#25 TATWTD - GRIEF, the Second Wave

Sunday, October 6

Two minutes after my husband’s cry woke me, our German Grandfather’s clock in the living room, black itself in the darkness, chimed morning’s second hour. 

“That was cruel,” David said, sobbing. “I heard Skoshi bark.”

Absent from reality but present in his mind, Skoshi’s voice.

Absent from the foot of our bed, but desperately longed for, Skoshi’s bed. 

Absent Skoshi is, from rituals, day and night, that involve him.

Very present to us, Grief’s second wave of influence, the enormous assault of Absence. It is that, grief is; a series of massive waves, none exactly like the other; connected but definable. 

Several years ago, I memorialized a man of influence by calling attention to his empty chair in a music chamber he contributed to his community. He was like music, I said. At least in a paradoxical way. Banjoes and similar instruments often have Drone strings; strings rarely plucked themselves but they resonate with the notes actually played. Such was the influence of this man. In his absence, his presence resonates.

Inexplicably, in his last twenty-four hours, our demanding and dominate Skoshi sensed the minor key that played in our hearts. He felt our sorrow, and echoed it, resonated with dearness, with affection, closeness, and to his last breath, cooperation. And then came Absence.

The eulogized man was like a breeze, I said. You know, like the one that grew, and excited the cables of the first Narrows Bridge. It would be a long time before this man’s bridge-shaking determination, integrity, and faith would cease to be felt. 

You can see where I’m going, no doubt. In absence, great presence is preserved. It causes us to wonder how, while earth’s rivers rush water to oceans, tides push and pull, space and time bend; breezes become destroyers, but while for the last time I’m washing up a dog’s food and water bowls, folding his blankets, crying over it all, I am painfully, and only, aware of the absence of the little grey body that belongs near my feet. Bridge-shaker that little body was and its absence is painful.

You can see where I am going when I mention that in our now animal-absent apartment, tiny, hefty dumbbell-shaped air molecules by the uncountable multi-trillions randomly travel at about 1000mph, each colliding with others about five billion times a second, and colliding with my eardrums with the kinetic energy of several speeding Jaguars—but I’m rightly unaware. I’m only aware of the absence of Skoshi; that all the movement and energy usually present, isn’t. The habits of the day that included or served him—absent. The quotidian rituals, the blood-pressure affecting  moments of joy or frustration, his presence—absent.

So comes the power of Grief; the great, pounding wave of Absence. It takes little more than a dreamed dog’s bark to wake us to it.

If I understand it rightly, grief has no inherent gift of mercy. Grief means to hurt us. Rightfully. Its very job is to signal that something of worth has been stripped from our lives. I’m thinking now, next, about what it means to meet grief, how best to engage it, and what it takes wear it well, and to ride it out.