Year 7

Its taken this long for me to allow myself to realize that I have no fucking clue how to grieve you. There are stages and the last once is supposed to be accompanied with this literal physical release that is a kind of giving up of all the pain and hurt and sadness to the universe. I havent done that yet. I havent even come close. I can feel it all inside wanting to be free, wanting to be released from the cage Ive made with cement blocks and mortar and heavy heavy chains. But Ive forgotten where I put the key. My hands dont remember the pathways of tearing down this house I built myself to contain you. And so it sits, heavy in my chest. Full of all my incredibly intense fears of truly having to let you go.

For the first few years I couldnt even talk about you with family. Your death was an invisible pink elephant crying in the corner, anguishing from lonliness. Someone look at me!! Dont you see me?? Im still here!! But I refused to look. Your death was a faraway thing, like someone discussing the pyramids who'd never actually been to Eygpt. I was told how strong I was, how well I was doing. I couldnt cry with people about you. And to watch others cry about you to me? The rage!! The horror! NONONO STOP. You dont get to be sad. You dont get to cry. I am the one who should not ever have to get out of bed again and here I am comforting you? Too much. Too much. I block things out. I dont want to feel them again, I dont want these memories of these people telling me these things about you that I already know. How could I not know? I lived in you. We shared the same blood. You were my home.

This year there is an acknowledgement for the first time of how much anger is there. Thats a step, maybe I am moving forward? But slowly so slowly. Dragging my feet and shouting the entire way. So much anger. How could you leave me???? You were all I had !!! Just you and me for forever and now forever is gone because you left. You left me.
You
       left
             me
                  here

You went somewhere I cant follow. So Here I am. Here I sit. Here I lay. Here I eat. Here I sleep. All the while trying to continue wanting to do it without you. I am trying. I try.

I listened to a woman speak about Death. She said we choose our paths in life, that before we are born we plan it all out like blueprints, and every heartache, every loss, we signed up for. We chose to experience it. She said there is a heaven but its more like here than we imagine. She said I will see you again, that you are around, that you can let me know youre with me. I get a brief mental image of you in a garden in this heaven she described, which is funny because you never were really into outside and plants like me and gram are. But I see you clear as day, with a little rake and you look up like you just remember you had somewhere you were planning to be, but that you got too immersed in your work. These things swirl around in my head like leaves caught in a tidepool and the undercurrent that pulls at me without fail is the wanting. These are things I want to believe. I want so bad for these things she said to be true. Equally as hard, I feel the weight of my cement house, tethering me in disbelief, unwilling to let me feel this hope, this joy.

The grief of you wont let me feel things. Childlike wonder still gets through probably because thats something Ive never given up. I can still feel the stars and a beautiful sunset or sunrise or a giant flock of birds fully. But other things, very important life altering things? They are grey around the edges. My wedding, the births of my children, building a new home with my husband, all have these little grey edges. Like photographs forgotten and left too long in damp basements.

 I want to be fully happy again. I want to see the true joy in all things. Ive just forgotten how. I still laugh. My husband makes me laugh. My kids make me laugh. I love watching them. I stare at them for culminations of hours and hours upon hours. Watching them play. Watching their little minds figure things out, make up stories. In them I see me and I want to protect them from these hurts I harbor within. I want them to grow up feeling secure and free and light. Lightness. All childhoods should be made of lightness. Heaviness is an adult thing.

Every passing year it becomes more clear to me how much I dont know. I do not know if this is the correct way to lament another souls passing. Is it supposed to take this long? Shouldnt I feel patched up by now? Why cant I remember how to remove these chains and bricks from around you? I dont know. I dont know. Im trying. I try.

But time passes. It moves on. I wonder what you think of me, what you think of what Im doing, what Ive done. Are you proud?  Do you wish you could hold your grandchildren upon your lap? I tell them about you. I will never stop telling them. Jack has your fiestiness. Mookie has your eyes. He really does. They are hazel. I hope they stay that way. I mourn a bit for the baby girl that I couldve named after you. Is that wrong? I dont know. I think I just wanted to be able to see something alive that was part you and carried your name. Something I could see and hold and touch and love. But Mookie has your eyes. And Jack has your spirit. You are in there, just as you are in me.

Today I will go to your grave. I will clean it and put up some yellow and organge flowers. And I will hold my head up to the sky and wait for the sunshine to fall across my face and pretend its your hand there. My children will be with me. We will go and sit to honor you. We have not forgotten you Holly Marie.

And yet, this story isnt one of hopelessness. Grief, Im learning, takes time. Grief, isnt what we are told it will be, its a russian doll with 55 inner pieces. What we are told equates to the cheerful smiling face painted on the outermost doll. I am working my way through these dolls, and when I get to the tiniest one I think at last I will be free. Free to fully feel again. Free to throw this hurt to the universe and to only smile when I think of you.
Im trying.
I try.

In memory of Holly Marie Stadnik

June 12th 1957-Oct 22nd 2008