Stone Monastery of Grief

 For many people, the world of grief seems like a void, a large cavern of terror that everyone wants to flee, a place filled with utterly depressing chaos and rampaging emotions. And it is. It’s also filled with people who have unshakable compassion.

 

There are long periods of silence after the first onslaught of grief calms, and to those who grieve, the experience feels like living in a monastery. So much has been taken away that life feels pared back to stone walls and quiet, except for occasional rantings in the middle of the night. We’re always slightly cold, and the food we eat, while nutritious and warm, is nothing to write home about.

 

Standing In a Dark World, Waiting

When death comes, we leave the world of light behind and enter a realm of shadows.

Colors mute to gray. Sounds are all in the distance. Even if it’s sunny and in the eighties, the air feels cold and we wear a jacket. Food tastes like cardboard, so we don’t eat. Everything we pick up is rough to the touch, so we stay home. Our world shifts into slow gear.

Snow is Falling

Snow is falling.

It is falling quietly

from the invisible sky

into the stillness

of the brown woods

behind the house,

covering the trees and hills

in a shroud of white. 

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The Great Dead Calm

Journal entry 22

Four months after Ev’s death, life stops moving.

Everyone speaks words of cardboard. The same song plays over and over, wearing out whatever emotions used to exist in its notes. The world’s happy sounds are flat tones masked by white noise. I am Buster Keaton’s blank face because I feel nothing. I drift on the dead calm sea that old-time sailors feared when no wind filled their sails and they moved to the ocean’s whims. 

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