There are days it’s easier to visit
the places of our past, than to face
this world alone.

On these days I’m certain to find you,
tethered in memories
now long gone.

And when it feels like you’re lost, I try
to remember, that love needs
no physical place.

It is forever imprinted in our hearts,
transcending the mere limits of
time and space.

You exist in every place you’ve been before,
and any object you’ve
ever touched.

In the stories that people still love to tell,
you exist in the hearts that miss
you so much.

Your energy flows endlessly down
every river, and travels the land
on the winds.

You are the rain, the earth, the light;
you are the hope in the eyes of
our beautiful children.

And even in the place I never imagined,
an impossible place for
you to be;

I found you in the future, holding my hand,
encouraging the grief to
let me free.

Grief has often been likened to catastrophic disasters; tidal wave, landslide, hurricane, asteroid. Uncontrollable forces that lay waste, alter landscapes and propel us into a state of regeneration.

My own grief felt nuclear; the act of James’s death was the neutron that collided into all the other atoms that made up our life, and created that rippling explosion of heat and fire and devastation.

When I opened my eyes, my world resembled a blast site. I stumbled shell shocked over rubble, choking on smoke and searching for anything still intact. Once the air cleared, I saw the immensity of the damage, a visible scar across our memories and a gaping hole in our future. Our photos were spotted with burn holes and singed at the corners. The ordinary, every day objects that had survived, were now relics; his ball cap hanging by the door, his favourite mug … even the bottle of half used hot sauce in the fridge. And I realized how much life had changed, and I wondered how it could ever be possible to live in this black and barren patch of the world.

Thankfully, we are programmed to survive. It’s a visceral knowledge we don’t know we possess, until we’re in need of it. I took one breath. I put one foot forward. I made one decision. It didn’t matter if I did it one millisecond at a time. The act of doing it was enough.

My world shrank. I shut it out in order to barricade and protect the nucleus that was left. It felt so vulnerable to attack. Some of my loved ones were left on the outside of this fortress. After rallying behind me during the fall out, they were now unable to help. They drifted toward the rim of the crater, toward the sunshine and green growth. They existed on the outer edges with love and encouragement, but ultimately were outsiders.

Some visited. I wanted them there and was also acutely aware that this place was uncomfortable for them. They dwelled on blessings and positivity, as though merely mentioning the pain might prolong it. They pointed out everything I had to be grateful for without realizing it was unnecessary. I was aware of them all, I had arguably never been MORE aware of the good still left in my life. I was also painfully aware of the bad. I needed to be. To ignore the bad, was to slip down a path of disconnection from reality, a parting from truth. It was important to recognize both. I valued the conversations that let me explain the way things were. The people who came, sat down beside me and said, “This place looks like shit.” It was oddly freeing. “Yes,” I’d answer. “Complete shit.” Their acknowledgement reinforced something inside me that I was unsure about; that this situation was unfair and wrong. A tiny seed of hope grew from this truth; if this was wrong, maybe it wouldn’t last. Maybe the universe would right itself, and I’d one day feel whole again. Maybe.

Relationships shifted, and the people in my life quietly chose the distance they were comfortable with. In some cases, I chose for them. Supporting someone who is grieving requires emotional space that not everyone is capable of holding. There are no perfect words or inspiring quotes and there is no way to immediately ease pain. You have to exist within their pain without altering or touching it. When you love someone, that is difficult to do.

I am grateful to those who made space for me. They chose the charred earth and radiation-soaked air. They reminisced in heart-breaking memories, pondered spiritual and philosophical questions, endured my sometimes hostile or snappy reactions and sat through awkward stretches of silence. Some days they showed up at the gates of my fortress knowing they might not even be invited in.

With a speed that felt both lightning fast and insufferably slow, the scorched land that originally seemed so inhospitable, turned into a place that felt safe. Suddenly, the outside world, the one I had been fighting to get back to, felt foreign. Life found a rhythm and I was no longer just surviving the days. This was scary. What came after survival? Surviving had come naturally to me. Hardened from years of anxiety, my mind was honed to anticipating emergencies and calculating contingencies. In survival mode, I didn’t have to think. I just needed to REACT; put out the next fire, juggle the highest priority, solve the most immediate problems. I had been fueling myself with a constant dose of stress-induced adrenaline.

