Grief and Thanks

This morning my aunt texted me to wish me a happy Thanksgiving. As I texted her back, it hit me that something was missing. And then a dam in my chest that’s been throwing me off the last few days burst, and I found myself crying uncontrollably in my kitchen.

Just a few Thanksgivings ago, I would wake up to a text sent to me by one of my good friends at an ungodly hour of the morning (at least for the west coast) wishing me a happy Thanksgiving. It was a yearly tradition, the first in a series of early morning holiday texts until I could get him back by texting him at midnight his time (over on the east coast) at the new year.

There are no more 5am texts because he’s no longer here.

It’s been two and a half years since he died, and somehow I think it gets harder every year to accept it. Maybe I just become more capable of accepting it each year and so it hurts worse.

The funny thing is that it’s not the first time I’ve had someone in my life die. I’ve lost family members, classmates, the siblings and spouses of friends.

But this is the first death of someone extremely close to me, and as a result it’s the first death I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to truly get over.

It’s not all the time. There was a point I couldn’t go to bed without crying myself to sleep. I would do the things I was supposed to do, but feel totally numb. Now I can go to bed without crying most nights, now I can feel a wide range of emotions and go about my daily activities without risk of breaking down. But every once in awhile it just hits me like a ton of bricks and I’m knocked off my feet. I feel like a little kid lost in the mall. There’s no clear sense of where to go or what to do. All I can really do is just sit on the ground and cry until my parents come find me.

Except, no one is going to come find me and tell me it’s all better now.

But if there’s anything this loss has taught me, it’s that life is incredibly precious. I tend to be rather extreme now about finding a life without compromise because I know that he’s not going to get a chance to have that now. See, he wanted so badly to be a full time author and had several books published that did well, but he never quite felt secure enough to quit his day job. It was a dream we both shared (although he was admittedly much further along on that path), and now I feel like there is no other option but to fight toward that every day for myself.

I do not stand for bullshit nearly as much as I used to, and that includes messages about my worth being tied to how much I hustle and grind or how much I can sacrifice myself for a company that would merely shrug as they handed me a pink slip if that is what served them best (this is most companies, by the way, not just a singular company). I am so much more intentional about reflecting on what’s going to serve me and my community best, and so much less interested in propping up systems that only serve a select few people.

And, most importantly, I value the people in my life so much more and the time I get to share with them. It really guts me when people choose to come together only to spend most of their time on their phones or devices. Of course, all of us get distracted from time to time. But if you are with someone today that you don’t get to see that often, maybe put the phone away. Anything you can find there today will be there tomorrow. The people you care about might not be. Soak in every second you can with them.

Grief is such a powerful, clarifying force. It isn’t something I wish on anyone. Yet at the same time, I think if more of us opened up to truly feeling it, more of us would be so much clearer on what truly matters and the world would be such a different place.

Whether today is a day you celebrate, a day you protest, or just an ordinary day for you, I hope you take the time to reflect on and appreciate everything and everyone you hold dear.