How It Feels to Float

by Helena Fox

Grief feels like this: an okay day and a good day and an okay day then a bad. Bad that follows and empties you. Bad like a sinkhole.

Of course. Here I am. The sad girl. This is sad. My dad is dead. People are sad when people are dead. So here I am, sad and grieving because, look, my dad died. Totally normal. Couldn’t be normal-er.

I am atom against atom battering and I’m so sad I can’t breathe.

The psychiatrist crosses his legs. He wears patterned socks. Isn’t that interesting? Isn’t that funny, Dad? You and he?

And then all we have, all we can do, is hold each other—as we swim in the water of losing Dad, in the water of missing him, in all that water. We hold each other tightly, tightly, tightly.