Big Arms Big issues

Grief lives everywhere.

She lives in the obvious places, the ones people think to look. The ones friends text me about, the ones with a clear warning sign reading “pain ahead,” the ones you can anticipate and take the long way around.

She’s nestled into the little painted purple mason jar that sits by my bedside, the one holding ashes. Sometimes, I open it up just to see you. I wonder what parts are in there. Your eyes, your hair, that little patch between your shoulder and neck I liked to kiss, the earlobe that always made you full-body shiver when I touched it, the index finger you would poke me with when I was pretending to be annoyed with you. I hope somehow, miraculously, all the parts of your body I loved made it into that jar just for me. 

She grows in the pine tree planted in your honor, the one whose roots absorb your ashes as I write this. You are a tree now. It seems fitting, but I hate it. It is too prickly to hug, not warm, doesn’t talk back, can’t say I love you. It is a poor substitute for the real thing, a living, breathing body. 

She floats in the emptiness beside me as I drink coffee in the morning. Once, I poured a Chemex for two, but I have since had to do the math to reduce the recipe back to one. I should offer grief a cup; she must be tired, too. 

She crawls into bed with me and positions herself on the four pillows I need to fall asleep. One for my head, the others cushioned around me to mimic how your body felt wrapped around mine.

She is in the co-op number I rattle off at our grocery store. “338295”, I say. “Jason Weegmann,” they ask? I nod along. I guess I should change that, but it makes this all a little more true, so I leave it, telling myself next time, I’ll let them know it’s just me now. Next time hasn’t come.

She sits at the table, now set for one, as she makes her hallow company known. How can something so quiet be so loud? She drags her chair noisily across the wooden floors, announcing her uninvited existence.

She buckles up in the vacant passenger seat beside me. Sometimes, I still stretch out my right hand to grab yours. Where once it would meet five warm fingers, a thumb running itself back and forth over my skin and a resting place upon your thigh, it now finds only air before falling limply onto the seat. I leave it there; I want to pretend it’s holding something. 

She has scheduled herself in my calendar on the weekends that go unfilled, presenting endless hours of nothing. She somehow keeps me busy, losing large chunks of time with nothing to show for it.

She announces herself on the anniversaries, the holidays, the birthdays, the “20th’s”, the changing of the seasons.

She spoke at the funeral, her voice reaching my ears in the “I’m sorry’s” and “I’m here for you’s”. In the brief moment when hundreds of eyes, ears, and hearts were tuned toward mine. Where attention and promises to stick around lived before everyone splintered and scattered, disappearing as quickly as they came.

But grief is also sneaky; she is in the places and spaces nobody, not even me, thinks to look. She crouches low, waiting until my guard is down before springing forth as if to yell “Here I am!” She is a spoiled child, one who refuses to relinquish attention even for a moment, tugging at me until I look down, and ah, there she is, she is back, she never left. I want to shake her off, but she grabs my arm even tighter.

She is in an inconspicuous blue and white striped coffee cup that rests on my dish rack, the one you last used. I don’t want to clean it; if I run my mouth around it, will it be like one last kiss with you?  

She is printed on the five squares of my calendar, reserved for our cabin week, our favorite place and time together. I’ll go alone, but sometimes I wonder if you could still meet me there.

She is stocked in the grocery store aisle, next to the cookies and chips, where I walk past your favorite snack but don’t have a reason to put it in my basket; I don’t want to eat alone. 

She wanders the streets and intersections of our neighborhood, in the traffic we used to text each other about when we were feeling impatient and mad, popping off quick notes of “I hate Minneapolis” and “We need to move.” I still want to, but where can I go?

She is in the invitation from well-meaning friends to come get my toes done or a facial; they want to distract me, help me, but who do I have to look beautiful for anyway? 

She pours out in my shaving cream, expanding in a white dollop in my palm, lathering sadness onto my legs as I shave, reminding me there will be no more date nights, no more getting ready, no more feeling nervous when you answer the door, hoping you’ll compliment me and like what I’ve done with my hair.

She grew in the chickpeas, harvested, canned and purchased before finding their way out of your house and into mine in the confusion of moving you out. They line my shelves, rows of legumes grown in cursed dirt that quietly tell the tale of family dinners that never got cooked. Never has a can of 99 cent beans said so much.

She is in the sentences that start with “I” instead of “we.” The lonely place of transitioning from two to one. It’s a sloppy space; sometimes I remember, sometimes I don’t. My language weaves in and out of the plural and singular, and my sentence structure is all wrong.

She is in the tears that come when someone says Thailand, knowing that while we will still go together, it will be me carrying you there, taking your precious remains as far as I can this side of heaven, back to your favorite place, favorite waters, and releasing you to where we always wanted to end up. This time, I won’t get to bring you home with me.

She is on the restaurant menu I scan, hoping to find something that appeals to me, wondering when eating will turn from survival to joy. She can be spotted in the dish I know you would have loved, and the split second where I forget you’re not here to taste it. She rests in the choice between ordering a rice or noodle dish instead of rice and noodles because you aren’t here to share with me.  

She is in the picture I saw that I want to send to you, and that thing that one friend did that always drove us crazy, and I cannot laugh about it with you anymore. I am the last linguist of this language nobody else shares.

She curls up on my couch, the teal, overpriced, under-comfortable Joybird that you helped me move into my new apartment. I insisted you were wrong and that it was cozy and worth the cost. I look at it now and admit you were right; it is rigid and unforgiving, much like the one nestled upon it.

She is in the screws holding my dresser drawers together, the ones I feebly attempted to tighten by myself until waving the white flag and asking you and your dad to come help. You two made a mess of wood into a piece of furniture in a few short minutes; you turned my house into a home; it’s since turned back into a house.

She is in the curtains that flutter on the rod you put up for me. I still have a picture of that day. You stood on my bed to hang it and asked me where I wanted it positioned. You were wearing the new Adidas sweatshirt I told you not to buy, but I couldn’t be mad because you looked so good in it, your hair rippling down the back.

She is an item on the Instacart website, hyperlinked under the “previously purchased” section. I see your preferred pasta brand and can piece together one of the last meals you cooked simply by tracking your grocery purchases. 

She is in the projects that have been called off since you left; those dreams are dead. She is saved in the files I angrily moved to the trash bin icon at work on my first day back. They contain plans that will never manifest. Our hopes live in the recently deleted section on my computer.

She is in Swiss cheese holes and rinds of bloomy bree, the sharp edges of aged cheddar and mellow slabs of gouda. She gets cut up and placed on wooden charcuterie boards, the kind that carry memories of beach days and fancy dinner dates.

Yes, grief is there in all the places you think to look. The loud ones that announce themselves, the ones that make sense. And yet, she sneaks into all the spaces that don’t. The quiet ones, the unsuspecting ones, the ones you don’t anticipate, can’t protect yourself from.

I cannot evade her.
I cannot shake her.
I cannot escape her.

Grief lives everywhere.