Helen House

by Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

A past therapist had gotten me into the habit of making lists, though to be fair, I think she had intended for it to be more of a grounding technique than an exercise in self-loathing.

I felt isolated and unknowable in my loss, but I’d been to enough meetings, sessions, appointments, read enough advice columns, books, and articles to know that everything I felt had been felt by others. Grief feels unique, but it never is.

I saw it as a curse, but I also didn’t want anyone to lift it. It was the one haunting I’d grown used to.

We were both card-carrying members of the Dead Sisters Club, decidedly less sexy than the Dead Wives Club, and less damaged than the Dead Moms Club.

Here’s what I know I knew then: I knew we were both unwhole. I knew we were the living ones but that we were also the ghosts. I knew death was a sieve, full of holes that can’t all be plugged at once. I knew no one else felt my exact pain. Because their someone wasn’t my someone.