Do We Ever Really Stop Grieving?

Losing someone you love never really leaves you.

This was originally shared on Medium in July 2020, with a new intro written October 2024. Content warning: death, loss, grief

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Grief has a fucked up way of strangling us when we least expect it. Like we’re just bobbing along and suddenly a new tragedy or a freak accident or a world event comes along and knocks us off course, taking us somewhere we never thought we’d see.

When you’ve lost people, the more it continues to happen the more the grief rises to the surface to disturb what little peace you might have.

It can bring people closer together and pull them apart. It can change the course of events or how you navigate the world in an instant, with no warnings and no heads up.

Experiencing the grief of others is a sacred thing, that many don’t know what to do with. People are awkward and uncomfortable and repressed and bury things down. No one knows how to act when you cry in public. Do you touch or hug or give someone space? Everyone deals so differently.

It’s not fair when you’re forced into grieving something that was unexpected. It’s not fair that it brings up every other loss you’ve experienced and you feel them all so deeply, everything everywhere all at once.

In an instant, everything can change. Grief never goes away, we just grow around it until it becomes part of who we are.

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

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For Jodi

I‘m getting ready for work when the call comes.

The warm morning glow streams in the small kitchen window of my College St. apartment in Halifax. My fella is gone; restaurant gigs mean we rarely have the same night off.

I’m getting back into my groove at Boston Pizza after flying to Edmonton for Poppa’s funeral a couple of weeks ago. It was the first time I saw you and your family since you moved back to Canada after a military posting in South Africa. Your oldest looks more and more like you every day: curly hair, bright, eager eyes, and powerful love for family. Your youngest was born over there and when I meet her she’s independent and joyful, just a little shy with a devious sparkle in her eye she could only have gotten from you.

Oh, how us cousins bonded fiercely that visit; most of us are old enough to drink, and everyone celebrated Poppa’s life with lots of laughter and tears.

It was the first time every family member was in one place, from Nan through Dad’s brothers and sisters, all of the grandkids, and your two girls, the first great-grandchildren.

It’s true what they say: nothing brings families together like weddings and funerals.

I answer the phone.

“Hi, sweetheart.”

My dad. It’s strange for him to call me at 10 a.m., considering we were just together out West.

“Hi Dad, what’s up?” I question, floating around the apartment gathering my things. I have to leave in about 20 minutes; I’m opening the bar this morning and I know the middle-aged, grey-haired manager who makes creepy comments to female staff is also opening. I haven’t seen him since my unexpected absence and know he’ll be ready with a snide remark. Try me.

“How are you?” Dad asks, his voice sounding smaller than usual. “Are you at home?”

“Yeah, I’m headed to work in a few minutes. Why, what’s up?” He rarely calls just to say hi.

“Buddy, I — ” his voice cracks.

“I have some news.”

Silence.

“There’s been an accident.”

Silence.

“Jodi was in an accident. With the girls.”

Silence.

A twinge deep in my gut.

“What happened? Is everyone okay?”

Silence.

“The girls are at the hospital now, they’re pretty beat up, a few broken bones, but they’ll be okay.”

“And Jo?” I wait for him to tell me that you’re talking to the nurses, getting ready to take them home.

My dad’s composure cracks and I hear it in the silence.

Death.

“She …

… she passed away, sweetheart.

She‘s gone’.”

My stomach drops. Eyes lose focus. Muscles disintegrate and I fall to the floor, bare knees striking the ceramic tile with a hollow crack as I slide down the cupboard to the crumby kitchen floor.

No.

You. My beautiful, brilliant, badass cousin, the older sister I never had and always wanted.

All I ever wanted was to be just like you; you never really minded our twelve-year age gap and always made me feel so special.

You taught me how to style hair and give manicures, how to talk to boys and how to feel confident, told me stories of being in the Navy — like how on laundry day yours were the only lacy thongs hanging on the line, you know, the important things.

You’re a fountain of knowledge and always the first person I call for any advice. You treat me like an adult and anyone who meets you instantly falls in love with your goofy personality. When I broke up with my high school boyfriend, you let me hide in your basement to cry and watch movies and took me for McDonald’s and retail therapy.

You bestowed upon me the great honour of being your ‘butt holder’ at your wedding when I was 16, which meant I fumbled with your considerable train as we traipsed through the Salt Spring Island foliage to the wooded ceremony with your military man.

