when grief visits

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Today, I feel grief.

Constricting, pulsing, living, blinding.

A friend asked, “how are you doing?”

All I could do was laugh.

“All of the women
in me
are tired,”

I replied, grateful all over again for poets who have gone before us in language and syntax.

//

Today, motherhood felt like cement. Everything I did brutal and permanent. Jubal ate lotion, drank water from a pot outside, smeared shit all over the toilet seat, and punched me in the face.

His grief piles on top of my own and I hug him close while he screams at me to let him go. I do, and I swat at my cheeks, begging the tears to leave.

“I know,” I keep whispering. “I know. You’re safe.”

//

I receive a text later while curled into a ball next to Jubal on the couch. My screen lights up and I glance down, read the words. My heart stutters. I will myself to keep breathing as I answer back, wishing with everything I have that I can provide some semblance of clarity and calm.

I don’t know if it works. I cannot wrap my arms around the hurting, but I close my eyes and wrap them in my light and pray that it will counteract the heaviness they’re feeling: in their heart, their skin, their chest.

“I know,” I whisper still. “I know. I’m here.”

//

We pile on top of each other on Jubal’s bed, our nightly routine of stories and meditation and giggles feeling slightly slower and melodic than normal. I wrap him in blankets and kiss his cheek and he lifts heavy lids toward me and smiles.

“Mama? Can you snuggle on top of me?”

I press myself into his back and wrap my hands around his middle. He giggles. I nuzzle his neck. I tell him I love him. His eyes shut tight and he exhales.

“I know,” I whisper in the dark. “I know. Rest easy.”

//

Russ plays his guitar in the bedroom while I’m hammering out words, the pressure of grief behind my eyes and thick in my throat. There is just too much that I cannot control. Too much loss and fear and lies. Too much change and unknown.

I close my eyes. I consider what I can do right now — right this moment.

I know, my soul whispers back. I know.

I breathe deep. I let go.