Silence settled in, a loud sort of silence that marched around with a bullhorn blasting out a list of all the things I missed most about James and our life together. Even the wind seemed to conspire in this pursuit. When I walked the streets of our old life, it pushed and threatened to topple me. It whistled through the cracks of crumbling bricks. It picked up ash and carried it in swirling tornadoes across the flattened land. The emptiness screamed the way an echo sounds from every possible direction.

What is the secret to pushing forward in grief? What motivates us to take a breath, when there appears to be no good reason? Is it hope? Is it a sense of responsibility to the people who need us? The support from our loved ones? Is it instinctual, or just some misguided notion that we are supposed to? Some of us don’t make it at all. The best we can do is support one another and share our experiences so the journey doesn’t feel quite so lonely. One day you’ll notice a green shoot poking through the ashy soil; the fresh green that signifies new life. You’ll look up to find your loved ones have inched a little closer, because the rim of the crater is shrinking.

The goal will become clearer. You are not meant to crawl out of the blast site. You won’t ever leave your memories behind, no matter how fractured they have become. This is where they live, and this is where you’ll feel closest to them. Nor are you expected to exist inside a hole forever. Like a forest reclaims itself after a fire, your world will heal. The fortress you worked so hard to build will remain untouched beneath the new growth, available whenever you need to retreat and recalibrate. And with a knowledge that is more faith, you will come to realize that life will come looking for you. Your only job is to let it find you.

The world I woke to was one I didn’t recognize. It appeared untouched, but felt ‘wrong’. The way a ball rolling uphill is wrong. A defiance of the very laws of physics. Why were people not standing in the streets and shouting at the sky? Why were cars still moving down the highway in orderly fashion?

In the front hall of our home a policeman calmly informed me that James would never walk through our front door again. His words, although gently spoken, landed like bullets. I held a baby on one hip and watched my toddler bounce around our living room as he showed the second officer all of his toys. A surreal moment. The moment the curtain fell.

A weightless sensation. James had been my anchor for 17 years, and now I was floating aimlessly without him. A black, space-like void opened up ahead; our future, which had been so carefully planned. Obliterated.

What next?

I was desperate to know. What did life for a widow – I could barely choke that word down – look like? What pain was coming? How would grief change me? Change the kids? Was I grieving now?

I had expectations of grief. I waited for it to attack. Wasn’t I supposed to stay in bed all day, forget to shower, burst into tears in public places and ignore all incoming messages? Wasn’t I supposed to be crumbling? I wasn’t. I told myself there was too much to do. The kids needed me to be strong. But that wasn’t completely true.

It took me more than one therapy session and the perspective of time to understand that my grief would build slowly. When death is unexpected, how can it not? Even when expected, death is too much to absorb at once. The naive images I had conjured about grief, embarrassingly gleaned mostly from movies I’d seen, left me greatly unprepared. Grief didn’t pounce, it snuck. It didn’t unravel me in one day, it took it’s time.

SHOCK

James was dead. The truth in that statement paralyzed. The same way sunlight blinds after emerging from someplace dark. It stunned and scorched no matter where I looked and left sunspots that blurred my vision, even after closing my eyes at night.

I couldn’t read a sentence in a book. I forgot simple words, where I was going and what I was doing. Conversations were hard to follow. TV shows made no sense. I often trailed off mid-sentence, unable to finish a thought, capable only of muttering “I don’t know.”

I didn’t cry for myself, I cried for others. Their pain was easier to understand. I knew they had lost a father, a friend, a brother, an uncle, a son. I cried when I thought of James’ losses; the time he wouldn’t get with his children, the business he’d never see thrive, the love he’d never feel, the chances he’d never get. But my own loss didn’t make sense yet. The tears that fell were tears of empathy or overwhelm. They were not yet weighted with pain.

DENIAL

It was easier to believe that the things I had witnessed with my own eyes – the police, the news story, the visitors in my house, his body, the funeral home – were lies, and not the reality. I lost count of the number of nights I laid awake expecting to hear the door open, and his footsteps in the hall. I was living someone else’s life, someone else’s tragedy. James was going to appear and tell us some bizarre and unbelievable set of events. There had been a mistake. Someone had been misinformed. He was ok. There was a reason for it all. A chance. A hope.

Until there wasn’t.

