Grief's Anatomy

I can't find the words now that I am writing, the words that I feel I have been bottling up inside me. I'm not sure where to start. Perhaps with the first thought that comes t mind.

It's almost noon now and I am still on the bed, struggling to shake off this sluggishness. My lungs burn every time I breathe. I can't seem to recover from this cough that stuck with me for the past three weeks. I wonder where my will to fight has gone. I try to summon energy to my hands, drawing a fist, only to form a clumsy one. I have been scrolling down my social media feed for the past two hours, liking none, not commenting on any post, existing, lurking there, a mere spectator. I watch them go on with their lives while here I am paralyzed. What do I do now? Where do I begin picking all the pieces?

This morning when I woke up, I felt it immediately. Grief. I felt in my weary bones, tired of carrying this heartache. I felt it in my stinging eyes, still sore from last night's crying fit.

One thing about loss that I understand now is that with the object that we lost, goes with it are all our dreams and aspirations that we wrapped around it. I have built a lifetime worth of a plan. I have painted in my mind what it will be for me for the next decades to come if I am lucky to grow into a shriveled little lady with a mass of white hair. Those dreams are the reason I have risked so much and worked so hard these past three years. I thought everything was on track.

My room smells moldy now, but I refuse to draw the shade. My bones ache, my heart aches, my throat tightens with every sweet memory recalled. My mind is desperately flinging its arms into the void, trying to grasp anything to justify, to answer why. Why does this have to happen?

I think about all the things I want to say. But whenever I put them into words, I am reminded that no words can make those that has departed return. I can't write a poem to put back a shattered home. I can't write a love letter to rekindle affection. Words have become weak, they fall flaccid on the floor.

John Green said pain demands to be felt. No it does not merely demands. It wraps it four legs around us, whispering doubt and insecurity to our ears, choking us with hot tears. It forces itself upon us.