Once a month, our family friend Glen would send an email to my mom, sister, and me that contained thoughts, memories, and recollections about my dad. He recalled both specific conversations and general aspects of his character. He asked questions — what would Martin think of this, how would Martin have handled that? He explored their decades-long friendship in the physical world and described the ways the friendship continues after my dad’s death. He talked about the lessons he learned from my dad as well as the things left unanswered. He included photos, stories, questions and quiet, gentle reflections.
I have never responded directly to any of these emails, though I was sure to let Glen know how much they meant to me. I don’t believe that receiving a response back was ever the point of sending them to me. Of all the things all the people said after my dad died, these emails were what touched me the most. These emails were what I read when I needed to truly spend a moment with my dad, which is such a hard thing to do now that he’s gone. These emails made me think and they made me cry and they were sometimes hard to take in but they were so incredibly important to me, so meaningful, and I will never forget them.
Grief is so damn lonely and the thing that makes it ten thousand times lonelier is that everyone in your life just stops talking about your person. They’re afraid to make you upset or they’re afraid to make themselves upset or — I don’t even know. I don’t know why people think the best thing to do is to not talk about him at all. I’ve been in situations where I met up with dear, longtime friends of his and was so excited to get the chance to hear stories and memories and bring him back to life over a half-hour long lunch, only to have these friends change the subject every time I brought up his name. Only to sit through a meal or a visit and hear them ask about my life as if I just have a regular ol’ life and my dad is not dead and these are the trips we have planned and these are the milestones my daughter has reached and the past is the past and did he ever even exist?
Sometimes reading these emails from Glen was the only time I felt less lonely in my grief, the only time I had proof that this loss is not just hard on my mom and my sister and me but to other people who knew and loved him. The world keeps revolving after your favorite person dies and it hurts beyond belief to see everyone living their lives, seemingly unaffected. You’ll have friends who post pictures on social media the day after his death: beaming smiles, fun times, life is #blessed. Not destroyed or stilled like you are, but fine and happy and moving right along. And in the weeks and months that pass, the divide between your insurmountable grief and their #blessed lives with grow more and more. It will get to the point where nobody talks about your dead person at all and it is simply a thing that you carry silently every day.
But then you receive an email from Glen and for that one moment, you’re not alone in your grief anymore. And everyone isn’t just out there doing cartwheels in the sunshine while you process your pain. Some people are actually thinking about him, and about you, and will take the time to let you know.
In those desperately lonely moments of grief, this is everything.
In grief and with love,
KrissyMick
Photo Credits, Top To Bottom: Photo Booth, Carolyn Forbes, Kristen Forbes, Glen Ardt, Kristen Forbes