Relativity
- Aja Sun Houlton
- Oct 18, 2019
- 2 min read
Updated: Dec 28, 2019
i hadn't met Grief until last month.
since then, three people in my life have died.
and i'm sitting in a back pew in church
trying to listen to a sermon about discipleship
but Grief is taking me to faraway places.
i feel like i'm suspended in air—
time is stopped—and i can't move on.
one moment i am in sitting in anatomy class
and the next, i am crying in the hallway because
i don't know how to make sense of the world
without them in it.
i feel paralyzed by sadness and anger,
but mostly i just feel helpless.
i know that making a hot dish or writing a sympathy card
or sending flowers won't change a damn thing.
so instead I try to do things to honor them—
like going for a walk under the maple trees
and taking a drive through the fields at dusk
and building a meaningless homecoming float.
i try to remember the last words i said to them.
i want to ask them,
"don't you know how many people needed you?"
everything feels so senseless and cruel
and i find myself sorting through my emotions as if
i'll discover an explanation somewhere deep in my chest.
i don't know how to process loss
so i self destruct and i don't eat and i can't think,
and i'm wondering if time truly heals or if it just makes us forget.
i don't know if i will ever move on from all of this.
i don't know if i even want to.
i can't change what has come to pass,
so i simply do all that i can:
i cling to the people i love,
i am humbled by the frailty of life and the mystery of death,
and i pray to God for a comfort that transcends time and space
when it feels like my world has stopped.
—for kent, sandy, and taylor.
i have thought of each of you
every day since.

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