Move with the World
How my grief has moved from one point to another.
A love letter to my son, written on his birthday weekend and published on my birthday weekend; 2 years after the accident.
When we brought home your things from Madrid, it seemed like an empty exercise.
Who needs things to remind them of moments with you in the past — those which could never be repeated or kinda-replicated in the near future? Who needs trifles or mementos to echo grief and loss across time.
But then of course we all did — eventually — pick up an artefact or two from your University luggage.
He, your best friend, kept your favourite sunglasses and your smoothie blender. Why not? With them: you looked great, felt great.
She, your “ almost-sister”, kept your favourite shirts and jackets. I saw that coming. Why wouldn’t she? You hugged her wearing each of those worldly clothing items.
He, your older brother, kept very little, as I understand it. But I know he has your favourite hat, which doesn’t fit him perfectly but he wears it sometimes anyway. I’ve rarely seen it this year. He also kept your hiking backpack, rollerblades and skateboards — functional reminders, perhaps, of moving around everywhere together.
He, your oldest brother, kept your bass guitar and your formal shoes and good long-sleeve shirts. The parts of life where you two were united but also distinctly different from each other, Opposite Land-ish.
I kept your ashes near me. In your old room where you slept and where I wept for many many days when you were really gone. I also kept your socks. Just the good ones, not the ones so old and raggedy you should never have had them anymore. I wear them sometimes — clean of course — because I put them on and imagine briefly that I’m walking the roads and lives you left. That I’m walking and moving with the world.
Moving on feels to me like the dumbest phrase non-grieving people can tell me to do. We move on from ex-boyfriends and soul-sucking jobs. But moving on from something like this…well. It’s not possible for me. Not in the strictest sense of the phrase.
I choose to move with the world. I do things we would’ve done as a family. I’ve commandeered vacation times with people you and I love in beautiful places you’ve been to before me. I visit cities and architectural art knowing full well I can’t share them with you over a phone call.
I have chosen to move with this world that continues to exist and grow and devolve with only memories of you in it — living large.
Last month I was bettering myself: Levelling Up on my perpetual wellness quest, wearing your socks, bemused. Today I wear them fighting tears, fighting nature and continuing to love who we love, and do what we always loved doing together. It’s a comfort, oddly enough; your stupid old socks.
Happy Birthday, my little one. I miss you every fuckin’ day.
@ IrreverentMama
Kristina Fighting Nature
This is a story for a Grief Playbook that doesn’t exist…because each story is different, as is every day that we who grieve navigate a sea of emotions and numbness that come in waves.
