Death is my Teacher

...and I am a reluctant student

Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.

-David Foster Wallace

CW: death and grief

There are no words to make this ocean of grief I carry inside my body beautiful. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that I have no energy to try.

I’ve never learned how to let go of someone gracefully. Through death or another departure, it always feels ugly to me. Though I was once told that I look graceful when I cry.

It is true that I know how to let tears fall without ruining mascara, even when it isn’t waterproof. I know how to catch a tear before it streaks my makeup, and the precise amount of time you can cry before your face gives you away.

It’s not a talent.

It was born out of survival.

Though I am weary as I look out at the gathering dark clouds, this turbulent sea cannot drown me. I grew gills and learned how to swim a long time ago, but its frigid waters still burn the back of my throat when I cry.

I struggle to keep my hands steady when I look at old photographs.

Everyone in the photo has died but me.

Maybe that’s why I don’t take pictures of people anymore. Instead, I prefer still things, objects that I might one day return to, believing they’ll still be there. Though of course, that is a lie, as even landscapes change with time.

Death, in all its permanence, has taught me about the inevitability of impermanence.

As much as I can, I’ve come to accept the seasonal parade of death that marches in and out of my life. There are times, when I am alone, that I scream into a pillow until my voice is raw.

It can’t be good for me, but I don’t know how else to release the pain.

I feel everything too deeply. I’ve always been told that, as if I could simply choose not to.

The depths are as real as the pen I hold, but I take a beating when the things that live down there come up for air. If I wall them off, it’s worse. There’s a riot within me that makes me sick, so a pillow and a scream seem like a decent compromise.

These depths aren’t just for pain. I love the end of them too, and I fear there is no other way I could authentically be.

The more I allow my vulnerability to surface, the harsher the sting, but I am strong. I will not let death harden me when I’ve fought so hard to reclaim my softness.

The pain is evidence that love remains unmarred by the bleak ending. Maybe that’s the beautiful part.

The body has its own calendar, and it counts anniversaries whether I want it to or not. This time of year, the sadness rolls in like a thick fog, and I am reminded it would be my dad’s birthday. Only this year, it’s especially bitter because his brother has joined the land of the departed.

He was sick and suffering, and death was a mercy. Most of the time that logic makes the pill easier to swallow, but this time I feel like I’m choking.

Maybe because it’s my dad’s brother, and it scrapes against the shrapnel lodged in my heart from the devastation my dad left in his wake. Maybe it’s because my uncle walked me down the aisle, or maybe it’s because I haven’t fully recovered from the one-two punch of losing the matriarch of our family just a few months ago.

Maybe it’s because my uncle was one of the strongest, kindest, most gentle men I’d ever met and I respected him fiercely. Maybe it is because his hands were the ones that helped me pat down the muddy soil where we buried my dad’s ashes in the rain. Or maybe it’s because I’m tired of attending holidays that grow smaller and smaller every year.

Maybe it’s all of it.

I don’t like to end my entries without considering the lesson or takeaway. It feels like I’m telling a lie, but my honest truth is that I am down, lying on my back, wheezing.

I know I’ll get back up.

I always do.

Eventually, this pain will dull and only hurt sometimes.

Grief is not linear.

For now, I’ll let myself lie here and catch my breath. I’ll look up at the view and consider this new perspective. There’s no guarantee that I won’t get kicked while I’m down here recovering, but it’s a chance I must take.

The only way out is through.

There will be a time to get back up but it’s not yet.

Right now, it’s time to rest.

-j.m. shaffer