This Is Us
Grief, 17 Years After
This is what I know
Today marks 17 years since I entered the grief world, which is really just the world, but another side of it, one that we come to find has been there all along yet is only revealed to us in the wake of a deep loss.
This is what I know.
It is a subject so intimate, precious, and unique, and yet it can be unspeakable even to ourselves. We shelve it away in our subconscious for another day — a day when we feel more prepared to deal with it, if that day ever comes.
It creates a space in everything, one that is constantly stretching, shrinking, changing in shape and depth, evaporating into thin air, or consuming everything in sight. It plays tricks on us, slipping into the foreground long enough to make us think it has wholly disappeared when it’s just in another room, contained in a photograph we haven’t picked up in years. When the truth of it all is merely lingering beneath the smiles of those left behind who, I imagine, think to themselves, Yes, this is a horrible thing but what else can we do?
It is a puzzle that is perpetually missing a few pieces and does not come with an illustration of completion to use as a reference. It places us always on the cusp of mastery, and we inch closer and closer to understanding it, understanding…
