thirteen

January 20, 2018 (the 13th day of my writing course)

Today is day 13, and so the prompt was the number 13.

Rader was born on June 13, 2001; it was a Wednesday. He also died on a Wednesday. I never memorized the Monday's Child poem, but I looked it up just now. Wednesday's child is full of woe.

Historically, the poem hasn't always said that. In an 1873 version, Wednesday's child is merry and glad. Days of the week fortune-telling poems go back to at least the 1500s, so A: there have been a lot of variations, and B: (I'm reminding myself here) they're just made up rhymes, not actual predictors of fortune.

Rader wasn't a superstitious child, but the 13th took a place of prominence in his life at least once a year. The year he turned 13, his birthday fell on Friday the 13th, although we didn't make any kind of big deal out of it. His birthday also was on a Friday when he turned 2 and 7.

On his last Wednesday, I think it's fair to conclude that Rader was full of woe. But that's not what his life was like. As a little child, he resided much more in merry and glad territory. He was an outgoing kid who happily made friends wherever he went: the kids' play place at Chick-Fil-A, tae kwon do class, the playground. He would find other children to play with and have a grand time. He didn't always ask their names, but they were always "my friend." He wasn't shy or reticent.

He did have some difficulties at our small Montessori school, relating to some kids he knew. If he were to get accidentally bumped or pushed, he was quick to conclude the offense had been perpetrated on purpose, and he felt the need to retaliate. Also, he wasn't always interested in getting to know his classmates beyond the ones he considered friends. Jennifer — a little girl with long, straight, white-blond hair — shared a classroom with him from first through fifth grade. We were acquainted with their family and had a couple of interactions outside of school. He was friends with her same-age stepbrother and I believe he even went on a camping trip with them. One summer in middle school, I spotted Jen at the math and science day camp Rader was attending, and I said something about it to him. "I wasn't sure that was her," he replied. Maybe I'm misinterpreting. Maybe he did know it was her but felt more comfortable not acknowledging her. But I think it's possible she just wasn't on his radar at all, even after five years of school in close proximity. He cared about who and what he cared about, and other people and things hardly existed.

In later years, he did develop more introverted tendencies, and in his last year, full-blown social anxiety. I don't look down on introversion, as I'm an introvert myself. But the kid who used to make friends of strangers anywhere became someone who could hardly speak to his Spanish teacher (the second language probably didn't make that any easier), and had lunch every day with "Will and Will's friends," whom somehow he never came to consider his own friends. I wonder how they thought of him. Thank God for Will, that he had met one person in high school who made him feel seen and appreciated.

I think some people did see and appreciate him. He was in an indoor rock-climbing club for the last few years. I don't know if he knew the names of any of those kids, but they knew him. And when he went to video game camps, there were always choruses of "Bye, Rader! See ya, Rader!" when we picked him up. In one of his middle school day camps, he was chosen as camper of the week for helping the instructor teach the kids in his class things like how to add an onscreen timer to their video games. So he won a scholarship to the residential camp at the Governor's School for Science and Math. We happily sent him the next summer (and two more after that) because we thought that's where he would find his people, and maybe even decide he'd like to go to school there. But though he had a good time, he never seemed to have made a connection with anyone, and the school didn't pique his interest. If he had wanted to go, this year would have been his first year there. I would still have had an empty nest, but it would have been because he had found his place in the world, rather than decided there was no place for him.

We observed the final "13th" six days after he left us: his 16th birthday. We've always been a numbers candle family. I have a Ziploc bag with all the wax numerals in it, including and extra no. 1, when we needed it for 11. So on June 13, 2017, we sunk the 1 and the 6 into a cake someone had bought (maybe my husband? Who bought the cake?), lit them, and the three of us blew them out. Our misery is evident in the photo. Blowing out those candles felt literally like extinguishing his life. It was a Tuesday, and we were full of woe.

transplant shock

When I was in elementary school, I remember my mother had some magnificent houseplants. The one I still can see when I close my eyes was a split-leaf philodendron, also (according to a quick check of houseplant411) called Monstera Deliciosa. We lived in a beautiful, modern 1970s tri-level in the Pacific Northwest, and the sunken living room had a vaulted ceiling and huge east-facing windows letting in the morning light. Monstera Deliciosa thrived in that front room. I remember it growing like a vine until it had to be supported with nails and string my dad rigged up. (Sure enough, houseplant411 says monstera deliciosa "needs to be aggressively trimmed or it can take over your room.")

