A Memoir by C. Cimmone

Grief is a strange thing. It’s something you sit with, alone. It keeps you up at night, sifting through the darkness when the rest of the town is silent and sleeping. Grief hovers between you and the ceiling fan. Grief follows you down the hall and out your backdoor. Grief laughs when you look up at the night sky. It knows you are searching. Grief knows it owes you nothing. 

Grief does not owe apologies or explanations. Grief does not choose sides or favorites. It plays best on its own and cares not if it is criticized, condemned, or cursed. Grief lives on forever, long after you’re gone. Grief is not placed in a casket, unless it is nestled in the chest of the neatly-dressed deceased. 

The problem with grief is not that it is persistent and constant. Grief is not a threat, as it only exists once death has played Her part. Death operates unconditionally. Death can be captured. Death can be released. Death can be rationalized, medically proven, and clinically induced. Death and grief are autonomous and are not interchangeable, partners, or friends. Grief is superior to death because it outlives flowers, caskets, and memories. One may grieve long after the sound of someone’s voice has escaped their mind. It could be argued that grief outlives love. 

When I attempt to outrun grief, it finds me, reminds me, shakes me violently like a screaming child. It puts images in my mind of towering fire and scorched earth. Grief is violent and burns from within. Grief makes your skin crawl, your voice weak. Grief reminds you of the end. It reminds you of loss, of being lost, of searching.

Today I sit in the evening sun watching my son play baseball in a clover painted field. He is smiling and full of life. The coach is catching stray baseballs with a worn-out mitt. The oak trees are waving in the thick summer air as the boys yell at each other across bases. They are growing and learning. My son is happy. 

Yet somewhere out in the distance, off behind the rusty backstop and past the point where the clover stops blooming, I see a thin, bearded man. I see him grinning at me, almost taunting me for not winking back at him. And for a moment, I think I see someone I loved for so long, but I realize, with the new crack of sunlight, it is not the man I loved at all…it is grief.

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C. Cimmone is an editor and poet from Texas who fantasizes about waking up in Vermont. Her most recent book of poetry, Wasted Days, is available from Anxiety Press.