Grief doesn’t keep a calendar. Instead, grief is like an unexpected houseguest. She arrives unannounced, unplanned, prompted by something—a smell, a fleeting feeling, a memory, a reminder of life’s frailty. She doesn’t knock and isn’t deterred by the locked door.
She dons clothes quilted together from memories of old, carrying worn leather bags—oversized and overstuffed suitcases, their contents falling out even before she sets them down. Pictures printed in doubles, VHS cassettes with home videos, relics of the past like an old T-shirt, and candles with nostalgic, sometimes dysphoric scents fill the entryway as she makes herself at home in your home.
Sometimes I ignore her as she moves through the rest of the house, shifting tabletop items out of their rightful place, touching pictures on the wall and unknowingly knocking them slightly off-center. Other times when she comes, I ask her—plead with her—to leave. I have company coming, dinner is on the stove, I don’t have time for a visit.
And yet, other times, I am comforted by her presence. Rather than ignore her or ask her to leave, I join her. I sit on the floor, knees touching, as she unzips the overnight bags the rest of the way, giving permission for the overstuffed contents to spill freely onto the floor. I sift through them, turning over each memory, one by one, not realizing that while time felt like it stood still, the afternoon sun had already set. Only the soft blanket of twilight remained.
One time, I ignored her. I heard the door open and shut, I heard the humming of her tune. In response, I put on my noise-canceling headphones and promised I’d visit later, when I was ready. I just needed to finish one thing… But when I was ready, I returned to an empty room—no sign of her, except for those crooked picture frames I’d fix right away. She was no longer there, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t even remember how to hum her familiar tune.
Over time, her visits are less frequent but no less forceful. I’ve learned to appreciate her presence and sometimes even peek out the window, hoping I’ll see her making her way down the street. In a way no one else can, she understands me. She understands the unsaid but ever-present feelings. She brings a unique comfort to my sadness. She remembers the one I lost—whether to death or a loss in life that felt like death. She doesn’t come to talk about anything else. No pretense, no niceties. She gets right to it.
It’s with her that I can feel all the dulled feelings of grief in bright and vibrant color. Tears are welcomed, and waves of emotion are fully experienced.
And when she leaves, she never says goodbye. She just slips out the door quietly, leaving the frames a little more crooked than before. I don’t fix them anymore.
