What Remains True

by Janis Thomas

This is grief. Overwhelming and insidious grief that refuses to be ignored or denied or temporarily tucked away.

I can’t talk to him, because then I’d have to look at him and I can’t look at him, not right now. I don’t know why. Jonah is in his face, or his face is in Jonah’s, the same nose, only bigger, the same jawline, only without the baby fat.

Maybe, if I can just pull myself out from under the weight of grief. Fucking treacherous grief that colors everything a bright shade of rage. Rage that my son was taken from me.

Maybe it will be better ’cause you can’t miss something you can’t remember, and if you don’t miss it, you won’t be sad.

The woman upstairs is a woman I don’t know, and despite the fact that I had something to do with her transformation, I can’t help but grieve the loss of the amazing person she was before. God, I hope she comes back. Not just for me, but for her.

Marriage tears off the rose-colored glasses and forces us to look at each other for who we are rather than who we want each other to be.