My mom loved her houseplants back then, and as a child just watching her care for them, I learned a lot. One important point is after repotting, many plants will respond with a period of wilting, because of the shock to their roots. A few days ago I transplanted a couple of succulents from an overcrowded hanging garden, and the too-tall one now looks incredibly unhappy. When I slid the entire garden sideways out of the container, I found the roots of the one that had overgrown its companions wrapped all the way around the soil ball. I pried them loose as gently as I could and anchored the lanky plant into its new, spacious home with care. Right now, it's droopy and even with the support of a stick and some ties, leans precariously, but my hope is that once its traumatized roots have the chance to recover and then begin to grow into their new environment, it will again stand tall and strong on its own.

"I suffer from ... the tearing up of the roots of love,
and from my own inability to behave better under the stress."
(May Sarton, from Journal of a Solitude)

I suffer from transplant shock. I lived in one place, not free from challenge but having grown into it, adapting to its imperfect conditions. Blooming where I was planted.

Suddenly I was uprooted, and set down again in a barren place full of stones and briars, parched ground and blinding sky. I slumped over, unable to hold myself up. My cells leached their fluids and shriveled, thirsting for the nourishment my now-battered roots used to so easily absorb. This is a hostile place. How will I survive?

I live in a new place and I long for the old place. How quickly I would exchange the best of now for the worst of then, when the possibilities of the future lay still ahead. Before I was torn out by the roots.

"I suffer from my own inability to behave better under the stress." Inability. I am only now coming back to the hope of standing firm. My damaged roots stretch out into the poor soil, and soak up what little sustenance is to be found. I learn to live on what I can take in now, in such contrast to the easy abundance of that other place, however demanding life seemed at the time.

I have to make peace with the sharp rocks and the blazing sun. This is where I live now. I will my roots to grow deep. I will my leaves to reach high. Maybe, even, I'll bloom again.

----------------------------------
On gardeningknowhow.com, I found this list that is pretty easily applicable to people in transplant shock, as much as plants. So here it is:

How to Cure Plant Transplant Shock

While there is no sure-fire way to cure plant transplant shock, there are things you can do to minimize the transplant shock in plants. 

• Add some sugar — Believe or not, studies have shown that a weak sugar and water solution made with plain sugar from the grocery store given to a plant after transplanting can help recovery time for transplant shock in plants. It can also be used as a transplant shock preventer if applied at the time of transplanting. It only helps with some plants but, as this will not harm the plant, it is worth a try. 

• Trim back the plant — Trimming back the plant allows the plant to focus on regrowing its roots. In perennials, trim back about one-third of the plant. In annuals, if the plant is a bush type, trim back one-third of the plant. If it is a plant with a main stem, cut off half of each leaf. 

• Keep roots moist — Keep the soil well watered, but make sure that the plant has good drainage and is not in standing water. 

• Wait patiently — Sometimes a plant just needs a few days to recover from transplant shock. Give it some time and care for it as you normally would and it may come back on its own.

  January 18, 2018

evening falling, a soft lamenting

January 17, 2018

Today's #refugeingrief writing prompt quoted Hannah Arendt (her words appear in italics).

"Evening falling — a soft lamenting"
snow mutes the color, the sound, the life
my hopes, my cares, my energy
hibernation awaits
denning up for a cold and hungry winter
When will the thaw come? WILL a thaw come?

"What I have loved
I cannot hold.
What lies around me I cannot leave"
I surround myself with things that are of you
cocoon myself in your quilt
wear your t-shirts, your hoodie
I can buy more things you would have loved
arrange them with
what remains 
into displays
but none of it brings you back
or even summons you closer
which must mean that's not why I do it.

Though to be reminded of you
is not even necessary
because thoughts of you
are constant companions
But when I see or touch 
these remnants of your life
or enrobe myself 
in what you left behind 
I know you were real,
you were mine.

"Nothing overcomes me —
this must be life’s way."
I am not defeated. 
I cannot win
the game of mourning
yet somehow
not all is lost.

What is the meaning of this? 
This life, this loss? 
No outcome will be worth the sacrifice of my son.
I could learn something and become a 'better person.' Ugh. 
I could share something that comforts someone else.
That idea strikes a chord with me.
I'd like to put something of value out into the world
to contribute to my community. Courage, strength, peace that someone else could call upon when they lack such things. If I can offer comfort, in my mind, it at least counts as something.

