How Grief Finds Me

On sunny days I go out walking

I end up on a tree-lined street

I look up at the gaps of sunlight

I miss you more than anything.

-Mitski, Francis Forever

Woke up from a dream in which I heard my grandfather speak. It was but a word, which I don’t remember, but I know it will send me spiralling nonetheless. This is how grief finds me: always with my back turned, unaware, sleeping, doing duties of everyday living; washing dishes, watering plants, folding the damn laundry. I could be slicing strawberries and something could pierce me, make me put my knife down and stare at the bottom of the sink. I run from this, the muddied stomach feeling, slowing my pace when I think I’ve run far enough, when new days start feeling like a gift again. I’m always fooled into thinking that I’ve contained these memories, forced them outside myself by placing pictures, his old phone, trinkets he gave me, everything and anything tied to him and me, in a box and stuffing it beneath my bed. But they’re inside me, all these memories, good and bad: him teaching me chess, long summer days spent at his country house, our trips to the farmer’s market, where he spent at least half an hour at the butcher’s picking out the best cut for me. Also, the last day his phone number was truly only his. That day I called him and was sent to voicemail. I did not leave a message. I thought we’d speak later.

All these memories are closer to me than I ever thought they could be. They’re all hiding just beneath my eyelids, actually. If I close my eyes long enough, they appear to me brighter than ever.

I don’t sleep at night during these episodes. I take long, long walks around the neighbourhood, past the tree-lined street, the big supermarket, all the way down to the park where children play, which looks so lonely and deserted during the night. There is a bench I always sit on, next to a red maple tree that houses dozens of boxelder bugs. During the day, they cluster and sunbathe, and if you squint, they almost look like the tree’s heart. At night, they hide under the bark. There I sit and I wait. I sit and wait until the syrupy warmth of summer or the chill of winter seeps into me deep enough to make me want to go home.

If I could just sleep with my eyes open, I might sleep then, I always think as I take the longer way home. When I appear, my mother puts a hand on my forehead and lays me down in my bed, the same way she did when I was small and suffering from a fever, slowly and gently, as if I may break. It’ll pass, she says.

I know. But it will come again.