By Beth L. Voigt
Grief seeps. Like the splash of chai tea I stained our white tablecloth with, it seeps into the fabric of my soul. While the anguish of loss pummels my chest, almost bruising me, grief seeps. It seeps into every pore, clings to every cell, flows through my bloodstream. With its dull and constant ache, grief is a relentless reminder of the pain I’m in. I walk through the days in a fog, not thinking clearly, occasionally stumbling and always hurting.
Sometimes grief is predictable. When I spilled the tea, I expected the stain from the initial splotch to the widening blot even though I treated the tablecloth.
Despite my composure during my 92-year-old grandpa’s wake and funeral, I erupted in tears once we returned home to gather with family and friends. While others lined up around the dining room table buffet, I rocked in his favorite black rocking chair, alone in the dark, in another room. Tears flowed and I convulsed, choking and gagging too much for the tissue I had at hand. Salty tears stained my suede jacket, but I paid little heed. I just rocked and sobbed.
He died the year our first daughter was born. And a few years later, my grandma died the year our second daughter was born. I grieved not only the loss of my kind and gentle grandfather, and my determined and hard-working grandma, but the loss of time I would never have with them again on this Earth, and time our daughters would never get to enjoy with them, laugh with them and play with them.
At other times, grief wells up at odd moments like the time I pulled the tablecloth from the buffet after not using it for months and spread it on the dining room table. There was the stain, so prominent, but temporarily forgotten.
Each month, when I received a copy of the Baseball Hall of Fame magazine in the mail, I recalled my uncle who wasted away from cancer but never let his love of baseball diminish. At Thanksgiving, I reflected with sadness when I watched my mom peeling potatoes with hands that looked so much like her mother’s, realizing how much I miss my grandmother – my mom’s mother – who died in a matter of days after a fall. Or when I came across a photo of my daughter teaching her great uncle how to set up his new smart phone only weeks before he died at the Veteran’s Hospital, I was saddened. And then I cried quietly, letting tears roll down my cheeks.
And sometimes grief surprises me.
After my brother-in-law’s death, my grief for him escaped in a litany of words. I felt the need to share him with friends, colleagues, the checkout clerk at the grocery store, the manager at the bicycle repair shop. I wanted everyone to know he loved wearing red bandanas, riding his motorcycle, fixing machines at his job and cuddling babies, especially cuddling babies. I felt the need to stay closely connected to my sister, who is much stronger than I am, despite the greater pain she was in at losing her husband so unexpectedly. For a while, I wrote notes and texted her almost daily. I asked, when can we get together so we can talk and talk and talk? She, on the other hand, focused on her three young adult children, ensuring their happiness, sharing fond stories of her husband and grieving more privately.
Quietly, grief aches. At the loss of an uncle, then an aunt, then another aunt and another uncle, eventually seven of my mom’s eight siblings, I ached for all the loss she has faced losing those she loved, and all the loss I have felt with their deaths. The pain with each is palpable, and while my grieving is unique to each person I’ve lost, it is also cumulative. Loss after loss after loss of so many I have loved has taken its toll. The tea stain is permanent.
Eventually, grief slowly recedes. Like the tea stain, it is still visible but less noticeable because I have seen it so often over time. It has become part of the tablecloth. With each loss, I’ve grieved, and that grief has become part of me.
Silently, grief loosens its grip. Like the tea stain, it has faded. It never leaves me but eventually allows room for fond memories. And only then, can my muscles relax, can my lips turn upward in a smile, can my laughter come more easily.
Only then can I slip on my grandfather’s worn gold wristwatch that works nearly two decades after his death. I recall his gentle cadence, his rough hands digging in our backyard garden, his handwritten note on a paper napkin, “Beth is a good girl” from my childhood.
Only then can I smile at the thought of my grandma telling me not to eat raw cookie dough and to sit up straight at the table.
Only then can I reminisce, as I look forward to the beginning of the baseball season, about the promise I made to my uncle to one day go to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, because he always wanted to but never did.
Only then can I think fondly of my grandmother and her hands—those hands that crocheted lace, peeled pounds of potatoes, and sewed beautiful wedding gowns and a pink velvet bunny for me, her granddaughter.
Only then can I appreciate all the children in hospitals who my uncle, a clown for years, made laugh and all the children at our family reunions smile with his balloon animals.
Only then can I smile at a motorcyclist racing down the road and look forward with my sister as she builds her new life while remembering her old one.
Only then, can I begin to heal and accept that like the tea stain is part of the tablecloth, grief is part of me but so is joy.