The universe was relentless in its reminders of his death. But there were deep corners in my subconscious that kept hoping and expecting him to be there, even months later. Photos and video transported me right back into our old life; the one where it was normal to argue over toilet seats and dirty dishes. In those inauspicious moments, my memories were what felt real, and this new life was the lie. One day I scrolled too far down my text message history and found his name there, staring back at me. For a fraction of a second, I was convinced that this was proof he was alive.

TRAUMA

His final moments replayed in my mind in cinematic quality. The intrusive scene played at night, in the middle of the day, while I drove, when I spoke to someone, as I read story books to the kids at night. It needed no consent to push through, just a quiet or distracted moment.

Instead of shying away from the details, I searched for them. I sought out the news stories and Facebook posts like a detective on a case.

I watched the reel in my head so many times it began to evolve into something I had experienced, as if it were a memory instead of a construction. This was my way of being there for him in his final moments. I hated that he had died alone and I hated that we were robbed of a goodbye. I hated that the last thing he saw before closing his eyes on this world was a dark and empty sky. The last thing he heard was silence. The last thing he felt was fear. This was my disillusioned way of being there for him. Maybe if I lived it enough times…

DISTRACTION

Some distractions were out of my control, like our children – 2.5 years and 7 months old at the time of his death. Their constant demand for my attention, time, energy and love, was no place for grief to thrive.

But there were other distractions that I manifested in an attempt to push grief further away. I filled the empty space with anything I could find. I became lost in the never-ending loops of social media, I binge-watched tv series at night while the kids slept. Something was always in front of me, pulling my attention away from the emotions that were threatening to surface. I put down my phone to pick up a book to do something for the kids to turn on the music to wash the dishes to close my eyes and finally sleep. It was a chain of things from morning until night.

FEAR

Fear effectively shut down the rest of my emotions for quite a while. I’m still crippled by it, nearly 2 years later. There was no time for a new reality to settle while I was preoccupied with the threats I now saw everywhere. James’ death amplified my already cautious nature and exposed every possible risk to my health, my kids’ health and my loved ones’ health. It didn’t matter if the risk was 0.01%. What had been the risk of James dying that night? Percentage meant nothing. If risk was possible, it would find us.

Logically, I saw the fear for what it truly was; an irrational manifestation. And yet that still wasn’t enought to stop feeling it. It was both real and unreal.

In the first year after his death, I managed to convince myself I had diabetes, cancer, ALS, blood clots, stomach ulcer, a bad heart, sleep apnea, and a myriad of lesser mystery illnesses. I ended up in the hospital emerge late at night too many times to count, until one visit brought me face to face with the doctor who had performed James’ autopsy. He remembered James. He remembered my situation. I cringed inwardly at his diagnosis of ‘stress’ and ‘grief’.

At night I’d lie in bed next to my two beautiful kids, fearful that I wouldn’t wake up the next morning. I’d be hyper aware of each breathe and the heaviness of my chest. Thoughts of the aftermath swirling through my head; the kids finding me dead, unable to call anyone, stuck in the house for hours…or longer. They’d be left without both biological parents. There was a physical pressure, a weight of responsibility that closed in every night in that gaping silence.

I couldn’t sleep. I’d get up to pace the floor until 2, 3, 4am just to switch off. I refused to take anxiety meds because I was scared of any side effects. I didn’t drink or smoke because I needed to stay healthy. Fear ruled every decision.

All of these experiences – shock, denial, trauma, distraction, fear – formed a shield from grief, an intuitive act of protection. I knew I wasn’t strong enough for what was coming, so I subconsciously looked for ways to delay the pain while I armoured up.

Somewhere along the way it became obvious that the harder I worked to shut out the pain, the further James slipped. It was at this point I turned toward grief, instead of away from it. It started with his bench. I visited that quiet place in the woods as often as my busy life let me. I looked for James everywhere and found him in the strangest places; on license plates, book pages, street signs, TV shows, an old sweatshirt, the grocery store, our cat, the news, a rock, a stranger, a funny joke.

I became aware that grief was a state of duality; the fusion of love and anger, hope and despair, joy and sorrow, beginnings and endings, the past and the future, life and death. Yes, inviting grief let in the pain. But with the pain, came love. It wasn’t the same as having James here. It will never be the same. But I wanted whatever piece of him the universe would allow.  

