Grief

Grief

6 days after you passed my mother and I went to pick up your things from your house so granddad wouldn’t have to go through every memory you stashed in your junk drawer, the one on the top left hand side that you had forgotten years ago.

My job was to take apart that drawer.

You had always been a very neat person, and loved order. You learned that from granddad. You always told me stories when I was younger of when he left for war how you were so distraught without him that you’d organize the house over 74 times a day and sweep the floors and dust the shelves, just so the house would be of perfect order for the day he’d return. 

This drawer was your everything, from the dried forget-me-nots from that boy who loved you before and after he boarded the ship, to the tattered book of poetry filled with the words of 

E. E. Cummings that you marked up to remember where you left off and would read to me whenever I’d get nervous about the way the birds couldn’t see to fly at night.

There were endless bandages, a reminder to me of the way you only ever wore shoes when the snow fell like an apology, how before they took you away that your feet could barely carry you from bedroom to bathroom and you’d look out over walled gardens on your window seat and name me every flower you’ve ever seen.

You’d tell me of the days granddad came home from the army and threw his pistol into the bin, like he could throw away the memories of war as simply as a piece of crumbled paper.

You keep his badges in this drawer, because he never wanted to have to look back through flesh and heartbreak. He couldn’t bear to look back and remember that all of the addresses in his book are now just bricks and bones and nursery rhymes.

I found your mother’s engagement ring that she gave to you, the same one my mother has now taken for her own. It’s a bit tarnished, the gold doesn’t shine like it used to and its a bit scratched and worn down, but you once told me that the most beautiful things are the ones that have kept themselves together through turmoil.

I still miss you in every way possible, and I’ve needed you more than anything for the past 4 years you’ve been gone. You were my light home even when you couldn’t remember who I was.

I kept your E. E. Cummings book, and your tattered journal, and I really wanted to take up sewing, but your kit went missing when you shut your eyes and I guess thats your way of teaching me that some things just can’t be mended. You always did have a coy way of telling me things I should already know.

I visited your grave the other day, and it occurred to me that I couldn’t tell you how I was doing.

I sat there in silence while my fingers went numb and I swore for a second I could feel my soul sinking into the ground, trying to shake you awake to tell you I need you. To tell you I haven’t made progress. I’m killing everyone around me. I wanted you to wake up for just ten minutes. I wanted to tell you everything I haven’t been able to write or say out loud. I wanted to tell you that I’m okay and I wanted you to tuck my hair behind my ear and melt these frozen tears off my cheeks and look me straight in the eyes and tell me that I’m not.  

The last time I ever saw you smile was on a Sunday morning, looking through your junk drawer.