The Collected Regrets of Clover

by Mikki Brammer

if you don’t get close to anyone, you can’t lose them. And I’d already lost enough people.

But for most people, death was an unknown—an inevitable but nebulous event that could be minutes or decades away.

Death is a natural part of life. In fact, it’s the only thing in life that we can really count on.”

loving someone inevitably also meant one day losing them—if not by rejection or betrayal, then most certainly by death.

It frustrated me that society was so determined to quantify grief, as if time could erase the potency of love. Or, on the other hand, how it dictated that grief for someone you knew fleetingly should be equally as fleeting. But while a mother who miscarries might not have ever had the chance to hold that child, they had plenty of time to love them, to dream and hope for them. And that means their grief is twofold—they’re not just grieving the child, but the life they never got to experience. Who are we to tell anyone their pain isn’t worthy?

Of course, we look at people every day, but we rarely stop to really see them for who they are.

most of us are guilty of that with our loved ones. We get stuck in a routine and we look at them as we’ve always

looked at them, without seeing them for the person they’ve become or the person they strive to be. What a terrible thing to do to someone you love.”

choose your friendships wisely.

To observe someone swept away by the thing they’re most passionate about, most skilled at—what some call “flow”—is one of life’s great privileges. There’s an energy that emanates, a magic. As if they’re opening their hearts up completely and letting themselves communicate with the world in their purest form—unencumbered by insecurities, stresses, and bitterness. Like time is suspended and they’re simply allowing themselves to be.

“I mostly regret putting the needs of others ahead of my own. But as a woman, that’s what I was taught to do. Your husband, your children, your parents—their happiness all mattered more. You were always someone’s wife, or mother, or daughter before you were yourself. It’s like I didn’t live my life for myself, as myself. Like I wasted what I was given.”

People weren’t usually looking for a commentary to these sorts of revelations. They just needed someone to sit and listen to them without judgment. It’s tempting to try to fix it, to cheer them up. But the truth is, you’ll never find the right thing to say—because the right thing doesn’t exist. The fact that you’re there, and present, says so much more.

“The truth is, grief never really goes away. Someone told me once that it’s like a bag that you always carry—it starts out as a large suitcase, and as the years go by, it might reduce to the size of a purse, but you carry it forever.

“Don’t let the best parts of life pass you by because you’re too scared of the unknown.”

It’s funny how you don’t notice how significant someone’s presence is until it’s no longer there.

When someone has always been there for you, it’s easy to assume they always will be. And then, one day, they’re not.

“Your grief is yours to process in your own time, in whatever way works for you. No one can tell you how to do that.

Don’t let the best parts of life pass you by because you’re too scared of the unknown. Maybe the biggest risk in life was taking no risks at all.

“But the secret to a beautiful death is to live a beautiful life. Putting your heart out there. Letting it get broken. Taking chances. Making mistakes.”

Grief, I’d come to realize, was like dust. When you’re in the thick of a dust storm, you’re completely disoriented by the onslaught, struggling to see or breathe. But as the force recedes, and you slowly find your bearings and see a path forward, the dust begins to settle into the crevices. And it will never disappear completely—as the years pass, you’ll find it in unexpected places at unexpected moments. Grief is just love looking for a place to settle.

The fact that all of us were entangled—that

everyone on the planet somehow shaped the course of one another’s lives, often without realizing it—felt like almost too much for me to comprehend.