Where Grief Finds You

Heather Burton
Aug 24, 2017 · 3 min read

This is an anecdote of loss, momentary confusion, and acquiescence. It’s not meant to be an invitation into any of those states of mind — more a tap on the shoulder with the question, “You, too?” My heart feels for yours if the answer is yes.
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It’s a well-used women’s wallet: black leather with silver ornamentation and a broken zipper. It owns a scent, though, that also belongs to a black men’s leather wallet in a Zip-Loc plastic bag in a Rubbermaid tub under my bed. That wallet contains the usual — ID, a bank card, a transit pass, a bit of money. And it belongs to my 4-years-gone son, Josh.

Tonight, I tried to throw away the worn-out wallet and couldn’t. At first it was about frugality — it’s perfectly useful if I repair the change pouch with Velcro or something. Then there was the scent, the feel of wear, its polish and temperature. Without ticket or notice, it seems, this most mundane of moments became the sudden flight to Guatemala to heal our broken son with irresistible mother-love, the news of his death, stunned hours in a mortuary, the heavy comfort of roses, and discovering Josh’s wallet among his personal items, a thing now priceless with the scent of leather and use.

Josh, at 21 — composer, philosopher, “this is just the beginning” kind of guy.

Don’t get me wrong: I have faith, and it is a strong preventative of devastation. I believe in Heaven, I feel hints of my son’s ongoing soul, I live in hope of reunion. Grief, as soft-spoken as it has become, finds me. It finds me with an old wallet in hand, or hearing the phrase of a song, or noticing stars like he did, or in a fleeting quirk of one of Josh’s younger brothers.

I recently told kind friends a memory, and noted their eyes well with tears, oblivious, at first, that grief was finding them, too. A stranger once relayed selecting hors d’oeuvres in a grocery store and suddenly weeping because grief found her there, in the frozen food section, where her daughter’s favourite snack happened to be sold. Sometimes, when our family is together, laughing, playing, and easy, we hush. Grief barely whispers, and in the din, we hear it.

Grief is the strangest of conditions, a paradoxical gift. While we wish it had no occasion to be with us, it is crucial to our longing. Its absence would mean forgetting. So when grief finds us, we pause, keep silly wallets longer, indulge in (or avoid) once-favourite flavours, listen to (or quiet) familiar tunes, walk to (or away from) frequented places.

We stay, with grief, in remembering.

If you’d like, you can meet Josh here: https://youtu.be/-CxMyvlyH6U

More about our story here.

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Heather Burton

Written by

Life writer. Believer. Keeping it real {to make it better}. www.heatherburton.ca

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