"I don't think any of us can speak frankly about pain until we are no longer enduring it."- Arthur Golden
New York, New York MAY
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Today my heart bled.
Memories were the sharped edged weapon, honed to pierce my heart as I stared at the grandiose bottle of scotch on the edge of my desk. It was strange. A single malt was meant to be smooth going down, but with every swallow I took, I felt a burn. Or maybe it was my imagination. Real or not, the burn wasn't enough to sway me to stop drinking. And the drinking wasn't enough to dull the pain inside me.
I won't pretend to be surprised.
With every year that passed, the more I understood this vicious cycle.
Grief.
It made so much sense that grief was referred to as an amputation. Sudden and brutal, nothing can ever prepare you for the day you lose a part of yourself.
A part.
Not enough to kill you. Just enough to make you feel you've died and entered purgatory. And with that appendage, with that extremity gone... you're just supposed to move on. It won't kill you. No. Death would be too kind. But, oh, you can't deny how crippling the pain is. The way your mind aches for its flesh back. Not a replacement or prosthetic. Your mind wants the real thing back. Everything else is simply not good enough.
But you can't get it back.
So, you do things to distract yourself from the loss and the weight of it all will slip to the back of your mind, not quite forgotten—such a dull wound it becomes. It'll hollow you out, numb you, and then, boom, it happens. Your mind will remember and that feeling of betrayal and guilt rises, attacking you with a vengeance to immobilize you.
How dare you try to forget, it'll whisper. This is your life now. This thing called grief will scream.
Nostalgia held me captive, as I reclined into my desk chair. A willing prisoner to it, I let heavy chains wrap around my body and lose my sanity. Darkness bathe the soundproof room and with closed eyes I'm transported to the past, a vibrant memory.
A little over a decade ago, I'm back home for a family visit. Christmas.
Inside the large mansion, twinkling lights, greenery and flowers, decorated the halls. From the outside looking in, we resembled a commercialized ad for the holiday. But our joy was pure, the scent of wine and various foods permeating every corner I turned, boisterous chatter echoed off the walls, talking about everything and nothing. For ten days, my family would halt the lives lived across the world from each other to come together and behave as if we didn't have a legacy tainted in blood. This was the last Christmas we had happy and whole.
