From Here to the Great Unknown

by Lisa Marie Presley

I have a vague memory of this one conversation we had in that room about a passage that Elvis had underlined. I started to call someone to help me remember it, but realized that there’s no one left to call.

That afternoon, once they took him away—and this is something I’ve been upset about my whole life—it turned into a free-for-all. Everybody went to town. Everything was swiped, wiped clean—jewelry, artifacts, personal items—before he was even pronounced dead. You can still find things from that day coming up at auction.

I was so busy looking at everyone else’s grief that I couldn’t actually have mine yet.

That was the first time I really felt the loss—obviously from my dad passing away, but more than anything, I felt I was stuck with this woman. It was a one-two punch: He’s dead and now I’m stuck with her.

Elvis impersonators would come to her shows. She always dreaded that. She would peek out the side of the curtain before every show to see if any impersonators were in the audience to prepare herself. How weird to have someone wearing a costume of your dead father watch you sing.

It was too painful to cry. I distinctly remember thinking, I’ve never seen this in a movie, when someone dies, how it’s too painful to cry. And when you do eventually cry, it’s a different cry. It feels like something deeper than your emotions is crying out, and it feels like it’s never going to end. Some kind of a terrifying, bottomless pain.

She really tried to hold on to hope, even though it was like sand through her fingers.

But despite all this love she still had inside her, and all of her effort to live, we could all see it. We could all feel it coming. We all knew my mom was going to die of a broken heart.

I don’t think my spark will ever come back, to be perfectly honest. 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. The other day somebody said, “I know you better than anyone,” and I said, “No, you don’t. You don’t have a fucking clue who I am. Because I don’t even know who the fuck I am anymore.”

Or maybe people will say, “Holy shit, I can’t believe you survived that. I can’t believe you’re still alive.” When I tell people my stories, they tell me I’m strong. But that makes me crazy because I think, What’s it for, though? Throw stuff at me and I’ll get through it, but for what?

I wondered how many times a heart can break.