No. 001
grief.
Can you recall your first memory? Have you ever reached back, as far as your mind allows… into that space?
When I first reached into that space, I found just that: space, and then I found things I've been hesitant to say. Like how angry my father looked when I didn’t finish all the food on my plate. My first memory of a man’s hands was one of strange unkindness, frigidly unsafe. Alongside this less-than-pleasurable recollection, a memory of a sweeter variety fluttered through my mind: how my mother would take a moment with me to laugh, to play, and would wipe away the tears that I cried.
How strange it is that darkness and light coincide.
I have a… complicated relationship with my memories.
Some days I love to remember, and oftentimes, I have no choice but to forget, then remember again. PTSD is strange like that — it takes what you never meant to give and returns that which you never wished to be given.
For the longest time, I evaded grief. Those rooms, tarnished, unrecognizable to me. Why would I linger there? Shouldn’t I seek to push past grief?
No.
So one day, I went to that room, pulled up a chair, and poured two cups of tea, and I waited for grief to speak to me.
And speak she did.
She told me of the stories of love, of life, of the joy I once had to dream.
She reminded me of who I was before the wicked things.
We laughed together, and we cried as we reminisced.
And she paused and said, “I wish more people could have this.”
“For I am many good things — although wrapped in pain.
I am love worth having. Though lost, never in vain.
I am imagination, though stifled, still willing to show my face.
I am the future, filled with hope — because now you understand the contrast of darker days.”
So now, I rejoice at the gift these memories have given over the years, for grief is a gift that is often disguised.
But there is another side to its severity, a side that is beautiful, hope-filled indeed. A side that comforts us in our pain, never diminishing the gravity of what has happened.
So I rejoice now — for I know it to be true: nothing is wasted in this life.
With love,
s.
