Wednesday, December 10th, 2014 7:45 AM
There are five stages of grief. The five stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I guess I have already gone through denial. My anger resulted in several holes in the house that my grandmother was about to sell, and several broken pieces of furniture and many hours of screaming at nothing. I did not know what to bargain, so I guess I just skipped that stage. If I could have made a deal with the devil, I probably would have. But for that to work you actually have to believe in the devil, or in god. My family and I had never been religious, though my grandmother is Catholic. My father had rejected his confirmation when he was seventeen.
Depression. I could give you the definition if you would like. de·pres·sion /dəˈpreSH(ə)n/ noun: depression; plural noun: depressions: feelings of severe despondency and dejection. A definition does not really do it justice, though. Doctors say that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain.
I wish I knew how losing your entire family in a day could cause the chemicals in your brain to rearrange and fuck up. I’m not entirely sure there are enough words in the English language to describe the pain that I feel every second of every day. I feel it deep in my bones. I feel it in my sleep.
There is a weight on my chest that weighs one thousand pounds. My stomach has shriveled up to a size much smaller than the palm of my hand.
I don’t remember much of the funeral. It had passed in a daze. Four coffins, two big, two small, had been laid in the freshly dug earth. A child, a toddler, a mother, and a father, stuffed into the ground never to see the light of day. There must have been dozens of people there, they must have given me their condolences. My friends were there, but I was not. My body was there, but my soul was buried alongside my family.
I have never been to New Hampton. My grandmother always chose to visit us at our home. I think it was because she liked flying first class, showing off her status as rich old lady.
My father loved her with all his heart, especially after grandfather passed away three years ago. My grandmother never seemed very affected, but then again, she never really does.
My mother adored my grandmother, also. I think that was mainly because my grandmother cracked my mother up with her antics. Personally, I did not find humor in my grandmother’s snide remarks about our way of living without religion or how my mother’s profession of being an artist was “distasteful.”
7:46 AM
I’ve realized that I find it calming to count the minutes, and sometimes the seconds, of the time that passes. They say that time heals all wounds. My philosophy is that if I count every minute – and if I am bored enough I can count the seconds – then I will truly test the theory of time healing pain. It’s not a very good coping strategy, I know, but at least it is not detrimental to my health.
Even this early in the morning that airport is packed. Most of the people hustling and bustling through the gates were businessmen and families with small children taking their winter holiday.
I sat in the seats outside the terminal where we would be boarding, and started counting the tiles of the floor. My grandmother was absorbed in her tablet, reading the New Hampton news from what I could see, so I could tap my foot to the beat of my counting without worry of reprimand. I swept my gaze across the terminal and my eyes locked with a small blonde haired girl. Her bright blue eyes brightened when she realized she had caught my eye. Her cherub cheeks raised with a gap toothed smile, and she waved a small greeting to me.
Warm liquid spilled down my cheek and the little girl’s smile started to drop. I waved back and tried to smile, but I think all I ended up doing was upset her.
I would never see Maria’s gap toothed smile again.
How could I possibly accept that?
I think they put acceptance as the final stage of grief to give people like me a little glimmer of hope.
But what was there for me to hope for?
