Grief is a funny thing. Defined by Google as “the anguish experienced after significant loss, usually following the death of a beloved person”, and yet it is so much more than that.
One day they are here and the next they’re not. Your entire life, all you have known is them being around, until just like that, they’re gone.
Sometimes you never even knew them, and yet the loss you feel is there. Confusing, but still there.
You carry these feelings with you, being reminded in strange ways of your loss.
I still find myself waking up in the middle of the night, expecting you to be lying on the ground next to my bed, as you did every night. I still find I hesitate when I change the channel and see that Family Feud is on. Anticipating the barks that would follow the sound of the buzzer.
Cigarettes are comforting. The distinct stale smell that reminds me of you. That reminds me of why you aren’t here. Whenever I smoke one I wonder if you would be disappointed. Or proud? Every new life milestone I want to tell you about. Every holiday feels wrong. Not the sad emotional kind that makes you cry everytime. Or at least now it isn’t.
I never knew you. Passed before my birth. Such an integral part in my father’s life and yet I didn’t even get to share one moment with you. Although I felt we did. Claiming I remember spending Thanksgiving with you at the age of four, I’ve always felt a connection. I enjoy the stories I hear of you and grieve that I’m not in any. Don’t have any of my own.
And so I grieve. I grieve for who I’ve known and who I haven’t. The memories I share and the ones I don’t. Oh how I grieve.