Once More We Saw Stars

by Jayson Greene

I imagine it’s the same for all new parents: you slowly learn to believe in your child’s ongoing existence. Their future begins to take shape in your mind, and you fret over particulars. Will she make friends easily at preschool? Does she run around enough? Life remains precarious, full of illnesses that swoop in and level the whole family like a field of salted crops. There are beds to tumble from, chairs to run into, small chokable toys to mind. But you no longer see death at every corner, merely challenges, an obstacle course you and your child are running, sometimes together and often at odds with each other.

The pieces of our lives are scattered everywhere, and we can never pick them up again; there is some peace in immediately understanding that.

soothed my suspicions that my life was a summer-camp version of other people’s.

Thankfully, others knew their way around this dance, and as they rose, spoke, and slowly seated themselves, the room’s silence began to feel hypnotic. Friends, family, and teachers told stories, shared memories, drew laughs—a natural harmony emerged, like overtones shimmering from a plucked string. Stacy and I caught each other’s eye in wonder. I even rose to say something, moved only by inspiration. I don’t recall a word, but I can still feel the warmth that flooded me upon sitting down.

I wonder: What else have I already forgotten?

Yes, listening to music can be life affirming, a conduit to your deepest emotions. It can also be simply noise, a horse blanket blotting out sensation.

There are days when I am confused, panicked, like I’ve woken up in a dark room with unfamiliar contours: What is it? What is it that feels so awful? Then I calm down and I remember: Oh yes, I am in hell. The thought places me in time and space, like a dot dropped on a map. Once I am armed with this knowledge, my eyes clear, my walk straightens, my breathing slows.

“One of the main things I don’t think people realize is that a broken heart is an open heart,” he continues. “It’s a heart that’s open, that can be healed, can be changed, can be re-formed, can grow new patterns for new types of love. One of the things I want us to work on is to begin to find ways to take that broken heart and allow it to feel that pain, but to grow.”

Grief, I am learning, is a world you move into—a world of softer voices, gentler gazes, closer observation, heightened compassion. It is, in many ways, a beautiful and redemptive place to spend time,

What was once a tidal wave of grief has shrunk to a running faucet somewhere in our consciousness, and we need to make dates, occasionally, to grieve her.