If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were still around. In some ways, it’s as if you never left. Your photos still hang in the same spaces as before, even better, more of them now decorate our walls. We still talk about you– you’re still so alive in our hearts.
I swear if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were still here– alive.
If I didn’t know better, and my heart wasn’t shattered in the irreparable way grief breaks it, I’d think you were still here. I’m not sure I’ve ever comprehended your death. For a while, I ran from that truth. Eventually, I sat with it. Now, each day I carry that reality with me, though sometimes still naive to the fact that your absence is forever, that my life will not hold additional memories with you in them.
If I didn’t know better, and your name wasn’t carved in stone to remind me, it’d be easy to think you were still here in the traditional way. From heaven, you’ve managed to show up for me, for us, with delicate reminders of the unwavering love you have for us– still. When I’m lucky I find you in the clouds, or in the cardinal that visits at just the right time. Though, if I were truly lucky, you’d still be here.
If I didn’t know better, and we didn’t have memory books instead of new memories, we’d all still think you were here. You have grandchildren you never met that say your name daily. They ask about you and consistently mention how they miss you– a woman they’ve never met, one that never got to hold their tiny bodies or kiss their chunky cheeks. For them, it’s as if they don’t know better, and you’re still here– alive.
I swear sometimes I wish I didn’t know better. I wish I could wake up and this would all be some horrible mistake— some awful kind of nightmare that wasn’t actually meant for us, or you. I wish cancer didn’t exist and that the ‘good ones’ didn’t die young. I wish the good ones, the great ones, stayed— because if they did, you’d be here.
I wish I was unmarked by grief and untouched by profound loss. I wish I wasn’t the kind of woman the world labeled as motherless, nor the kind of woman with a mother in eternity instead of just a phone call away.
I wish I didn’t know the sting and scar of a forever absence. I wish I didn’t know what it felt like to deliver a eulogy or pick out a casket for the woman who created me– you. I wish I could go back and savor each minute, each second.
I wish I didn’t know better. I wish I didn’t wake up each day with this debilitating and transformative truth, but I do.
So for now, I’ll hold on to the days where it feels like I don’t know better– the days where you feel like you’re right beside me, touching my shoulder in a nudge to keep moving. The days where I swear I hear your whisper or see you in a crowded room. The days where I feel you in the gentle breeze or laugh in remembrance of a time we had together. The days where we’re together– even if only in a memory.
And maybe that’s the miracle of love—it’s so powerful, it defies time, transcends loss, and keeps you eternally present, even when you’re not. Because even when I know better, in my heart, I still feel you. And maybe, just maybe, that means you never really left.
