#262: On growing around the grief

Dear reader,

I know I’ve been away from here for a while. But being vulnerable felt too tough. And talking about Haiku’s loss is too hard. I’m in Calcutta now, healing with my family. Attempting to accept and grow around the grief.

I don’t remember which stage of grief I’m supposed to be at by now.

The floods are still unstoppable when they come.

I feel the tingles in my brain and heart and spine and forehead. It reminds me of the stored love waiting to overflow when the healing waves come. They must come.

That acceptance of the inevitability of everything. The out-of-controlness of the curveballs life throws.

You can duck, you can run, you can hide or just stay under the blankets till the worst nightmare arrives. But it’s there, waiting. The blatant, un-push-away-able uncomfortable truth.

You are gone. There is gratitude and love and loss. And the biggest vaccuum I never knew possible. I miss you. That’s all.

---

Poetry Corner

A few poems that helped me accept the reality of the inevitable.

Art by George Albert Thompson

1. Afraid So by Jeanne Marie Beaumont

Is it starting to rain?
Did the check bounce?
Are we out of coffee?
Is this going to hurt?
Could you lose your job?
Did the glass break?
Was the baggage misrouted?
Will this go on my record?
Are you missing much money?
Was anyone injured?
Is the traffic heavy?
Do I have to remove my clothes?
Will it leave a scar?
Must you go?
Will this be in the papers?
Is my time up already?
Are we seeing the understudy?
Will it affect my eyesight?
Did all the books burn?
Are you still smoking?
Is the bone broken?
Will I have to put him to sleep?
Was the car totaled?
Am I responsible for these charges?
Are you contagious?
Will we have to wait long?
Is the runway icy?
Was the gun loaded?
Could this cause side effects?
Do you know who betrayed you?
Is the wound infected?
Are we lost?
Will it get any worse?

2. Every Understanding by Jaan Kaplinski
Translated from the Estonian by Sam Hamill

comes in due time
your little hands
on my rough cheeks
first snow
always
to someone
for the first
for someone
for the last
time

3. Do Not Fall in Love With People Like Me by Caitlyn Siehl
Do not fall in love
With people like me.
people like me
will love you so hard
that you turn into stone
into a statue where people
come to marvel at how long
it must have taken to carve
that faraway look into your eyes
Do not fall in love with people like me
we will take you to
museums and parks
and monuments
and kiss you in every beautiful
place so that you can
never go back to them
without tasting us
like blood in your mouth
Do not come any closer.
people like me
are bombs
when our time is up
we will splatter loss
all over your walls
in angry colors
that make you wish
your doorway never
learned our name
do not fall in love
with people like me.
with the lonely ones
we will forget our own names
if it means learning yours
we will make you think
hurricanes are gentle
that pain is a gift
you will get lost
in the desperation
in the longing for something
that is always reaching
but never able to hold
do not fall in love
with people like me.
we will destroy your
apartment
we will throw apologies at you
that shatter on the floor
and cut your feet we will never learn
how to be soft we will leave.
we always do.

4. On arrival by Richard Howard 
Waiting is the poem of waiting.
     Tomorrow you will be here
and I can leave off the anthology,
     heroic couplets, haiku,
projective verse - it is all making
     do, and it has done for me
whatever making can: a coming
     to terms with nothing, until
something is on those terms, my poems.
     By tomorrow this waiting
will be over and done with, it will
     be my best poem ever,
and it will never have been written.

5. A Flame by Adam Zagajewski

God, give us a long winter
and quiet music, and patient mouths,
and a little pride -- before
our age ends.
Give us astonishment
and a flame, high, bright.

---

A grief playlist for January :(

There’s no right or wrong way to grieve. But music certainly helps feel the spectrum of emotions. A playlist of songs that are helping me survive.

---

A few comforting links

• Lessons from Kitty by Janice Pariat (Made me howl)

• 1000 Matches

• The Kitten Covers

• This comic strip by Anne Emond on Seeing

• The Poetry Lifeline

• "...these six years with my feline familiar have been the happiest of my life. She turned me into an animal person. She filled the child-shaped hole in my heart. She blessed me with responsibility on the days I wanted none. I didn’t have any say in the matter — she climbed through my bathroom window and claimed her place in my life."

  -Cherishing every second | Susannah Conway

---

Grief Collages

I’ll end with a few pages/word collages I’ve been creating in an almost frenetic state since her passing. Just in case it helps anyone else going through something similar (I really really hope no one is):

---

Sending healing energy (to you and myself),
Rohini