Here it is, right on time, two weeks after mom’s: Happy heavenly birthday Steph.
It has been an emotionally exhausting couple of weeks, so please forgive my lack of poetics for the occasion. The proverbial tank, as they say, is empty. Don’t let the recent social media jokes fool you—I am operating on mental and spiritual fumes. My gratitude goes out to everyone keeping me operational of late. (Just ignore all of those warning lights on the main panel. They’ll go away eventually. After all, emotional suppression is the American way! USA! USA!)
Eh...fuck it.
There’s a hollowness in the pit of my stomach that gets hollower sometimes, and today is such an occasion. It’s like stepping off that last step, only to discover the floor is several feet from where you expect it to be.
If you’re lucky, you’ll merely stumble, and you can play it off all cool like you meant to do it.
Then...there’s the other times. The full-on, flat on your back, glasses in the mud, breath-knocked-out-of-you whoopsie daisy.
It takes several minutes before you can breathe again and everything hurts like hell.
You know a life was well and truly lived when it is missed so many years later. I know many of you feel that loss, too. (If I manage to live up to even a fraction of that love, I know I’ll have lived an amazing life.)
But I selfishly wish hers wasn’t missed at all. I’d rather she be a text or call away. Better yet, an afternoon visit. I can’t help but feel like this is the “dark” version of reality. The other world is a brighter place. A joyful land. Song and merriment flow forth like a—
Sorry. We live here instead. That little jolt is grief’s raw essence. It is a reminder of the world you can’t have. Songs here carry weight; they lament pain and loss, but also celebrate triumph and hope and love. (Music must be handled carefully, as it is one of the most potent forms of magic.)
Life. Has. Meaning. That’s it; that’s the lesson. It goes above political infighting or corporate greed or petty differences. We should embrace every living moment—and each other—every chance we get, without exception.
Because your next breath? It isn’t guaranteed.
I never imagined life without a sister. I took that for granted, even while she was fighting cancer. I assumed it would turn out to be a notable-yet-triumphant chapter in the ’ole Graves Family Autobiography.
Aren’t the heroes supposed to win? Oh, if only that were so.
Fortunately, we were raised with an abundance of love. The regrets are few, and I know she forgives me. Her presence is always around even when it’s not her birthday.
It isn’t the same, of course. But love is such an amazing power that it can’t be dimmed by something as trivial as mortality.
That, friends, is reason enough to celebrate.
