It Has Always Been

There is a tremendous amount of grief that lives inside these bones
There is no separating life “before” or “after” someone died

It has always been.

At age 2,
My first introduction to grief was how my mom would speak about death
I know now that she could only take me as far as she could go in her own grief

But there is some grief no one could follow me into
The fatherless child grows up seeing life through a different lens

At age 8,
I felt things in my body, like a surge, a rush of unbridled & contrasting emotions all at once
Surely this is what mania must feel like
Inside my room quietly spinning inside
Crying silently so hard I would dry heave into collapse
I’d send my whole body through my bedroom wall if the physical pain could just take away the emotional pain
Life works like that, right?

If only I could make sense of abandonment by overdose then I think I’ve solved all my problems
To a little girl, I wonder if a Dad’s love for his daughter transcends heroin

At 15,
I stopped wondering.

I’d replay the same dialogue over and over until it had a new shift
Every shift led to a new insight integrated
A cognitive awareness I could not have had the year prior,
Quite literally due to lack of brain development & the understanding of permanency
But what really stays anyway?

I used to comfort myself with all the people I ever loved, who loved me so fiercely back
Half of them are dead now.
Wait, wait..I promise you this story has a happy ending
But you need to understand what makes someone whole
You must not fast forward to get to the ‘good part’

Now I see life through a kaleidoscope lens
To that fiery little 2 year old, yes, you will forever live with grief in your bones
But one day you’ll also be magic
You don’t get to choose, it has to be both
It has always been both
And you’ll keep going because
Each revelation becomes liberation
At age 15, I stopped wondering because that’s the year I became whole without you.
And we all deserve to be whole.