Insubordiknit

Grief

Death, I've a lot of feelings about death. I've been thinking about it a lot lately. A close friend of my family died this past week. Not only a close friend but a close friend's son, the same person actually, just tied in many ways. I imagine the sadness his mother must feel and it hurts me in a place I can't quite name, like that itch that you feel in your back and it never occurs to you that the itch is actually on the back of your knee, the kneepit, so you never scratch there, and you go on itching. That's how I've felt this week, like I can't quite find the place where my sadness starts.

I suppose the place I could look, the most obvious, is simply the loss of a friend's life. The loss of youth. The loss of promise. The loss of his voice. The loss of how the section of his face from right above his lip to to the top of his glasses, looked.

The loss. Of course that's what I'm sad about. But If I look more, I see my own connection as a mother, to lose a child, I can't imagine it. Really, just can't imagine. Sometimes, when Bill is late or I don't know where he is, it takes me less than 2 minutes to run through exactly what I'd do, what I'd sell, who I'd stay with, where I'd move, how I'd make it, the scope of my sadness, which feels devasting, and I'm sure is not even nearly how terrible it would be. It's not that I don't love him. I do, so much, he's been my rock and touchstone for so long now, 10 years. He's put up with being married to a queer girl with lots and lots of quirks, and he loves me. But I can imagine it. I don't like to, but I can. I can not imagine losing my son. Just can't even do it. It's outside my mind, a non-thought. I would be empty. Lost. Perhaps even die. And so my deeper grief is with my friend, the mother of the friend that died. Her, I don't know how she's standing and I guess it's only by virtue of the fact that she has to.

Another conenction for me, one that is less tangible and further back, is my own father, who died when I was just walking. I don't really have grief about that. I never knew him and I ended up with a step-father that taught me so much and whom I love like there was never another. But there was another, and while I don't often think about him, lately I've been thinking about his death. Particularly how his death affected my 24 year old mother, who had me, a 2 year old, and my brother, 9. She also had to keep standing, I don't know how she did it either. And his mother, my grandma chobie, who is actually my grandma Chavela, but I could never say that so grandma chobie is all that she's ever been. She stood, with all of her great sadness. I saw that sadness each summer I went to visit them, everytime she looked at me. A part of her died, she told me. Not the part of her heart that held him, that part flourished, but some of the other parts, they died.

I've been wieghed down by all of this grief lately, their grief. I feel like maybe if I can carry some of it, they can stand, but I don't think it works that way. It's not like lifting a piano, the more people the less each has to bear. Grief is your own, no matter how many people share it, try to take it's burden, it just grows to accomodate. Thankfully, joy is the same way. and love. and memories.

Next up, knitting. I promise.