I realized in my latest post calvin post that I was being angsty, which meant I was being a little down and out. It’s a little bit of my writer brand, and I’ve mused on here before that I wonder if I’ve relegated that part of my personality to only come out in my writing. Or I somehow believe that my optimism isn’t interesting enough, isn’t cool enough, isn’t enough.
I’ve always felt a little selfish, openly processing my grief. It’s so often a private journey, one that I haven’t even really seen in my own family. There are always hints, but it’s never out in the open.
Chanel Miller laid it all out in her book Know My Name: all the words, all the feelings, all the darkness. And it was dark, yes, but those weren’t the times when I cried. It was when survivors swelled up around her and supported her. It was when she realized that she needed to speak out for herself, to unpack her own history. That survivors do not need platitudes or toxic positivity. They need the “I was in the dark place too. For a long time. But I’m making my way out of it.”
As I shared in my post calvin piece, I’m still in grief. Most of the time, now, I’ve forgotten it. Lori peaks out at me from my wallpaper, a picture on my fridge, a facebook memory, but I can smile at her for the most part. I don’t think “What if she was here? What would she be thinking?” constantly as I did throughout my first year of teaching. I’m not angry that she’s gone, most of the time. But sometimes it chokes me by the throat, like when people have a full conversation about heaven and maybe that we are in nothingness until Jesus comes, and while that’s a fun thought experiment for some people it means for me that my mom is gone until Jesus comes back. During my CPR and AED training, I couldn’t stop thinking if Mom got CPR in time. Was Lars trained? Was Dad trained? When did the paramedics start? Did she recognize her symptoms after doing school trainings for forever?
Someone reposted on facebook this description of grief like a ball in a box. The box has a big red button on the side labeled “pain,” and at the beginning the ball nearly fills the box, pushing into the button all the time. Every passing day reminds you of how many days it’s been since your person was alive. Every new thing you do you mark as “the first _____ since.” You are keenly aware of the before-after divide in your life.
But as time goes on, the ball shrinks. I find myself not marking the 7th of each month. I forget how much of my life my mom saw: was I living in Nizhoni? Had I started teaching? Was I friends with _________? Did I know _________? There are still triggers, still moments, but they are less often. The ball hits the other sides of the box more often than it hits the button. I’ve grown accustomed to the chain mail of grief; I’ve gotten strong enough to not notice its added weight as often.
When I mention her death, and my students express condolences, I can just smile and say, “Thank you.” The days where her photo arrests rather than comforts me are few, and for that I am grateful.
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