Grief Math
Personal reflections on measuring time after loss
My friend Josh would have turned another year older last week. It struck me that I’ve now lived longer without him than I did with him. For a moment, the realization felt like news to share with everyone who loved him. Josh was well loved and is well missed, so took me a moment to realize this milestone was mine alone.
Adding up my 43 years, subtracting the two years we didn’t know one another to find the exact span when our lives overlapped—the amount of time that used to feel like everything and now seems like a brief chapter.
It’s strange how our minds catch on these details. Seeking outlets for grief—places to let down the tears.
I am taking a poetry class this fall as a way to feel inspired. Writing that last sentence made me realize it may be the place to outlet that I seem to crave in this season.
Grief is funny. It has its phases, first everywhere and all around, then forcing you to go look for it. At least in feeling it we have proof that all the love we were holding didn’t float away into the ether. The time doesn’t seem to matter. I can’t ever write about Josh without a lump in my throat.
In poetry class our writing prompt this week is to be inspired by a defining life event and I keep coming back to the same thing. A memory of Josh saving me from sinking into a quicksand-like mud pit when we were kids. I consider how much he loved Indiana Jones, and how that day he seemed to become him.
A ten-year-old hand much more steady than it had any right to be, making eye contact and telling me not to move as he dropped all his body weight down to counter the unforgiving tug of the pit below. Rain falling on both of us, making everything worse.
We were exploring a construction site across the street from my house and climbed to the top on a two story mound of dirt. One moment we were kids on an adventure and the next the world felt suddenly serious. When he gave the final pull, and I was finally safe from sinking we went right back to being kids.
I screamed and ran off, grateful to be covered in mud and mortified to realize I’d lost everything below the waist—along with both shoes. He was yelling after me, furious because they were his sneakers I’d borrowed without asking.
The thought I keep having is that I wonder if that day changed the way I saw him. Did I think he was invincible? Did he think it of himself? It was an incredible thing for a kid to do, his strong intuition kicking into action literally saving the day. Can invincibility be a personality trait? Because it seemed like one of his.
The last time we saw each other I was driving him to play golf with his friends. I was only a year and a half older, but in my mind I was an adult and he was still a kid. There was nothing for us to talk about and it was awkward. But when we arrived he leaned over and gave me a one armed hug before getting out of the car. He wore a crisp white polo and I ducked my head to the side so I wouldn’t get makeup on him. For a long time I regretted doing that. The hug gave me a glimpse of what it could have been like if he’d joined me in adulthood, a warm feeling spread through me. He was so close, almost twenty.
I’ve decided to share the poem I’m working on for class this week, that came from that memory. I know it’s a little different from what I usually share here, but it feels right to include it.
Sometimes poetry lands differently when it’s spoken aloud. If you’d like to listen, you can click play below.
YOU WERE INDIANA JONES THAT DAY Pulling me out of the mud hands steadier than your age. Things turned so quickly like they always do. A torrent of sinking, kicking against the pull, the slurry silt slipped over the moment I realized I was a child. Looking at you, also a child. How did you know that I needed to be still to be saved? This week I added up decades and realized I’ve been alive without you longer than with you. And I thought about our shoes that day still underground like so many things I love. Maybe it’s because of that day I thought you were invincible. When I heard the news I never thought about an ending, I only asked where you were so I could visit. Holding out my hand wanting time to return the favor, pull you up with me.
Thank you for your presence here and for letting me share with you,
With love,
Sheryl
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This post is so important. I’m so glad you are practicing poetry - word magic - I believe this is how we heal and manifest change.
My brother died when I was 25. He was 28. When I turned fifty, it hit hard. This year marked more years gone than present on Earth, but I have been guided back to him. It feels so strange to say it, but I know him better now than I did when he was here. I believe Josh is near you and that he truly appreciates being memorialized in your poetic reconstruction of your experience at the construction site. Nothing is ironic, nothing is by chance, nothing is coincidental. We use words to establish the love we carry into stone towers -poetic cairns - that mark our journey’s essential plot points, the ones that inform who we are and what we are here to do.
Keep writing. You’ve prompted me to write about my big brother… something I haven’t really been able to do since right after the day we lost him. I didn’t believe what I believe now back then, but I wrote any way.
Your memory of Josh tugged at my heart. When I think of you, a picture of you and Jubilee comes to mind. So now when I think of you and Josh, I see you, Jubilee, Josh, and Bella. It is a beautiful image, and it conjures the connections you shared.
My daughter's grandma died on Nov 2nd this year. While I was her daughter-in-law, we never saw eye to eye on anything. But after my divorce from her son, we started making overtures towards reconciliation without referring to the past. Then we became two old ladies who got along well. This week, I am grieving along with her family because I lost a good friend.
Sheryl, your newsletters are like having a personal reading with you. Thank you for giving me a chance to express myself.