a blessing. Not even one, but two, ten, a hundred, ten thousand. So many blessings will be needed to see my niece to adulthood. My sister to full independence after nearly two decades as a partner. It is enough to make me pull out my hair in frustration if I were to think of the endless needs of a girl and her mother in this world.

Yet, strangely, in this mix of negative emotions, gratitude is persistent. Gratefulness for what didn’t happen pushes me toward the shore of peace. Gratitude is my life jacket. It buoys me as I flail about with furious gesticulation. The shore beckons me. Never further away and on some days, I am so close. I feel I could grasp the sands of gratitude and peace, joy and hope, and dream again of a future. I can almost imagine honor roll celebrations, dances, and graduations. Accomplishments I always thought would be captured with some fancy camera recently purchased, all of us in a cluster, grinning unashamedly with pride as a bright flash preserves our moment.

Then, the wave washes over me and I know that image will never be. Oh, the accomplishments are coming, we will be there, celebrating. Only, we will be smaller in number. The absence of our loved ones will be glaring, no matter how many years have passed. We will say what he would have said. We will say what he would have thought. We will swear how he would never have stood for such a long ceremony or argued for more tickets to the graduation or run that young man off immediately. We will say it, believe it, but never really be sure because we will be saying what he would have said now. In ten years or twenty, he would have changed, like all living things. He is forever enshrined in our memories as he was in 2019. A man grown and gone at the stage of life when everything begins to be clear.

The curse of aging is to know what those who die before us do not. To see what they do not. To experience what they do not. The curse of dying young is that you stop changing.

Or, is it?

What happens after? What manner of change does our energy encounter? Are we light? Do we see everything, everywhere? Are we air? Do we move, unfettered through every space? Are we water? Forever recycled, nourishing life in every iteration? Are we fire? Do we heat the very atmosphere? Are we earth? Do we grow plants and decompose flesh?

The reality that we don’t know what comes next is what is really holding me together. My brother in law is probably right here, scoffing at me. “Nature. Stop it. I told you, short people live forever. It’s those tall bastards who die. Look it up if you don’t believe me.”

Oh brother, I hope you are/were right. We miss you too much for words. We will love you forever.

Grief. What a bitch.

Author: Nature Mariah Sargent