I could do some good in Rader's name, to make a difference that would have meant something to him. That's what the foundation is about: offering the opportunity for more children to attend the kind of school that nurtured his creativity and love of learning in his early years. Maybe another child who doesn't fit the framework of traditional education has a chance at a more fulfilling life because of one of our scholarships. It's something. It's even great. But does it give meaning to the loss? That he "will not have died in vain"? That "something good comes of it"? Is there any meaning in these trite phrases that roll so easily off the tongue? Is there any truth there? Does what comes out of the loss EVER mitigate the loss? I think it's false logic. Correlation, not causation.

Yet, I posit that if there are two possible results of the loss of my son — one, that I am devastated and permanently reduced to a state of mere subsistence, or two, that I am devastated and somehow draw upon all my resources to fight and move and yes, possibly grow — the one where I truly live is the better one, the more meaningful one.

There's a quote commonly attributed to Winston Churchill: "If you're going through hell, keep going!" It's a good one, though he likely didn't say it. But this one: "The best way out is always through" is accurately credited to his contemporary Robert Frost. It's been my signature quote for many years. I don't remember when or where I first heard it, or to what initial situation I might have applied it, but it resonated with me then, and lifts me up now.

I understand that grief is not linear, and so "through" may be a bit too confining a description of the direction of the work of grief. Also, I suppose, there's not really an "out" at which I will ever arrive. But there is progress, yes? Not step-wise, but gradually over time, if I keep moving, doing the work of grief, I am farther along toward integrating the grief into what my life is now than I was. Than I would be if it overcame me and took me down into the pit. Grief is also individual. So my revised quote (not nearly so eloquent as Frost) may apply only to me. Maybe, "The best way forward is to keep moving." With the caveat that there will also be some backward, and that 'moving' encompasses a lot of different actions. One of those for me, I've proven to myself in the past 10 days, is writing. And others: working on the foundation website. Putting together a gallery of photos of the life we lived while Rader was present with us. Keeping myself healthy by drawing on the resources of my community as I have need, and contributing back into that community what I can.

"Evening falling, a soft lamenting," 
life will never be what it was. 
But I will find the good
and live.

(Quotes from Weariness, by Hannah Arendt)

red is Mario's hat

For this one, we were to use a color as a writing prompt.

__________  

Red is the hat that Mario has been wearing since 1981. Now, his cap is a character in the new game on the new gaming system you didn't stay around to buy and play: Super Mario Odyssey on Nintendo Switch. Blue is Mario's overalls. I've never liked the combination of red and blue in an outfit for myself, but for Mario it works, with the yellow buttons. And the logo for the Rader Ward Foundation is the red and blue and yellow of the section of Mario's clothes right over his heart. I love that logo and I wish I never had need to create it.

Blue are my eyes and yours. Blue is the cheap zip-up hoodie you wore every day, even in winter, even though I bought you warmer jackets. Even in the heat of fall and spring, going to school, because sometimes it was cold in your classrooms. You never liked to carry it so you just wore it if you might possibly need it. There are days I wear it now and I wish it made me feel closer to you.

Blue is the TARDIS in that great photo we have of you on our trip to the U.K. We rode an extra stop on the train to go see the old police phone box that looks like the one Doctor Who travels the universe in. And you're hanging on to it as if you would travel with him, to times and places unknown. It's nice to think of you being somewhere. Red is the McDonald's advertisement in the background of the photo that Mattie toned down in Photoshop so it wouldn't detract from the large-format print we displayed at your memorial service.

Green is the border of the Mario quilt that Grandma made you. I saved all your Mario t-shirts, from toddler size up, so she could make a quilt for you to take to college. It's AMAZING. You would love it. But instead, it's mine, and I love it, but I so wish it were yours. Green is the 1-up mushroom in the Super Mario games that gives the player an extra life. Mattie put one on your magnet poem but at first I didn't understand its significance. When she told me, I wished so fervently it were true, and my heart broke for her that she thought of it, such is her love for you.

Still green are the plants we received in memoriam. There were so many flower arrangements that we gave some away to the neighbors because there were too many for us to enjoy, and they've long since wilted and died. But most of the potted plants and container gardens I kept, the ones that would keep living, and it gives me a small satisfaction to care for them now that I have no living child at home to care for. When we went up to the mountains in July I took them all with me, a plant vacation, because I wanted to keep taking care of them myself. They sat in the sun on the dock and they bathed in the rain and it was as peaceful as it could be, considering. In the months since, one little fern in an arrangement of three pots together didn't make it, and the Flaming Katy Kalanchoe needs a little more attention before it puts forth more red flowers, but green is the color of the plants that I have because I don't have you.

