Loss

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On September First, I attended the memorial service of my step father. I greeted, I meeted, I spoke to a room full of strangers about the gift Donald’s family gave mine. I silently observed as I saw the gift Donald gave his family in the way of my mother. Her grand children, (by marriage not me) needed to be near her. They leaned on her, squeezed her hands, wiped away each other’s tears. It was a beautiful thing.

That evening, I got the call I had been dreading. My grandmother Sybil passed away that morning.

I didn’t know what to do with my grief.
I didn’t know who to tell, I didn’t know how to say it. I didn’t know how to sit with it, my loss. My beautiful grandmother, the artist and mother. The fierce protector who stood up to the authorities when Dad chose Love over Vietnam, who stood up to Lillith, who stood up for me.

I couldn’t go to her, even if I could have gotten the money together, which I am confident I could’ve, I couldn’t go because of my identity situation. Along with my ID and cheques, it was stolen. I now have everything in place that I need to get my passport to travel, but still it would take too long to get to New York in time, and I’ve run out of sick days and grieving days at work.

I sat there stunned counting up my losses. I’m so far, I’m so far away. I can’t stand it much longer. I could feel my belly, I could feel the sickness, the nausea. I knew my time of loss wasn’t yet complete.

I went and spent the night with a friend. I smoked myself silly and drank a bottle of wine. I knew I had nothing to lose.

On the way home, my friend asked me how I liked seeing her family. I was happy for my sunglasses as they hid my welling eyes.
It was good for my soul, I told her. Just what the doctor ordered.

I told her the most painful thing in my life right now, was how much I missed my father’s eyes. How when he looked at me, his eyes shone. His love reached out from him and touched me, all through his eyes. I know it is unreasonable to expect or ask for that kind of loving look from anyone other than him, after all it was his fatherly pride that he beamed on high, and no body and no one can ever recapture that. There was only one daddy for me. But, for a moment bathed under the eyes of her family, I glimpsed a version of that love. Boundless, effortless her siblings and parents loved me back. If nothing else that was the most important part of my trip. To be reminded that even amidst all this loss, there are still people on this Earth who care about me, and accept me just the way I am. With all my geekiness!

I got back to my mothers empty house and roamed. I made myself dinner and put myself to bed.

The tell tale spotting had begun two days before, it was only a matter of time. I've been through this before. I took strange comfort in knowing Granny had too, she more than anyone understood my pain this night.

I thought about how while losing so many of my people, so fast and all at once somehow I didn't feel diminished. The world felt a little dimmer, a little less cozy. As I walked through mom's house and saw pictures of Donald, and Granny, of mom and me, the one of my brother that nearly stopped my heart. I felt certain that I'd lost friends on Earth, but gained them in heaven. Heaven is from where Granny talks to me. From around my head and shoulders. She would say before she left to talk to her if I wanted to, after she was gone. She told me with three clicks of her fingers where she'd be. At each ear, and a kiss on the forehead.

I felt them, with me, my Grand Mothers.

That night I passed a clot. A big one. I gagged as it slipped from my body. I knew what it was. Quietly I scooped it out of the bowl. I was looking for something I knew I’d find. I had to find it. The compulsion of a mother to see her child. There it was, grey pieces of grisly matter. My baby.

My loss.

Complete.

I guiltily slipped to my knee’s and thanked god.



I’ve spent all day today on and off begging for my babies forgiveness.
I’m not ready, I’m not ready, I’m not ready.
I know she understands.