In the Absence of Certain Things.

The ways we grieve and go on.

What do you do when something or someone suddenly leaves your life?

Do you busy yourself? Do you bustle about as if nothing has changed? Do you shut down? Reach out? Do you collapse?

It’s quiet. My house smells different. My body keeps awaiting certain cues that do not come. There is energy seeking outcomes and fulfillments that no longer exist.

When we find ourselves in the absence of certain things we must find ways to grieve, to go on, to not go crazy, to go a little crazy, to fill our time, to allow ourselves to rest.

It is the same with the ending of a relationship, a contract, or creative endeavor, a job, or any other form of agreement coming to an end. It is such when a loved one dies, though drastically more final. It is this way when a child or children leave our nest.

The emptiness can consume us.

I have written about caring for my granddaughters, about the ups and downs, joys and frustrations and utter fulfillment of being suddenly thrown back into parenting at the age of 43. They are now gone again, as I knew they would be from the moment they arrived. I never contracted to keep them forever, but more for a season, an intermission for circumstances to evolve to better support them.

I knew from the moment it began that it would end this way—and still it hurts.

Even if we have the knack for pretty accurate pattern prediction, as I do, it still feels sudden when the storm, previously gathering on the horizon, suddenly breaks. We still get wet, cold, and have to take shelter from the elements be they internal or external.

My shelter is my love of beauty. My shelter is my need to reorganize and redecorate spaces whenever situations suddenly shift and I feel like I can’t get my space clean enough because it is my mind that feels disorganized and cluttered. My shelter is my garden, which I cannot yet plant—dare not—as temperatures are predicted to plummet to below freezing again for most of this week, and now I have awoke to fresh snow on this too silent morning.

My shelter is the hearts of friends who I turn to text, call and, in various other ways, discharge this energy that had perviously been spent caring for my “charges”. My shelter is writing, working, teaching…all the things I do and have done for years, which had been tabled a bit during my brief revival of motherhood.

I miss them—the girls. I miss my Junabooger and The Stinky Baby. I miss being the Umasauras Rex that elicited squeals of faux terror, and actual delight, when I chased the toddler down the hallway and pretended to devour her sister’s baby belly.

Tears.

Shoulders shaking.

Sobs.

Deep breaths.

What we do in the absence of certain things is grieve.

We cry.

We may languish in the bath for endless hours, or bed rot and scroll through reels; Gawd knows I’ve done more than a bit of that in the last week. But the other thing that we do quietly and perhaps almost imperceptibly is we grow.

We grow around our grief to hold even more love and different experiences. We stand in front of the mirror and reflect. We sink our roots deeper into the dark soil of our Mother. We reach for the heavens and cry out for our Father. We scurry under cold unfriendly rain to journey towards warmth and friendship in communal places, and in secret places, and in places that are important to us.

What we do in the absence of certain things is we carry on.

We must.

Some days we do so cheerfully, some begrudgingly. But we live in the honor of being alive and in service to what is still important to us. We keep in mind the love we carry and the love we planted—the seeds sown. We trust that when we imbue anything with our love, it will thrive in its own way, and when those who loves us are suddenly gone we take the love that they invested in us and we grow as best we can with it, too.

What do we do in the absence of certain things?

We live, and we live well for that is the only way to honor life.

Love to you,

~Justice

(Image: Matthew Henry)