Green is the spring that is coming because time keeps passing by. It seems so surreal that life just goes on, for those of us who are left still living. In fact, the days seem to pass so quickly, because it's hard to work myself up to accomplishing anything that's not essential, even if it's important in one of my alternate universes. For example, today I need to pay my mom's bills (green, green). I think I can manage that today.

But red is the hat that Mario wears, with its jaunty brim and the monogrammed M. "Cappy" is the name of the hat character, Mario's main partner in Odyssey. He can both attack and defend, increasing Mario's abilities in a variety of ways. How I wish you had known that such help was available to you if you asked.

Quilt designed and made by Sue Nesbitt.

a guiding star

Written January 15, 2018
Tell us about a guiding star inside your grief.

June 8, 2017, the day after my son, Rader, took his life, I sent a message to my friend Brenda, asking her to put me in touch with a woman named Beth Saadati.

Two years earlier, Beth had come to the Alzheimer's Association support group Brenda and I both attended (Beth's dad was a member of our group), and had done a reading of a piece she had published in a Chicken Soup for the Soul book. It was a story about her mom, who was a resident in the facility in which the support group met. Afterward, Brenda sent me an email with a link to the blog Beth had just started. "It's dedicated to her daughter Jenna," Brenda wrote. "I've read it ALL and I wanted to share it with you because you have teenagers."

Jenna died by suicide in 2013 at the age of 14, midway through her freshman year in high school. The blog was new, and Beth only wrote there once a month or so, but what she wrote was real and raw. The first time I visited, I read everything, as Brenda had, and then over the next two years I checked in every few months when Beth's story came to mind.

I had heard about Jenna's death when it happened, because my daughter was an 8th-grade student at the small school Jenna had graduated from the year before. They hadn't known each other, but had friends in common. Now here was Beth, who had written so poignantly about her mom's decline into early-onset Alzheimer's, also telling the world right out loud about one of the most intimate and devastating experiences ever faced, the unspeakable thing people call "every parent's nightmare." I read Beth's blog entries and I read the comments and I read Beth's responses to the comments. They were full of love, hope, and grace. Beth was obviously meeting a need within herself, but with her writing, she also was meeting the needs of other people.

So, then, the morning after Rader died, I knew I needed to talk to Beth. I visited her blog and tried to figure out how to contact her. All I could see was the possibility of leaving a public comment below one of her entries, and I didn't feel up to doing that. So that's when I texted Brenda and put her on the case. Six hours later, less than 24 hours after Rader's death, Beth called me.

I don't remember at all what we said. But we agreed to meet up soon, and in a few weeks, we did. I didn't realize how until I started to write about it, but the way Beth moves through her grief provided a pattern for me when I didn't know how to start.

Rader and I had been signed up for a week of Fine Arts summer camp. He was enrolled in a Photoshop class, and for me, Ancient French Enameling Techniques. I emailed the program director to cancel for him, but told her I still felt like coming. Less than two weeks after losing him, I was in the studio. I had told myself that if it was too hard to be there, I didn't have to continue. But as I had hoped, it was better to be there than not to be. And the enameling process was transformative. You create and fire the piece, and when you see what comes out of the kiln, you decide what else you need to do to it before it's finished: add more enamel, sand it down and start over, try a different color, layer on something new ... but when you put it in the kiln, your influence over it ends. None of the work I did that week was "about" Rader in a literal way. But I did believe that by making art, I was taking whatever thoughts and feelings were inside me and giving them physical form in the pieces I created, and that getting those things out was good.

And so I also kept my commitment to attend a multi-day beginner's ceramics course the next month. And I continued to formulate a philosophy in my mind I had begun months earlier attending a days-long breadmaking workshop with a friend: that the processes of making bread and enamelwork and ceramics are a metaphor for life. You do your best, but none of them necessarily come out exactly the way you intended. Whether caring for your mother who has dementia or your child with depression and anxiety, you are responsible TO the ones you care for. You can't hold yourself to being responsible FOR them, because you can't control the decisions and actions of any person but yourself.

There's a ceramic technique called raku that is a perfect example. You mold your piece from the clay, paint on the glaze, and then put it into the kiln. When you take it out of the kiln, you literally SET IT ON FIRE. How the glaze responds to the fire determines what the design on the final piece will be. After Rader died, I really felt like this was my life.