“Grief is simply love in its most wild and painful form.” – Megan Devine

Flake by flake we find ourselves back in the dead of winter. Branches hang encased in frosted crystals, the cold wind sears, and inch by inch the ice continues to spread and imprison. The unwelcome weather carries a pervading sense of déjà vu. This is the way the world looked the last time you kissed me goodnight or were a phone call away. I am both here and there; here, in the nightmare I can’t wake from, and there, the night you walked out the front door for the last time.

Your bench is covered in fresh white snow. I wipe off the memorial plaque and, as always, am surprised to find your name there. Some part of me, deep down, is not expecting it. The same part of me that still startles at the sight of your name in my phone contacts. A brief and futile hope that the last year of my life was nothing but a smokescreen.

Winter has stilled the forest and sent its creatures into hibernation. There is life buried beneath the weight of all that snow, breathing slow and steady. Conserving energy. I, too, have retreated deeper to avoid the chill.

The one-year anniversary looms. They call it a ‘milestone’. It suggests importance. It suggests progress.

I await this day with open animosity, daring it to be more painful than the 364 days that came before it. I’m bitter that it requires special recognition, and that it will forcibly remind everyone else to pay attention too. This day is no different, no harder, no more important, and I owe it no reverence.

Why is one year the magic measure for grief? People talk about making it through the first birthdays, anniversaries and holidays as if there is a reprieve on the other side. In those early, numb days I told myself to hang in there, to ‘exist’ until I stumbled over the finish line. Time heals, right? What a disappointment it turned out to be.

This year has been full. Full of caring for the kids, worrying about the kids, healing the kids, chasing the kids, disciplining the kids, entertaining the kids, holding it in for the kids. Full of lawyers, banks, credit card companies, utility companies, emails, death certificates and endless appointments. Full of dishes, tidying up, laundry, yard work, taking out garbage, and organizing the home. Full of lock-downs, isolation, fear and uncertainty. Full of never-ending condolences. I put one foot in front of the other and started running. When you run like that, the scenery blurs.

For an entire year I managed to keep ahead of it. But as I change pace, the landscape of our new lives, which I have been pointedly ignoring, sharpens. And there is devastation everywhere. Thick, black, choking smoke, like the fallout after a nuclear bomb. And I walk through it. I see it all. The pieces of our future lie torn and bloody; a photo of us in old age which will never be taken, the home we waited years to build which will never be lived in, the places we dreamed of travelling which will never be visited, the events in our kids lives which will never be shared. It’s all been cut down, and the wreckage is a visible reminder that it will never be whole again. One day we ‘were’, and one day we ‘weren’t’.

People tell me how strong I am, but strength has little to do with it. Instinct is a better word. A natural instinct to survive. The way someone might jump from a burning building. There is simply no other option.

There may not be a magical border that, once crossed, offers instant pain relief. But I am coming to understand that my very biology is changing. What once would have broken me, I carry. Time does not heal, but it does strengthen.

Instead of trying to retrieve every single piece of my heart, I’ve learned that only the biggest pieces will survive the journey. The smallest fragments, the slivers, will remain forever embedded in the landscape of the past. It feels right to leave some part of ourselves with you, as you have left part of yourself with us. We are forever connected.

It’s difficult to know what will bring us solace after losing a loved one. Grief is a unique journey. When my sister told me that she was submitting an application for a memorial bench in James’ name, it had only been six days. Six days since receiving the police officers at our front door. Six days of numbness. Six days of emails/calls/check ins/visits. Six days without him.

I thought it was a beautiful sentiment, but I was in no place to process what it would mean to me or my children. I didn’t yet understand how it would help me heal. In those shock-filled first weeks, it’s hard to imagine that anything could ease the pain.

Now, many months into this journey, I am not the same person I was. Time has not healed; but it has helped strengthen me. It has taught me I can endure. But all this fortifying and surviving has disconnected me from the grief. Disconnected me from James. I no longer flinch when I talk about ‘daddy’ to my kids. I no longer cry when I submit paperwork for his estate. I no longer pause before bringing his name into conversation. I’ve become talented at shutting out my feelings, and I can’t help but sense I’m about to get a very real and very painful wake up call.

It’s at this point I get the news that the bench will be installed soon. I start to think about what it might represent; a quiet place to sit and remember. To write and release. I’m eager to see it. Nervous that I won’t feel anything at all. Hopeful that I will.

