Robyn Frey

· 29 Mar 2020

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A Story on Grief (extended)

I woke up to the image of your smile, head laying on the pillow next to mine, teeth unbrushed and hair spilling in curls across the bed. I reached out to pick a piece of hair out your eyes, stroking the cold mattress.
My sleep-blurred brain reminded me that you weren’t there, and my hand stopped dead.
Your pillow doesn’t even remember the shape of your head. There’s an echo of a scent, a faint memory clinging to unwashed cotton: apple shampoo, and warm curls, and laughter on a Sunday morning. I don’t want to remember, I can’t let myself forget, so I cling to each snapshot like holding onto red-hot pokers. Your smile burns my hands and your eyes weld my skin into scars that are never going to heal. My fingers ache from the struggle of holding on.
It was one of those days where you’re better off not leaving your bed, because the walls are caving in and your only protection from the empty ocean below is using your empty mattress as a raft. King size is too big for one broken person. I forced one leg over the side, then two, and sat for a moment. I couldn’t bring myself to stand just yet. I needed a minute. A minute turned into ten, blankly staring at a beige wall and a smashed vase, before I dragged myself from the crushing safety of our- of my – bed.
I faintly remembered you making me promise to eat once you’d gone. I made a million promises that day, sitting by your bedside with tears clogging my brain, refusing to fall, and a stony grip on a hand that was cooling by the second. I promised you’d make it. I promised things would be OK. We made a million promises, the two of us. We promised to grow old together, somewhere in the countryside, on a tiny porch in matching rocking chairs. We promised that trip to Portugal, as a second honeymoon, snorkelling and sunbathing and spending most of the trip in the hotel room. We promised to fight a million time, we promised to make up just as many, and we promised that always, no matter what, we’d be there for each other.
They had to drag me away from you in the end.
I watched as you died, as the drugs clouded your system and the cancer finally clawed at its prize. I never tore my eyes from your face, puffy from the chemo and blotchy from the crying that you had to do for the both of us. My tears refused to fall. Then they took you away, holding me back, kicking and screaming, still not crying. You’d always been the strong one. Now it was my turn.
So much for strength.
I picked at the plain Weetabix in my bowl, toying with the brown mush until I poured it down the sink. It was the middle of the night; I could be forgiven for breaking my promise to eat breakfast.
Could I be forgiven for breaking the rest? Could you?
As I watched soggy cereal dregs at the rim of the drain, something snapped inside me and, for the first time since your diagnosis, I wept. The tears had been flooding my system, bursting to get out, but they were the only things keeping me upright and, with them gone, I sunk to the ground, howling, cheeks wet and heart heavy with an ache that I wasn’t sure any amount of crying could ever heal. I ransacked the cupboards, threw a plate at the wall. The tap kept running, my eyes kept watering, and with each ounce of sadness scrambling to get out, numbness took its place. The smash of the ceramics at least gave me a jolt of something, something other than tears and loneliness and the static that was beginning to cloud my brain. I didn’t want to forgive you for breaking your promises. I wanted to be angry, at you, at the doctors, at cancer, because at least anger meant I couldn’t forget. A sickening sense of apathy hit me. I put down my hands in surrender, sitting on my kitchen tiles, surrounded by broken crockery.
That’s when I heard it. Your laugh.
Something inside of me stirred at the noise, something rusty and almost forgotten. If I didn’t know better, if I didn’t know that I’d lost the capacity wen you’d lost the battle to cancer, I might’ve even said it was love. It was warmth not unlike the burning pokers of memories, but it kept the icy fingers of apathy at bay, for now.
I approached the noise, edging through my house like I was the ghost. Pushed open the door, softly, so that the hallway light cast a yellow triangle over the tiny creature making the sound. I took a step in. Your laughter spilled from our daughter’s mouth. It wrapped around my wounds, not healing, but helping, and it was all I could do not to break down at the foot of the crib.
Her eyes are the same shade of green as yours. She’s unfortunate enough to have inherited my nose, but her smile is unmistakably yours, tilted to the left and with a dimple in her right cheek. Our daughter might never have gotten to meet you, but all she’ll need to do is look in the mirror, and you’ll be there.
You’d left me lonely, not alone. I clung to the tiny starfish hand like a lifeline, eyes never leaving her face, puffy from baby fat and blotchy from a small fit of tears. I had to drag myself away in the end, back to the cool embrace of my own empty bed. The warmth in my chest flickered just enough to keep me alive.
I fell asleep in the middle of the bed. The vase was still broken, the plates were still smashed. But I didn’t dream of you, that night.

#grief