I'm still working on it, but here's the summary of my current philosophical theory: You plan and create and nurture, you shape your piece and put it into the fire, you take it out and see what you have, and how beautiful it is although maybe not the way you expected, and you love it and let it serve its purpose, proud of the hand you had in the process.

kindness

January 13, 2018
Today's #refugeingrief writing prompt was about kindness.

--------------------------
I'm hesitant to start out on such a shallow note, but I know just beginning to write will help get the ideas flowing. How am I being "to my sad self hereafter kind"? One thing is self care. I'm taking yoga classes a couple of times a week; having a Thai yoga session, pedicure, and a massage each once a month. I work out--rowing class and weight training--because it makes me feel good, and also because if I don't do it, I feel more anxious. I get my 10,000 Fitbit steps every day. I had a 19-month streak going when Rader died and one of the decisions my lizard brain made when I woke up (OK, I didn't really wake up because I hadn't been able to go to sleep; but I GOT up) that first day was that ending the streak would make me feel worse than going outside and trudging those 10,000 steps. So I did it that day and the next and the next, and six days after he died, my Fitbit friends online organized a #stepforrader where hundreds of people completed 16,000 steps in recognition of his 16th birthday. Kindness.

So many kindnesses got me through those first days. First, our next door neighbors on the night he died. When my surviving child and I arrived home from our meeting, the EMS had already closed off the house to investigate and my husband was out on the front porch. Our neighbors, Marshall and Barbara, were here caring for William and greeted us with hugs and tears. They brought drinks of water, wrapped us in blankets as the temperature cooled, and stayed with us. They stayed and stayed, until we were finally given the OK to go inside. Then, Barbara made trips to the grocery store for us, brought food, and let some of our friends who came in from out of town stay in their guest rooms, able to come and go as they pleased.

After Barbara and Marshall's kindness in the immediate aftermath, first thing the next morning, our best friends Jim and Kristen showed up. They probably brought something and we probably have it written down on what is essentially our list of kindnesses provided, but anyway what I actually remember is they came. They walked in our door early in the morning, and after that sleepless night in which my brain kept asking me how on earth are we going to live through this, what is life going to be like, how do we do this, how is anything ever going to be OK again, when Jim and Kristen came in, my whole body seemed to heave a sigh of relief. And my brain went,"Oh, OK, this is how. We have our people." And throughout the day they came, and came, and came. First the local friends and then the ones from miles and hours away within the state of South Carolina, and then Doyle and Mia (it took them a day or two to make arrangements to get here from D.C.), and when Mia arrived, she took over (her literal job title is "controller") and then everything was really going to be OK, whatever OK means after you lose a child to suicide.

And people made calls for me that I needed made (cancelling Rader's upcoming appointments with the optometrist and dentist--no way could I call them and tell them he was dead). Our former minister, Ivey, came and shepherded us through planning a memorial service that was perfect in every way for a family that had essentially lost its faith already (that's quite a story for another time); and his wife, Teri, went with me on what should have been the worst errand of my life: buying a dress to wear to the service. But she made it OK, so OK that after we had picked out and tried on and purchased the dress, I still felt up to driving back to the location of the meeting where we had left Matt's car, and Teri drove the car home for me.

People who had lost children themselves were incredibly kind. Rader's high school principal came to visit the first day, attended the service, and sent a beautiful peace lily from the staff and student government. He and his wife lost a son to a brain tumor at age 7, 13 years ago now. A local woman who writes a blog about the aftermath of her teen daughter's suicide came and had lunch with me. A minister's wife in the nearby town where my husband grew up sent a beautiful ring along with the story of how at her son's memorial service, she received his ring back that he had given to a friend in need of encouragement years earlier when they were teens, a story she hadn't known anything about.

So I don't believe anymore that the Bible is THE TRUTH and that Jesus is THE WAY, and that the God of the Bible is the REAL GOD. But I have a deeply Christian past, and it may seem contradictory to some, but I still love the Bible and still find a lot of truth in its verses. A few weeks ago when I received a Facebook message from a former teacher at my kids' Montessori school that another former teacher's son had taken his life that morning, this verse came to mind: "Praise be to ... the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God." 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

And I knew that because of what I had received, I had something to offer Ms. Kris. And so the next day I got in my car, and I drove a couple of hours to North Carolina, and I walked through her door.

who are you, grief?

January 12, 2018

Today's Writing Your Grief assignment was to give voice to your grief, to personify it as a character.

