Grief Is the Thing with Feathers

by Max Porter

She told us that men were rarely truly kind, but they were often funny, which is better. ‘You would do well to prepare yourselves for disappointment’ she said, ‘in your dealings with men. Women are on the whole much stronger, usually cleverer’ she said, ‘but less funny, which is a shame. Have babies, if you can’ she said ‘because you’ll be good at it. Help yourselves to anything you find in this house. I want to give you everything I have because you are the most precious and beautiful boys. You remind me of everything I have ever been interested in’ she said.

We were smack bang in the middle, years from the finish, taking nothing for granted.

I remember being scared that something must, surely, go wrong, if we were this happy, her and me, in the early days, when our love was settling into the shape of our lives like cake mixture reaching the corners of the tin as it swells and bakes.

Some of the time we tell the truth. It’s our way of being nice to Dad.

They offer me a space on the sofa next to them and the pain of them being so naturally kind is like appendicitis. I need to double over and hold myself because they are so kind and keep regenerating and recharging their kindness without any input from me.

Various other things slipped. We pissed on the seat. We never shut drawers. We did these things to miss her, to keep wanting her.

I missed her so much that I wanted to build a hundred-foot memorial to her with my bare hands. I wanted to see her sitting in a vast stone chair in Hyde Park, enjoying her view. Everybody passing could comprehend how much I miss her. How physical my missing is. I miss her so much it is a vast golden prince, a concert hall, a thousand trees, a lake, nine thousand buses, a million cars, twenty million birds and more. The whole city is my missing her.

Loss and pain in the world is unimaginable but I want them to try.