The Moment I Understood The Heaviness of Loss
The older I get the quicker I learn that I know nothing about others
It must've been fall. Life was pitter pattering through the air, swaying side to side before grazing onto the now cold cement , marking the end of a beautiful season. Not that I can usually differentiate my mondays from my saturdays, but this particular friday after the change of seasons , will always be a date that sticks out like a sore thumb. Earning minimum wage at the time, I worked for an edible arrangements in my city. I’d go on to work part time for two years, filling up my dragging hours with texting friends, watching sitcoms and questioning my life's purpose; too cynical for a sixteen year old I know. Apart from cleaning duty I would answer the phone and assist the customers that called, strategically picking up the phone on the third ring, hoping that they would lose interest by the second one.
As the phone rang a third time, I was faced with no luck. Picking up the call with the enthusiastic voice I was paid to echo, my scripted introductory salutation got cut off short. The thirty something year old client, started with her even, yet rapid tone, mumbling and fumbling about her horrible experience in regards to receiving a disappointing arrangement from our store. As I tried to empathise and casually reinforce her exagerations with the subtle mhmm and I’m so sorry that you had to go through this. I could sense my eyes rolling deeper into my sockets, which meant that I was slipping all too quickly into oblivion.
Or in this case, utter annoyance.
Losing control of my thoughts, I could sense the predisposed, categorical and labelling stereotypes sore through my mind. My subconscious certainly took the reigns.
Silence…
In my momentary lapse, where I’d be skimming through my book of insults, my thoughts got interrupted. She was no longer blabbing. As I sat there, with the phone in hand, staring into the abiss, I couldn’t help but wonder why in this moment of human interaction I felt utterly alone. I could suddenly hear this faint ringin in my ear, similar to the song sung by cicadas in the warm summertime. I lost understanding of this pause in time, that felt so crucial and necessary to my caller. No words of mine would be able to describe the ever-present lingering of pain,grief and yearning.
“ Je viens d’enterrer mon fils”
“ I just buried my son”
And once more, entering the vast vacuum of silence, one so loud almost deafening, I would experience hearing a shattering heart. This would be the first time she would outright admit to herself and to a stranger the pain she was enduring. In this moment she would begin her journey of self-actualization by questioning her purpose in this world as a bereaved parent. Having been through a similar journey myself, I could somewhat comprehend the turmoil she was experiencing. And even though in this moment I felt more than distant to my caller, our souls were unwittingly intertwined; both at different extremities of grief, her only having begun her second stage and I having reached my final one, where i’d stay anchored for the rest of my life.
I was ten when my mom got diagnosed with small cell lung cancer and eleven when she passed away. Having only reached the double digit milestone, I couldnt quite grasp the thought of no longer having her around. It was beyond my own understanding that my best friend, confidante and genetic maker would no longer soothe my rolling tears or instigate my then infectious laugh. So it goes by saying that watching the person that carried grace, pride and confidence dissintegrate before my eyes, left me with scars beyond reperation. My teen years were a drag. Jumping from house to house, school to school and parent to guardian. For a couple of those years I lost sight of the person I was and the one I wanted to be. To the naked eye I was an outstanding teenager, wise beyond my years but to myself I was a hollow shell, yearning love, affection and consistency. Through bits and pieces of my early adulthood I found stability in my friendships and my extended family. Grasping on to anyone that would allow me in, yet never really allowing myself to accept a person because all that I loved either willingly or unwillingly walked out of my life. It took many years of therapy to break free of the ponderous shackles that had arched my back and drooped my chin. Looking back my load became lighter, as I noticed a trail of baggage be left in my past. It took three years of inconsistent happiness, nine years of grief and one shakily voice of a broken mother to understand the agony and pain that I had absorbed over the years. I only understood the magnitude of pain that I was being subject to, once I heard the same cries of desperation and longing from another woman. And as the line cut blarring a similar vibration to a flat line, I understood the heavyness of loss. It must’ve been fall. Life was pitter-pattering through the air, making a slow descent before grazing onto the now cold cement, marking the end of a beautiful season.