Digging In

by Loretta Nyhan

Everybody liked Frank, because Frank had that one quality no one could resist—he knew who he was and still liked himself.

Like most artificially beautiful things, our lawn required constant maintenance.

“Pick a few things you don’t want to let slide, and let the rest sort itself out,” he said gently after one particularly rough day. “When someone leaves this world, everything else gets jostled because of the empty space. You’re gonna land in the wrong spot for a while. Sooner or later, you’ll find where you fit again.”

Death was final, but grief wasn’t; it was a dirty street fighter who rose again and again even when I thought I had successfully knocked it to the ground.

Maybe freedom had nothing to do with loss. Maybe it had everything to do with joy.

I liked the feeling of satisfaction brought on by cleaning my house. Feeling satisfied was right next door to feeling safe. And that was close enough for us. Until death filled me in on a little secret—there was no such thing as a safe life.

I wanted to lash out, to tell him he was the one having control issues, but thanks to some newfound wisdom I’d mysteriously acquired, I stayed silent and let him think he had the last word.

“It’s the kind that pulls you by the hair. The unexpected jolt. It’s merciless, and it doesn’t allow you to change cell by cell, cushioning the blow with time. It smacks you into a new reality. It forces you to examine things you’d rather leave under a rock.”

Mykia set her fork down. “Do you ever see, when people are hyperventilating on TV, someone hands them a paper bag to breathe into?” Glynnis nodded. “You have to find your paper bag when you feel like you can’t get the air in,” Mykia said.

Forget the concept of success, at least temporarily. Forget the failure. Forget the stress and the disappointment. Don’t analyze what went wrong. Don’t flog a dead horse. Forget it all so you can be reborn. A clean slate. No ideas ever existed before this very moment. Free yourself from the pressure of success, and you’ll free yourself of the oppressiveness of failure.

“When you give something meaning, it’s worth remembering. We filter out the stuff that doesn’t touch our heart.”