Find Me There

by Sara Rian

as your hand slipped from mine grief took the other and promised to never let go.

two things died that day. you. and the chance to ever feel whole again.

my life is now a string of deep inhales getting me from one minute to the next. frantically pulling air into my lungs while my ribs and heart feel broken. as though i am trying to make up for the breaths you will never take.

sleeping. you’re just sleeping. your eyes will open and you’ll smile when i reach for your hand. for now you’re resting. you don’t have to see any more war or pain. no cruelty or disease. right now you’re sleeping. just sleeping for now.

okay it’s time to wake up. you can come home now. your cheeks are so cold. my arms are so empty. i miss you so much. i’ve cried a million tears. and questioned everything i did and didn’t do. so this can be over now. please just wake up.

i thought it was okay to make mistakes. i was convinced i could always try again. that i could fix any problem handed to me. until i couldn’t make you breathe again. until i couldn’t will your heart to beat. until i couldn’t hold you without ashes falling through my fingers. and nothing could be undone. now every day is a fight between thinking i could have saved you and feeling foolish for thinking i ever had that much power.

i will never take for granted the warmth of a hand or the pink of a cheek. i have before and never again.

don’t you grow up we say to babies. don’t you get old we say to adults. but please do. grow up. get old. what a privilege. what a gift.

i hate that people must meet you through my tears and pain when they should be meeting you. just you. they should see your smile and hear your voice firsthand. not through pictures or poetry. i wish people could see that beauty without the shadow of sadness that now follows it around.

half of my time spent wondering where you are now. the other half telling myself it doesn’t matter if it’s not with me.

if you were still alive i’d be here talking about love and hope. living life. finding peace. but you are gone. and now the love i talk about is a lot less hopeful. and this life a lot less peaceful.

i hate those moments. when you are irritated in traffic or you left dinner in the oven too long and then you remember they’re dead. of course you never actually forgot. your body just tried to feel normal and get upset about the small things. but now it freezes and it screams. because you don’t get to feel normal when a stupid small thing happens because it will always be compared to losing them.

i feel you drifting farther as the days come and go. i study my memories of you. clutching onto every detail because the years will pass by and try to take you with them. i know time heals some wounds but it often rubs salt into grief.

this world is growing all too comfortable with your absence. but not me. i won’t. keep me aching. sore and tender. tortured and missing you loudly.

i will not ask my grief to be quiet. i will not let the world shut it out. i will not watch you die twice.

the energy it takes for someone grieving to wake. eat. or smile could make the sun look like a tiny spark. yet we call them weak when it goes on too long.

you’re right. grievers do want attention. attention on what they’ve lost. how beautiful their person was. how loved and cherished they are. we talk and cry and share. begging. wishing. pleading. for you to notice what is missing.

if you see a griever staring into an empty room just leave them be. soon they will be back and broken once more.

listen closely. grievers aren’t only speaking of death. they are trying to speak of life.

so many of us walking around with smiles. holding keys in our hands. going to work. having conversations. shopping for groceries. so many of us coming home at the end of the day to rest our heads on pillows and missing someone so much that our tears bleed into our dreams. and our dreams leak into our mornings. and mornings start another day of grief that we’ll tuck inside our pockets because the world just wants to see our smiles.

they died. and you didn’t do anything wrong to deserve it. when you tearfully whisper why me? you are looking for the reason. the reason you couldn’t keep them. wanting your agony to have purpose. but this is not your punishment. there is nothing to learn from this besides how to breathe again. how to inhale air and exhale their name. we may never know why they’re taken. but we know why they were here. to love and to be loved. that is all the purpose we need.

normalizing death is not meant to stop grief. it is meant to carve space into this cold avoidant world. for grief to let down its hair and take a hot bath. to offer it tea and rest instead of slamming doors in its face. talking about death will teach arms to cradle the agony instead of pushing it away.

there are no more memories in the making. so when you let me talk about the ones i’ve lost you are letting me spend time with them in the only way i can now.

i don’t need to be called pretty or smart. my favorite compliment will always be about them. tell me how we looked alike. how we laughed the same way. that we could be so silly together. tell me how proud they’d be of me. how you can see their love in my eyes. i will take any similarity. any connection. any way to show me that while i exist here they do too.

grief lives here. it is no visitor to me. you don’t see it because it is napping on the couch after keeping me up all night. it is running out to the store for soup because it didn’t let me eat yesterday. it decided to take a day trip to the beach because it too needs time to rest. when you see eyes dry out smiles curling or laughter remember that grief is not the visitor. the other stuff snuck in while grief took a break.

i have to remember the beauty of the day if i am going to survive the sorrow of the sunset.

just because you could not stay on earth and in my arms does not mean you did not belong. you still belong right here.

i know you are dead but did you really die? you live in my every breath. in every smile and every tear. you dance with the moon and shine with the sun. you laugh in the wind and sing with the rain. i cannot hold you. you cannot be seen. oh yes, i know you are dead. but you did not die to me.

i write love poems to you and whisper to the clouds. i walk around barefoot so you can feel the grass. all this without even knowing if there is anything after this life. but i will keep doing these things. i’m not missing any chance to make you feel loved.

the guilt of not saving you picks at my bones like a vulture. but i will not let it take me away from what matters most now. honoring you with every bit that is left of me.