Who are you? Tell me who you are.
I'm afraid. I'm so afraid to let go. I feel locked in a kind of rigidity, a frame, a grid, because I don't know what will happen outside of it. Something I can't stop. Something I can't control. And what if it's too much? What if ... what if? I can't even articulate, can't go there, can't imagine, can't visualize, can't. It's too overwhelming, scary, enormous.

Who are you? Tell me who you are. 
This can't have been the reason I wanted to be a writer from the age of six. It's too unbelievably cruel to have prepared me my entire life and then to have TAKEN MY SON so I would have something to write about.

Who are you? Tell me who you are. 
I'm like you. I'm trying to look like I have myself together. I'm going through the regular motions because I have NO IDEA what else to do. How can I embark upon a different path now, when everything is unknown? I've got to stick to who I am, who I have been, as much as I can, because otherwise who will I be? How will I know how to be that person?

Who are you? Tell me who you are.
I am every fear you've ever had. Every nightmare. I'm ocean waves crashing over your head. I'm endless staircases in twisted creepy mansions. I'm being followed, chased, gained upon. I'm the exam for the course you thought you dropped but didn't. I'm your parents getting divorced. Your husband having an affair. Your mom disappearing into dementia. I'm you all alone with no one on your side.

Who are you? Tell me who you are. 
I'm small but I carry a lot of weight. I'm beautiful but off-putting. I have a wall up but I peer over it and think of inviting someone in. I have the ability to engulf you and sweep you away, never to be seen again. At least that's what I whisper threateningly in the dark.

When are you going to surrender yourself to me? Why do you fight me, ignore me, put me in a box, try to contain me? You move toward me, make an overture, but only from what seems like a safe distance. Even now, as you're writing every day, pouring yourself out onto the page, do you really see me? Feel me? Will you give in to me?

Your'e so hard on yourself. You know it. People who know you know it. You've always wanted to be perfect. Well, I'm pretty perfect, if you just give in to me. Let me take your hand. I have some things I want to show you.

What is wrong with you that you can write these things day after day and not shed a tear?

[Nothing, nothing is wrong with me. Give grace, grace in the individuality of grieving. Yes, tears are wonderful and cleansing. Maybe each tear means a step taken toward something, through something. Progress, sure. But not to exclusion. Tears are not the ONLY way. Someone who has cried more tears, who weeps and sobs every day for years on end over their lost child, is not a better griever than I am. Tears are not proof of depth of love. I think I am not detached or cold or heartless or selfish for remaining mostly dry-eyed. Maybe the words are my tears.]

Who are you? Tell me who you are. 
I am always with you. I have always been with you. I will always be. We are knit, knotted together, interwoven. I'm not a parasite but a symbiont. We live together for mutual gain. You need me as much as I need you. Embrace me. I won't hurt you. You already hurt. Let me help.

Who are you? Tell me who you are. 
I'm covered in scars and calluses. I'm strong from having been broken down and built back up. I see beautiful things and enjoy them. I have a sense of poignancy. I want to be put to work. I want to be tested. Give me a chance to show you all I am and all I can do. Open you eyes to me, your heart, your hands. You can trust me. We are together now and it's not possible for me to go away. So see me. Let me see you. Together we are more than you were, even if that's not what you wanted, and at a cost you never agreed to pay. I'm your grief. I'm your pain. I'm you.

i know where I live

I’m taking an online Writing Your Grief course through refugeingrief.com. Every day there’s a writing prompt that offers a few ideas for us to respond to. Today (January 10, 2018) was Day 3 and I chose to write about “I know where I live.” All of the writing is very personal, of course. Most of it I probably will not share publicly. But here is today’s.

__________

I know where I live. It's where you don't, anymore. I'm here; you're gone. You should be in this space. I sit at the computer desk. If you had a ghost, it would be here, in this chair, hovering over this keyboard, moving this mouse. Letting the creativity spill from your fingertips through the keys, creating worlds for others to explore. Your games took what was inside of you and made it real, visible, conceivable. Those games, they live on, but you don't. The characters you invented still live. Their hearts beat with zeroes and ones; they continue their quests. They are immortal, I suppose, as much as anything in this world, until its end. I guess that's true of many creations, that they outlive their creators. That's just the way of things.

I know where I live. I live in a quicksand place where it's important to keep moving so I don't get drawn down into the depths. I know that in this place, nowhere I want to go lies along a straight path from where I am. Is there any such thing as progress? Or is it just survival? What is my quest? If I were one of your characters, what would you have me do? What would be my goal? What kind of opposition would I face? Would there be any help available to me along the way?

I know where I live. And that I just have to keep living.