Grief Well

I wish I could tell you that after all this grieving, I have some new understanding.

Maybe something is taking form inside of me;

I catch glimpses of it behind my eyes, lips, jaw.

I know that I know that I know grief has the power to unmake, unmask, reshape, reclaim but those are hindsight insights and I’m right here.

My grief is a defined pool. It lies beneath my diaphragm, over my womb. It’s filled with missing and longing, futures that will never be, shame spirals and a little girl asking, “Is it my fault?”

I wallow in the shallows of my grief pond. It overflows its banks: plump tears erupt.

Only now I can see the bottom of the pond; it's not what I initially thought. Small tendrils from below-ground oceans fill my grief well from way down deep.

I follow the tributaries to the source–the Source of All Grief.

Where individual grief joins with the collective.

Now I can feel–I can really feel all that has been lost:

The Linden blossoms that died in their buds, never feeling safe to open because of smoke blown down from Northern wildfires.

The peaches that never had a chance to grow, waiting for a frost that never came.

The rivers–once barren, now bursting. Their prayers to simply flow dashed by the reality of extremes.

The little souls that were taken in the rush: a young woman walking her dog after work, a family on their way back from vacation. Every person, animal and plant who didn’t make it on the Arc.

I know I am ready for now because I have a body that grieves. Each day this body lives is another day lost.

Grief’s refrain: We cannot go back. We cannot go back. We cannot go back.

Tlaloc, the Aztec God of Rain, says there will be no more normal.

In a cruel–albeit now so clearly obvious–trick of fate, our attempts to build safety and comfort are backfiring. Believing we could outsmart the great balance of the universe, yes, we will take more life and less death, please and thank you.

What’s that? Actually that’s not an option? We can only relish life to the extent we swallow death?

How much death can you stomach? You say you’re all filled up.

Open. Deeper and wider. Take death all the way inside. Until there isn’t room for any more illusions and divisions. (Definitely no more small talk!) And all that you're left with is exactly what is.