Diary of Grief

***Pictured at the right: Shannon and J.Taddei, Steve's sister**

Day Six: Together

The day begins with a fight. Right after breakfast, Chad and I launch into our goals, including the project of crafting a mosaic, garden stone for Grandma B’s birthday tomorrow. But within minutes of opening the kit, we are arguing. Chad and I rub each other wrong; we send the kids outside to play so we can talk it out. It’s tense. We’re both strung out – he, from being overworked at the hospital this week, not to mention a challenging month on the home front: first, a wife with a hideous eight day flu, and a now, a wife who is grieving. He’s having to pick up extra pieces; he’s feeling taxed. And me, I’m submerged in my grief – today, I can hardly see out of it. I feel like I will suffocate. Today, grief is twisting, gnawing on, pulling at my insides – insisting on itself. But it feels as if there’s no room for it. My family needs me; my life needs me. I’m overwhelmed. I know it’s vital to allow the feelings their rightful place inside of me, but right now, I hate grief. I resent the space it tries to occupy in my life. Grief will not be robbed, my priest told me the other day. I am only six days in, but this feels utterly true.

Chad and I sit silently now in the kitchen chairs; tears drip freely into my lap. Chad reaches over, rests his hand on my knee; I take hold of it. We have heard each other out. We’ll be okay. By grace, we’ll be okay. It’s all just harder than I want it to be.

Not fifteen minutes later, my mom phones. As soon as I hear her voice, I’m bawling into the phone. She understands what I haven’t even said: it’s a difficult morning with grief. Her words are soothing and kind. She knows; and grieves alongside me. I am going out to A’s house, she says, and you’re welcome to come along, if you want. I’m going to bring some soup and things. I don’t want to make things worse with Chad, so I decline. But after hanging up, the option of staying home to mix cement with three children sounds absurd. Traveling, instead, toward the center of the grief is what feels right. Furthermore, while much of my grief is owed to Steve’s family, and the terrible way in which they now suffer, there is an instinctive longing to be them, to offer whatever I can offer.

Grief is demanding. I never knew it was so demanding.

Unable to see clearly through my emotional clutter, I utter a confused prayer: I don’t know what to do. Show me what to do. So as casually as possible, I say: My mom’s going to visit Steve’s family today… and then I let the words hang awkwardly in the open air. And God bless Chad, who turns to me and says, You should go. I want you to go, and then opens his arms so that I can fall into them. After a minute, he adds, But I’m not doing any mosaic projects. I laugh and let him know I don’t expect him to be arranging gemstones in cement while I’m gone.

Upstairs, I pull my hair into a bun, throw on some denim, and head out to my yard to clip a bouquet. Ordinarily, arranging bouquets is something I do rather well, but just two plants in, and the bouquet is looking pathetic…Japanese Elm branches, a flowerless stalk from a Birds in Paradise…I look at the thing with great spite: it’s totally not working.

Back in the house, I whine to Chad: I want to bring something to them…I have no flowers, no soup, no nothing…what do I bring? And Chad pauses but a second, then quickly settles the matter for me: Just bring yourself.

And so I do.

The drive to Orinda is unexpectedly cathartic. Passing through the Caldecott tunnel, I find heavy sobs escaping from way down deep inside of me – loud, primitive, contorted-face kind of sobs. I realize that I belong right here, in this car; the drive to Orinda is a grace. The time alone has opened the door to my grief; a door I’ve kept mostly shut in order to survive my days; grief, refusing to be robbed, finds a way out at last.

At the house, I wrap Steve’s sister and Steve’s mom in my warms and squeeze – it feels so good to be in their embrace. I don’t want to let go. We gaze into each other’s tear-filled eyes and there is a beautiful sort of knowing between us. It is the first time this week where no explanation is needed for why I feel the way I do. It is one of the first times this week that I don’t have to pretend I’m okay when I’m actually not.

The time spent with Steve’s family feels like an earthly sort of heaven, especially for grievers: it is togetherness; it is raw and true; it is love beyond words; it is a painful, but perfect kind of warmth. It is not the awkwardness around death that I feared. It is intimate. Rather it is the wound open wide, for healing. Although it’s unforgivably difficult to see the friends I hold so dear, suffering so profoundly, I rejoice in being with them. I am honored they have welcomed me in to their sacred place of grief.

Something else happens that I didn’t know could happen in times of grief: we laugh hysterically. Peering over one another’s shoulders at old photo albums, filled with moments from Steve’s life, we howl at our mothers going braless in the seventies – what gigantic boobs they had; and at Steve’s dad, in his impossibly tight pants, his unbelievable afro; and at Steve, who at age four, is dressed in a mustard colored leisure suit. Steve’s family tells a funny story about Steve getting sandwiched in a foldout sofa when it retracts unexpectedly, his feet wiggling in the air over the cushions as he yelps for help. We laugh and laugh and laugh – until we need to cry. And then we cry.

We tell the best of the Steven stories: the memories shared between us, and even stories that are new to one another. We talk about death. We talk about life. We talk about God. We talk about wishing we could talk to the dead. And I remember now why these friends are more like family: it’s so easy to be with them. We can say anything or nothing at all; we can laugh or cry. We can share thoughts embedded deep in our souls about the way things are. And were. We can be as we are. Today, I feel profoundly thankful -- that Steve was in my life for all of those years. And that his precious family still is.