How Do You Process the Grief?
Mom’s life has entered the conversation. I witness her body change. Her bones come close to the skin, her voice ceases, her memories leave. How to get through the days, remembering my own life is in motion?
May 6, 2025 my mom passed on.
There was a season in my life—brief and glowing—when a friend and I found warmth in each other. It didn’t demand much of anything, just presence. We’d spend our nights driving through the city in his 911 or curled up in bed after Greek takeout on the floor. One night we found ourselves talking about the way some sorrow seems to move in and live with you for a while. We untangled so he could retrieve a book of poetry and offer me Rumi’s The Guest House.
As he read to me in the dark, I remember lying there, listening, and how the sadness didn’t feel quite so consuming anymore. How being seen was its own kind of healing. Those words, written hundreds of years ago, were meeting me exactly where I was. Now they meet me again.
A composite of his portrait of me and my portrait of his bed