juxtapositions
Grief & Apple Blossoms
Every week for the last four weeks, I’ve spent a significant chunk of time thinking about what I want to share in my newsletter and I’ve come up blank or very uninspired.
My intention with my newsletter is to share stories, reminders, thoughts and more about my life, but also in hopes to help others feel seen and validated in similar experiences. Instead of sitting down and just letting my fingertips flow, I’ve ended up researching birch trees and information around protons & neutrons. All for something I thought I was going to write about, but later decided not to. (Perhaps it will find the right time - until then, stay intrigued friends.)
I’ve been in an internal battle about whether I want to write about the grief that comes with May, and my own internal voice has been telling me to, “stop living in the past.” That internal sassafras has won most days.
But not today.
The universe is filled with stories, not atoms.
Muriel Rukeyser
May is a doozy of a month for me. It’s where the deep trenches of my grief were carved out and whittled into cozy caverns that feel comfortable because I’ve grown to learn every sharp edge and smooth surface while finding my way out of them. It’s home to memories that even if I end up with memory issues, will remain in my bones and blood and tissue until I die.
Like the night I came home from work at 10:30pm to the house fully lit up. Something very, very out of the norm considering my parents were typically in bed no later than 9pm. My dad waited up to tell me my mom had cancer and would be staying in the hospital to begin treatment as soon as possible.
Or, the day my mom asked me to make a scrapbook of all the things I wanted to have at my wedding so she could see it. Because she knew she wouldn’t be able to attend my wedding with her terminal diagnosis.
And her last Mother’s Day - when I planted every Impatiens flower in the front of the house because mom was too tired from chemo.
May is also an amazing month for me! It’s filled with oodles of joyful moments.
Like when I first spotted the Marsh Marigold popping up.
Or, when I noticed the pine trees finally showing new growth in bright lime green.
And when the first hummingbird sits on the feeder to gulp down some food just outside our front door.
What a juxtaposition to be grateful for the Apple Blossoms while simultaneously longing to hear my mom call me “Peter Pan” just one more time.
I’ve spent many years believing that I ‘must’ feel sad on anniversary dates; falsely believing that if…
I wasn’t sad that would mean she is forgotten
I’m not actively feeling or showing sadness, the grief isn’t real
I’m too smiley, no one will believe the depths of the grief that will live within me forever
This year was different though. For the first time in maybe all 16 years since her terminal diagnosis, I allowed myself to feel what I felt, when I felt it and worked really hard to shut out the sassafras.
I spent one evening in bed. Like, went to lay down at 6pm and didn’t get out of bed the rest of the night. I cried into my pillow even though I couldn’t tell you the exact reasons I was crying - I just knew I needed to cry.
Instead of letting Mother’s Day have this looming vibe, I acknowledged it was coming and committed to doing some work outside in the field. And then I woke up really, really sad. The kind of sadness where I feel like my collarbones are being pulled so far forward, it’s as if they are caving into my belly button. And the overwhelming anxious air of uncertainty filled the spaces between each breath I took. And each of those breaths felt like a gasp for air after diving to the bottom of the deep end of the pool. That all consuming sadness.
And I spent several evenings walking down the driveway on the lookout for new buds growing on trees and desperately hoping to see a new wildflower that I haven’t yet discovered on our property.
I spent several mornings putting good energy into the garden and enjoying the dirt under my fingernails and around my ankles. Cackling at the perfect farmer tan line at the middle of my upper arm.
I felt joy far more than I have any previous May the last 16 years.
And that feels weird.
For now.
Everything feels weird when it’s new. It’s scary and uncomfortable, which is why that asshole of a sassafras thinks I’m grieving wrong.
It's a gift to exist. And with existence comes suffering. There's no escaping that. But if you are grateful for your life. Then you have to be grateful for all of it. And so, at a young age. I suffered something so that by the time I was in serious relationships in my life with friends or with my wife or with my children, is that I have some understanding that everybody is suffering and however imperfectly, acknowledge their suffering and connect with them and to love them in a deep way that makes you grateful for the fact that you have suffered so that you can know that about other people.
I want to be the most human I can be, and that involves acknowledging and ultimately being grateful for the things that I wish didn't happen because they gave me a gift.
Stephen Colbert
A couple years ago, I was visiting my mom around her birthday. She’s in a mausoleum so I go and sit, and sing to the emptiness of the room and tell stories about my life in hopes that this space is somehow sacred enough to help my message make it to her.
After a bit of time, another visitor entered. We’ll refer to him as Mr. Mausoleum.
I told him I was getting ready to head out and he encouraged me to stay. I grabbed my coat and belongings and reiterated I’d been there for a bit already and could give him some space and he asked, “Who are you visiting here?”
We struck up a conversation about each others loved ones and I learned that Mr. Mausoleum was visiting his wife, his mother and his daughter. All had tragically passed within the last 18 months. As he was telling me about each of them, the only response I could muster was, “Would you like a hug?”
So we shared an embrace - two strangers truly seeing each other despite being surrounded by rising tides of grief and loss.
Last summer, we watched a butterfly hatch from its chrysalis. This spring, I realized the chrysalis was still there. Despite every storm. All the wind and the ruckus of dogs and chickens on the front porch. This beautifully haunting, paper thin shell remained, and that gold line where it stitched itself in before it began to turn itself into goo and re-make itself, is still shimmering.
As I approach the last day of May, I feel a bit like this chrysalis. A shell that houses memories of heartache, loneliness and a deep sadness. But also fucking beautiful, strong and home to so much fertile soil for growth.
And I feel grateful.
Grateful because I can see the chrysalis shells of others that have lived through similar grief like Mr. Mausoleum. That - that right there is the gift our friend Stephen refers to in the above quote.
As cliche as each of these following statements are, they remain true. Instead of clinging to them out of desperation for meaning like I used to, I’m now loosely holding them as reminders that joy & grief cohabitate in my body - and allowing them to do so is a gift I can give myself.
It’s always darkest before the dawn
Every cloud has a silver lining
Grief is a journey, not a destination
If you’re grieving this season - know you are seen and loved. Even if we don’t know each other - my energy recognizes yours and I hope comfort wraps itself around you like a soft, hand-knit blanket.
Wishing you a joyful June, folks.
Oof the man who was grieving his wife mom and daughter 😳 too much. I was right there with you this Mother’s Day, thank you for sharing your experience (and so beautifully written!)
❤️ so good. Thanks for this beautiful reminder.