The form of Grief






I wrote this about a year ago. Unfortunately life is still like this. January was soooooo long, and soooo hard. 


He is always there. Always. He doesn’t have a form yet he is unmistakable. Reminds me of something you might see in a Harry Potter movie. A ghost or a spirit, all swirly and smoky, about to take form, but never solid always flowing. Just when you think hes going to materialize and show you his true shape he changes again.

 Most of the time his swirling mass, always on the verge of form, is about my size. And always he is right beside me. Handcuffed to me with invisible handcuffs but I can feel the pull on my wrist. He is always with me always. He is always talking to me always. Sometimes we have decent conversation. “remember when” he says “wasn’t that nice when” he says. Most of the time he is annoying “see that there, He’s not here to see it” “O look he would like that, but you can’t get it for him he’s not here” “He is missing this.” “He would love that, but hes not here”  “you can’t do that cause he’s not here” All day long he says these things to me. Taunting me.

One of his favorite things to do is wake me up around 3 am. He calls it the worry hour. And then he lays beside me in that big empty spot, now reserved just for him. And he tells me worries. Worries that only have time to come out now. “the house is so quite, too quite” “is daughter ok, maybe we should go check on her” “where’s the dam cat, we should defiantly check on that” “are you sure you locked the door” “what about tomorrow, are we going to make it through tomorrow, is it going to be a hard day or a normal day” “you know it’s never normal now cause I’m here” “you know you really need to get a job right, that death money isn’t going to last forever” “why aren’t you asleep, you are never going to get through the day if you don’t get enough sleep” and yet he still talks to me anyway.

Sometimes he changes size, but his none form form is always the same. On good days he is small and sits on my shoulder like a conscience in a cartoon. On those days he likes to whisper in my ear “you can’t do this, it’s too hard” and I flick him off with a “YES I CAN, I HAVE NO CHOICE” But he always flies right back. I spend the day flicking him away, telling him I’m going to make it.


On bad days His form rushes and flows until it is a giant mass towering over me. I am so afraid that I huddle in a ball. Words are coming out of his mouth and just the pressure of those words are pushing me to the floor. You can’t understand his words, they are so big and so loud that all you can hear is a roar of noises. But I know what they are. I know what he’s saying. “HE’S DEAD HE’S DEAD HE’S DEAD HE’S DEAD HE’S DEAD HE’S DEAD HE’S DEAD.

I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry on Castle

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