The bench is installed on Tuesday August 18^th, and I set out Wednesday morning to see it. Alone. There have been precious few moments of alone time since James passed. I only slept 4 hours the night before and there is yogurt smeared on my arm from Madelyn’s breakfast. I spit on my finger and rub it off. Glamourous. But I did put on some mascara and the ring he gave me on our 10^th anniversary. So, there is some ceremony I suppose.

The parking lot is empty and my first thought is relief. I don’t want to share this moment with anyone else. But it doesn’t take long for the fear to set in and sour the experience. Lately the fear is everywhere. Fear of coronavirus, fear of failing the kids, fear of wasting time, fear of socializing, fear of being alone, fear of getting sick, fear of trying. It is never ending. Today’s fear is about hiking this path alone.

I see James’ bench through the trees. I stop and stare at it from across the river, taking in the moment. I don’t sit right away, but photograph it first. The bench sits alongside a creek, next to the trail and a rough wooden bridge. The banks are wide and flat. It’s dimly lit beneath the canopy of trees but the sun dapples the ground and leaves.

I finally stand tentatively beside the bench and read the inscription on the plaque. “James Tahir. Loving Husband, Father, Son, Brother. Forever Loved. Always Remembered.” It hurts to read his name. It shouldn’t be on a memorial plaque; it should be on a sports award or my phone screen as an incoming caller. It should be on his business cards or one of our house bills or a text message with a funny meme attached. Not on a memorial plaque.

More photos. I’m embarrassed to think of what he’d say about all this documenting if he were here. A silly thought. If he was here, the bench would not be. I haven’t sat down yet. Subconscious reverence or just more fear? I think I might be scared to sit. Scared that my expectations for this moment will drown out the reality. But finding nothing further to do, I sit down against the new wood and look out at the scenery before me.

The creek bubbles softly. Tall cedars grow on the edges of the low banks, green ferns skirting their base. I hear the highway from a distance. Life is carrying on. People rush to work or appointments while I sit here in reverie of the past; wishing time had stopped at 4:13am on February 16^th, 2020.

I want to cry, but my defenses are still up. I’ll have to knock them down slowly. The first memory that surfaces is an easy one because it’s connected to this place. We were walking these trails. We didn’t get out together often, but when we did, we found ourselves resetting and connecting. The spark of adventure melted away the unresolved arguments and our conversations were filled with nostalgia and hope. We were either in deep reminiscence or dreaming of our future.

I picture his smile. I picture him here on this bench with me; one arm around my neck and his back slouched. His long legs would be stretched out in front of us. He never sat curled or tucked, always took up as much space as possible. We needed more of these moments. The last few years blew by and we wasted it all preparing and sacrificing. Laying down the foundation so we could enjoy ourselves…later. Later isn’t promised. We took it for granted.

Where did he go? I never thought much about a person’s soul after death, but now I think about it a lot.  I’ve settled on my beliefs and while they may not be as fuzzy as pearly gates and angel wings, they do bring me comfort. I imagine his soul departed his body at death. But not to float up and reside in the sky to watch over us. I resisted this at first; in real life he was our protector, he loved and lived for it. It was hard to reconcile a world without the safety he provided and it was crushing that something so important to him could be taken away. But after some hard conversations with myself I have made peace with the idea and stayed true to my beliefs. The part that was James…his beliefs/fears/humor/memories…is no longer here. It dispersed as energy into the atmosphere. I like to imagine the goodness inside him means that the energy that was released back into this world is also good. That his departure from this earth means an act of kindness somewhere else.

Thinking about the energy in our universe, I notice it here and now. It rejuvenates me to simply witness it. The tinkling and bubbling of water as it flows over stones and debris. The dancing of light and shadow through the leaves. The calls of birds, whispers of insect wings, scurrying of chipmunks. Dust motes and spider webs reflecting the sunbeams. The deep greens of ferns and foliage and the rich browns of earth and bark.

I’ve been crying. Good. I needed to release it. Soon after, a man comes down the path walking his dog. I check the time and think of getting back to the kids. And just like that, time has started moving again. Its fast pace is hard for me to keep up with these days. But I enjoyed this moment of stillness with James. And I am grateful for the bench, a place to anchor his energy. A place to remember.