From Here to the Great Unknown

by Lisa Marie Presley

I decided to lie in my bed because I know how heavy grief makes my body feel.

It’ll hit me still, on and off it comes. There have been nights as an adult when I would just get drunk and listen to his music and sit there and cry. The grief still comes. It’s still just there.

I carried that guilt, the guilt of being an older sibling, for years.

Sometimes, even now, I’ll be doing something, and grief’s volume is turned down so I can (just barely) function, but the rest of the time it’s cranked up all the way and I can’t hear anything. A childhood friend of mine asked me, “Does it lessen? Does it get any better?” The answer is no. Today I might be able to take a shower and not think about it, tomorrow I could be crying in the shower. Grief is always there.

I stopped wanting to die every day.

I’m not crying all day every day, or locking myself in my room all day and not coming out. I’ve made baby steps. I’m able to have a conversation and not feel like I’m losing my mind. I can think better now. For a long time, I couldn’t think at all.

Grief settles. It’s not something you overcome. It’s something that you live with. You adapt to it. Nothing about you is who you were. Nothing about how or what I used to think is important. The truth is that I don’t remember who I was.

I’m not strong. I am not. But I am still here. I didn’t lose my mind, even though I wanted to. And I could have.