On Living and Loss
Fri, Jun. 22nd, 2012 08:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scarlettinaI went to the dentist on Wednesday, a check up in the wake of some pretty significant dental work I've had done over the last couple of months. When I entered the office, the dentist was behind the desk with the receptionist. She turned toward me when I came in and said hello, complimented me on my haircut, and asked me how I was. I've had a tough week and said something noncommittal, that I've had better weeks.
She told me she could understand, that her 12-week-old niece was about to undergo open-heart surgery. And then she began to get into the details of what they were going to do because she found it fascinating, and I felt my entire body sort of heave up. About the time she got to, ". . . and then they put this golden mesh around the sack of the heart . . ." I realized I couldn't breathe very well and told her I couldn't keep talking about it and had to sit down. My eyes filled up, and it took everything I had not to start bawling right there, and several minutes before I was able to gather myself up for the actual business of my appointment.
The feeling wasn't like being hit by a wall; it was more like being overcome by a wave. Even as the dentist started talking about her niece's surgery, there was some part of me thinking, "You can do this; you can talk about this; it's OK," until it really wasn't.
It's amazing how easy it is, in the rush and bustle of life, to forget that grief doesn't end when the official mourning is concluded. I've missed![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
markbourne these last four months, missed his humor, his insight, and his company. There have been particular instances--dinner with the Bears recently, SIFF, JayCon, this or that reading--when I found myself thinking "Mark should be here," angry at the untimeliness and injustice of his death, selfishly angry that I won't get to spend my 50th birthday with him. It's always little things, like wondering what he'd say about Prometheus or any of the films he might have seen at SIFF this year or what books he'd be reading or what he'd think about this person or that person to whom I wanted to introduce him or, well, you get the idea.
Our bodies remember grief, experience it, even when we think that we're coping with the business of life every day. I wouldn't trade away a single minute of my friendship with Mark, not one. This grief is only one legacy of that friendship; I won't allow it to overwhelm the rest, a wealth of time and affection that I'm privileged to have shared with my friend. But I do miss him.
She told me she could understand, that her 12-week-old niece was about to undergo open-heart surgery. And then she began to get into the details of what they were going to do because she found it fascinating, and I felt my entire body sort of heave up. About the time she got to, ". . . and then they put this golden mesh around the sack of the heart . . ." I realized I couldn't breathe very well and told her I couldn't keep talking about it and had to sit down. My eyes filled up, and it took everything I had not to start bawling right there, and several minutes before I was able to gather myself up for the actual business of my appointment.
The feeling wasn't like being hit by a wall; it was more like being overcome by a wave. Even as the dentist started talking about her niece's surgery, there was some part of me thinking, "You can do this; you can talk about this; it's OK," until it really wasn't.
It's amazing how easy it is, in the rush and bustle of life, to forget that grief doesn't end when the official mourning is concluded. I've missed
markbourne these last four months, missed his humor, his insight, and his company. There have been particular instances--dinner with the Bears recently, SIFF, JayCon, this or that reading--when I found myself thinking "Mark should be here," angry at the untimeliness and injustice of his death, selfishly angry that I won't get to spend my 50th birthday with him. It's always little things, like wondering what he'd say about Prometheus or any of the films he might have seen at SIFF this year or what books he'd be reading or what he'd think about this person or that person to whom I wanted to introduce him or, well, you get the idea. Our bodies remember grief, experience it, even when we think that we're coping with the business of life every day. I wouldn't trade away a single minute of my friendship with Mark, not one. This grief is only one legacy of that friendship; I won't allow it to overwhelm the rest, a wealth of time and affection that I'm privileged to have shared with my friend. But I do miss him.