Diary of Grief

Day Four: Quicksand

For whatever reason, the fourth day ends up being a living hell; a weird, frozen-in-time, isolated sort of hell: like I’m stuck in a quick sand of grief. I’m home with the three boys today, and I feel like the three of them are tiptoeing around the quick sand. They sort of circle around me, like little black birds, pecking at their cheese and crackers, pouring their apple juice, looking up the weather on Google, making their beds...

When I first woke this morning, even before I hoisted my under-slept body out of bed, I resolved I was going to take the kids somewhere special, like Fairyland, and spend the day reconnecting with them. I have felt so absent this week. But the hours of the morning pass – and pass – and pass, and I tell you this, my dear friends: I simply cannot do it. I am stuck. Deeper and deeper I sink, hardly able to travel from one end of the house to the other, let alone, to Fairyland. I feel guilty for being so far removed, for not being able to fake it very well with my family this week. But it also occurs to me that if my children are ever going to be prepared for grief in their own lives, well…it will be through what they observe of the experience. There are no how-to lessons on grief: there is just the wretched, raw experience of it. And I don’t think we are asked to overcome it, but merely survive it.

The dishes pile high today. The laundry, of course, is also in massive, possibly composting, mounds. And apparently, the mail is piling up, too. The mail carrier came up to the door today with our mail. I can’t fit any more mail in your box, he says, it’s all jam-packed. He seems annoyed. I take the mail from his hand and speak defensively: We had a death in the family so I haven’t been checking the mail. He remarks, Oh boy, and heads back down our front steps. I can feel that I’m especially on edge.

While clearly I’ve not been much for mobility today, I have been thinking a lot. About how death is an enigma that haunts us all – how not one of us can escape it; about the way death perplexes our delicate and limited human intellects, and challenges our spirits to their innermost core, no matter what the circumstances around it happen to be; no matter what we believe comes after. Because in death, the living feel forsaken.

At some point, I coax myself to the backyard and sway in the hemp chair a bit. From the swing, I spot the cross that hangs on our fence: it’s a mosaic composed of irregular shards of bright-colored ceramics. I think about how we’re all broken like that; some of us in more pieces than others, perhaps, depending on our story. I think of Steve, broken on earth, but now whole. This is maybe the first soothing thought about death I have arrived at on my own, since Steve’s passing: that each of us longs to be whole our entire lives, and in dying, we finally are.

Finally, finally, around 2 p.m., as the quicksand nature of my day becomes unbearable, I convince myself to do two things: seek out some company to get me through the evening, and to get us all out of the house. After herding the boys into the mini van, I head to the end of our block and sit there, immobilized. I have no idea which way to turn because I have no idea where we are going. The boys are buckled confidently in their seats, trusting that I have a plan, as always – a destination. But I absolutely don’t. Even more perplexing is the fact that I can’t seem to make a decision that requires so little imagination. Finally, I turn left and head toward downtown. But I have second thoughts, so I make a u-turn and drive back the other direction. I head over Fairmont Drive and into San Leandro. We end up at Michael’s Arts and Crafts, which ends up a ridiculous nightmare of a shopping trip, with Henry opening packages of beads and rolling them down the aisle. He also broke two piggy banks. We buy a mosaic garden stone kit, some stupid dollar toys, and head home.

On the way home, I am unusually agitated and realize that I failed to eat again today. So I drive the mini van through Caffino, and order a mocha. Food simply doesn’t appeal. The boys talk me into a whole variety of indulgences: strawberry banana smoothies, cookies and cream shakes, chocolate milk: I am a pushover, too strung out to defend any point of view. And that’s okay for today. I laugh to myself, thinking they could have easily persuaded me to order chocolate croissants, muffins and cookies, as well. Pulling out of Caffino, I realize I am precisely one block from the place where Steve's body was found. Tomorrow, Mom and I will visit Steve's site together.

I am actually looking forward to having somewhere to be; to having a destination that feels exactly right.