Grief is a Monster

 I have decided Grief, true grief, is a monster. A sly, imp-like monster wandering, romping and ransacking the rooms and hidden cupboards in my mind.

I thought I understood grief. We don’t go through life without some form of it. The loss of a pet as a child, losing a grandparent, being there as a friend gets to the end of their battle with cancer. Even small griefs like losing a friend over something stupid or a job. But most of the time, our minds are preparing us for the flood of emotions that come with grief. We cry, we get angry. Then we remember and laugh a little and then cry a little more. And we move on with life. We sit on the floor of the home our mind, and we gently fold and tuck away the sadness and memories. Occasionally visiting and reminiscing before putting them away again.

Then something happens and you lose someone close to you, someone who was an integral part of your being, suddenly with no warning, no rhyme. And the true nature of grief descends.

I lost my sister. WE lost our sister. One minute it seemed she was fighting with me in a text, then she was gone. Our family is irrevocable altered. What was 9 siblings is now 8. And I don’t know what to do with that.

I have, all my life, compartmentalized. Unhealthy or not, I have survived a lot of trauma that way. But Grief is having a field day in my memories right now. Just when things are quiet, when my mind is on some daily task, Grief digs around in my memory chest and throws a random memory out that destroys my calm.

Grief reminds me I lost the Dolly Parton to my Kenny Rogers as we sang “Islands in the Stream” at the top of our lungs when we were young.

It dumps in my lap the times I made funny faces and did goofy skits for my sister and her twin at night before bed. It laughs in her unforgettable laugh.

 When I get dressed it slaps me in the face with the many teenage fights over clothes and the many, many times I was the photographer for her “modeling” shots.

When I am trying out a new moisturizer, Grief yells at me “you should tell your sister about this…oh wait…” and runs off to dig for more, leaving me frozen and choking in a puddle of hot tears.

Sitting at my desk I look up and Grief forces my eyes to the pictures of my nieces and nephew who were so much like my own kids and reminds me they don’t have their mom anymore.

Grief follows me to my car and shoves in my face the time I had to drive a monster truck to my sister’s house because I locked myself out with the wrong keys and shows me the look of astonishment and pure amusement that shined on her face as I raced up her driveway in this giant blue and yellow truck.

I worked hard putting those things away. Tucking the sorrow into a suitcase of feelings, sitting on it to close it, binding it with rope, shoving it into the back of a closet and stacking stuff around it. Hoping that it will sit there until I am ready to open it. But Grief knows that the only way that will open is if I am looking for something else. Grief presses on the bindings like squeezing a water balloon waiting with hushed anticipation for it to burst. Sometimes picking at threads that are pushing their way out of the seams and then Grief grabs hold and pulls. Handing me pieces of a tapestry that I don’t want to see. What do I do with this handful of painful threads?

How do you live with Grief? I want to punch it in it’s stupid face. Kick it into a corner and wall it up. But now it has free reign in my mind and is gleefully sorting and shuffling through my life.

But maybe Grief in all its mischievous doings isn’t truly meanspirited. Maybe Grief is trying to feed me small bits of memory to slowly release the pressure in the suitcase of emotion until the whole is more palatable.

I don’t know. All I do know in this moment is that Grief is the Monster under the bed, behind the shower curtain and in the dark closet. Grief is digging and searching around in my mind and pulling out memories long cataloged away. Grief is the weight sitting on my chest, stealing my breath at odd moments and pinching me awake in the middle of the night.

Grief is the Monster.