I’m sitting on the tram. I see an older woman moving slowly. I think, “I’ll keep an eye on her to make sure she has the time she needs to get off at her stop.” I hope that one day, a stranger will also look out for my mom at the grocery store, or in the parking lot, or at church.
Then I remember, my mother will never be this old. My mother is frozen at 68. My mother will never waddle, grey-haired, through King Soopers, causing other grocery carts to back up because she’s simply an old woman, moving slowly.
I have all of these thoughts in an instant, and a bomb explodes.
I twist my head to the window, tears wetting the top of my mask, glasses steaming. I grimace beneath the fabric and do my best to ride out the ache that burns through my chest, a combination of anger and regret and sorrow.
It’s over as quickly as it started.
I wipe my glasses, adjust my mask, and take a deep breath. I have just pushed through a grief bomb.
Anything can pull the pin out: a passing glance at her photo on my desk, a line from a song, a coat that looks like hers. It starts in gratitude, as I think to myself how much I love Mommy and I really should call her tonight.
Then, like a tripped wire, all the metal barricades around my gut go up, throwing my body into lockdown procedure as I freeze, helpless, watching the grenade of reality sail through the air and waiting for its inevitable drop.
She’s dead.
It hits, and my chest explodes. My eyes fill with tears, and a low groan rises in my throat. I want to sit down, or fall into a bush, or lean against the wall and curl into a ball. I want to yell and scream and hit something. I want to inflict this pain outwards, and show someone, anyone, what this singular despair is like, convinced it is impossible that anyone has ever survived it. I want to hide away and be completely seen, at the same time. The universe has been disrupted, an incurable error, a rip in the earth’s gown that cannot be fixed, and I want everyone to know.
She was so kind. She was so funny. She gave everyone of my high school friends a kiss on the head when we were watching TV, before she went to bed. She lived in her bathrobe. She never did the dishes. She loved political thrillers. She ate a bowl of strawberries every morning. She helped me study for every single test I had to take in elementary school. She made chicken every night. She loved the beach. She loved to snuggle. She loved to dance. She loved me.
I want them to feel her love, all of it, and feel the loss of it. I want the entire world to gasp at the vulgar, obscene gap she has left behind. I want them to know. I want it to mean something. I want her death to be special. I want everyone’s life irrevocably halted and changed, just like mine.
Then it’s over. My body lowers its guns. My breathing relaxes and my heart rate comes down. I still want to curl into a ball and hide. I want chocolate. And a book. And a glass of wine. I want to remember and forget.
All of this, in an instant. A grief bomb is a universe of emotion at the drop of a hat. It happens at my desk. It happens in the grocery story. It happens during a run. The best is when it happens in the shower, because I can seethe and weep freely. I am always left totally exhausted.
Months into this war, bombs no longer drop multiple times a day. Sometimes I can even shake them for a few days in a row.
But then, the sirens go off. No prep. No warning. A pin in a reality grenade is removed, and all I can do is freeze and beg my body to duck and cover.
She’s dead.
This is the unseen work. This is the universal experience. This is the piece of grief that changes in frequency, but not acuity.
I miss her with my whole body.