I’ll never forget you that day, vivacious as ever, laughing hysterically through the vows, your red hair and ivory dress striking against the natural setting. That huge, infectious, whooping laugh you can hear from miles away.

Could. Could hear.

“Honey? Are you still there?”

The laugh turns to an echo, gone forever, immortalized on the hearts and minds of everyone who loves you.

“No.” I whisper. “No.”

He breaks down.

“I’m so sorry buddy,” he manages.

“But. I just saw her.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

Toasted crumbs burrow into my knees like gravel. I don’t care. I press harder. I can’t feel anything.

“I need to call work,” I say. “And I need to take a shower.”

I already showered an hour ago, but I need to go. Now.

“Are you going to be okay?” He’s worried.

“I don’t know. Can we talk later?”

“Sure, sweetheart. We’ll be here. We love you so much.”

I hang up the phone in a trance, my body going through the motions even though my brain can’t calculate what to do next. I call work and message my boyfriend, my actions those of someone inhabited by an otherworldly force.

Time is a vacuum.

My mind floats in the murk between grief and disbelief, suspended in a haze until he finds me in the shower, curled up in a ball, staring at nothing while cold water streams over me.

There are nearly two inches of water in the bathtub; my roommate never cleans her long, wiry black hair out of the fucking drain.

I hear him calling my name but it‘s far away, like a dream. The shower curtain rips open and he shuts off the water, wrapping a towel around my shivering body.

Barely two weeks ago he’d delivered the news to me at 3 am, after a brutal Friday night lounge shift, that Poppa died.

That was the last time I saw you alive.

Now he’s trying to hold together shards of a grief mosaic that I don’t know how to piece back together.

Later I book another flight to Edmonton. Air Canada doesn’t believe that a person could have two bereavement flights in one month, and anyway a cousin isn’t a close enough relation to qualify for bereavement pricing, so we have to pay regular price. That means only Dad and I can go, Mum and my brother have to stay home.

The atmosphere on the ground is very different this time.

Poppa was 82, he had COPD and chronic pneumonia, had three triple bypass surgeries in his lifetime, and was on oxygen for the last nine months. It was heartbreaking to say goodbye to such a formidable, comforting presence, but he was older. We celebrated a long life full of love, family, pain, and success.

No, this time is different. Tragic, in every sense.

You would be 35 in three weeks, you and your beautiful family are still settling in your new house — I know you were planning to open a salon in the basement and become a neighbourhood fixture like you always do.

We all just saw you: playing hostess everywhere you went; making sure your young cousins didn’t imbibe too much; talking about how much Poppa would love seeing everyone there together; laughing that laugh that brings a smile to everyone’s face.

They say you died instantly.

I hope it was peaceful.

Nan, my Dad, and his siblings go with your mom, dad and brother to see you one last time before cremation. I miss it because my flight is later, and I imagine what they’ll see as I coast through the clouds.

I remember how heavy the urn with Poppa’s ashes in it was, how I pictured every part of him — his big warm body that always smelled like sweat, aftershave, and sweet spice; his mustache that tickled your face with every hug; hands that were rough and scarred but soft from so many years of raising children and grandchildren; a smile that could disappear any worries in an instant — and wonder what it will be like to hold you in my arms.

Will you be heavy? Light? Will I be able to hear you? Picture your flaming red hair filling the space like magma filling holes in rock? Hear the jokes you’d tell about hot yoga preparing you for this moment?

My Dad gives the eulogy.

He lived with your family for such a long time when he was young, and anyway, he loves you so fucking much. We all do.

When he walks to the front of the church he leaves an empty space in the pew beside me. I look around at the seats filled with our family: heads on shoulders, tissues circulating, hands holding, tears falling, and suddenly I feel alone in the desert, a vast expanse around me that no mere words or physical touch can span.

I stare down at my hands, motionless, on the skirt of the funeral outfit I officially want to burn. Tears stream silently down my face and I’m still until I feel my uncle‘s warm, rough hand on my shoulder.

He pulls me close and his hands and shape and smell remind me so much of Poppa that I melt, allowing myself to believe it’s really him, just for a moment.

That he pulls us both into his cozy arms and tells me that you’re okay, he’s got you.

It’s been fourteen years since the day you went away, and I see the beauty of your presence in your girls, feel your joy in my soul, and hear your laughter in my heart.

I miss you.