"It's so real, and so unreal," she says, holding me. The hugs are the best comfort anyone can offer. Ninety percent of what people have said to me these first two months has not been helpful, despite their best intentions. Including and especially people who have said, "I know how you feel; I lost my (son, daughter, mother, father, dog...."). This is not helpful to me. It just makes me more sad. As if that were possible.
Not too many years ago, this friend, B., lost her son while he was enjoying life in the great outdoors, similar to how I lost my daughter. Whenever she wanted to talk about him, I held space for her grief-searching from time to time after the accident. Now, unbelievably, it is my turn for her to help me.
My tears flow as she holds me, standing on the wide, stone steps leading up to her house.
When she says it--it's so real and so unreal--I feel the overwhelming truth of it like a thunderstorm. On one level, this simply cannot be true. Any day now I will wake up and my phone will ring and it will be Corey, laughing, and I will realize this was all a bad dream. Because it cannot possibly be real.
But on another level, it must be real because I have built an altar to Corey in my house, with photographs of her gorgeous, bright smile shining out across the room. I suppose she is not here in the flesh and blood because I must have had a reason for making this, covered with her photographs and her movie-star sunglasses and her jewelry and a rock taken from the place that I now call Ascension Hill. So unreal, and so real.
Not too many years ago, this friend, B., lost her son while he was enjoying life in the great outdoors, similar to how I lost my daughter. Whenever she wanted to talk about him, I held space for her grief-searching from time to time after the accident. Now, unbelievably, it is my turn for her to help me.
My tears flow as she holds me, standing on the wide, stone steps leading up to her house.
When she says it--it's so real and so unreal--I feel the overwhelming truth of it like a thunderstorm. On one level, this simply cannot be true. Any day now I will wake up and my phone will ring and it will be Corey, laughing, and I will realize this was all a bad dream. Because it cannot possibly be real.
But on another level, it must be real because I have built an altar to Corey in my house, with photographs of her gorgeous, bright smile shining out across the room. I suppose she is not here in the flesh and blood because I must have had a reason for making this, covered with her photographs and her movie-star sunglasses and her jewelry and a rock taken from the place that I now call Ascension Hill. So unreal, and so real.
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