Loss and Writing and Kate

I usually talk about perky, fun things on this blog, but I get so many heartfelt emails from you, my readers, that I feel like I can talk about non-perky unfun things here too.

A lot of you have responded to the topic of loss and grief that Kate has to face with her parents’ death in Book 1. And then at the very end of Book 2, she is once again faced with another loss. I’ve gotten at least 500 tweets, FB messages and emails from you saying that you cried at the end of UNTIL I DIE. (And I have been dispensing virtual Kleenexes non-stop since release date, it seems.)

So I know you know that feeling.

Lately I have had a lot of loss in my life, through both death and loss of love. And in many ways, the feelings both situations bring are very similar. Both involve grief. And although I lost my mom over 12 years ago, I forgot how physical the pain of grief can be.

I try to remember that pain when I write about grief, but it never really measures up to the true experience: the tightening you feel in your throat; that ice-pick stabbing in your chest; the iron clamp around your lungs, the loss of appetite and sleep. When I write things like that, I get back editorial notes that say “flat” or “too cliché?” And that is because it is so hard to describe in a realistic manner. The pain is too intense to put into a handful of words.

But for me, the physical pain walks hand in hand with the psychological pain of loss. And the hardest part for me is dealing with what the loss means for the future. What will never be. Thoughts, like those I expressed of Kate’s, that you will never touch that person again. I am a very tactile person. That thought alone for me is devastating. That you will never brush your fingers across that person’s skin: whether it be the powder-soft wrinkled face of your grandmother or the warm firm skin of your true love’s hand as you walk hand-in-hand into one or another adventure.

The concept of “never again” is the hardest for me.

With my mother, my grandmother, knowing that I can’t pick up the phone and hear their voice. I won’t ever hear my mother say, “Oh, Amy!” when I tell her some crazy thing I’ve done. (Everything I did for her was crazy.) And my grandmother talking about my daughter, who she doted on, saying, “Oh, I just want to squeeze that sweet little girl!” Never again breaks my heart.

There are loves of my life that I was glad to leave. It was time. It was clear. Others that have been hard. And some that have been excruciating. And in this situation for me, it is the “what could have been that will never be” that is the hardest to bear. The plans that I made, that I might not have ever spoken. Trips that could have been taken, meals that could have been shared, conversations that will never be enjoyed, books that will never be read together, time spent in the other’s company. All of that dissipates into the ‘this will never happen’ ether of lost experiences.

And then touch. There’s always the touch that will never happen again. The finality of goodbye.

How do you deal with heartache? Kate hid herself away from the world. I did the opposite with my mom, and had to be with people non-stop. There are bad ways of dealing – of escaping the pain. And dealing with it head-on means crying so much that you look in the mirror at the end of the day and wonder why you don’t look like a raisin. Where did all of that water come from?

Some turn to whichever God or religion they practice. I have, over the years, developed a habit that I go to when I am in desperate need of help. I should do it more often really, but only think of it when I am at the very end of my own strength. Here it is:

I’m not into ancestor worship. But I happen to have an ancestry of very strong women who preceded me, whose blood flows through my veins and whose genes I share. When I am truly desperate—I have done this both when I had an excruciating choice to make or when I am being ravaged by grief—I go to my little altar of women and remember them all.

Words and sounds are important to me. I say their names. I look into their faces and touch the objects that I have that were theirs—that they too touched at one point back in the distant past. And I ask them to pass me their strength. It’s already there in my genes, flowing through my veins. I ask them to help me tap into it and to help me make my decision, be strong, and have peace.

Loss. Grief. The disappearance of someone you love from your life. It is a necessary part of life, but curse those Fates who allow it to happen.