12 years ago today, Bob’s spirit took flight. The first photograph was taken in May of 2011, about a week after his death. I was at his parents’ home, following the Catholic church service for him in St. James, MN (we had 2 services for Bob; one in the cities where we lived, one in Bob’s hometown, St. James, where his parents still live). My niece, Amelia, was playing around with my phone, and snapped these photos with my camera. She must have been about five at the time.

I love how unencumbered by death young Amelia was, how she unafraid she was, of the weighty expressions of grief that the adults around her had a hard time containing. How grateful I am that we didn’t hide such things from her or from anyone, really. How she decided to document these moments in photographs from a child’s perspective. I love how she so accurately captured the the unseen things that I can still easily feel when I look at this photo of me: my bewildered brain—how can he be gone? He was just here, JUST here—behind a facade of exhaustion—this is how I have to live? for the rest of my life? The emptiness that occupied every cell of my being, the hollow echo that reverberated for endless days, months, years in my heart. The deep, quiet ache that hung from my weary frame, that I carried through the world for so long. 

I love how barely apparent the quiet resign in the deepest part of me is, too. Shortly after Bob’s death, someone told me that it takes about three years to get over a great loss. Even then, I suspected such an arbitrary timeframe was bullshit; today, I call bullshit with complete confidence. You cannot quantify or qualify grief, or distill it to a logical explanation. Period. Why do we continue to perpetuate such egregious, unhelpful beliefs? Because we, as a modern culture, don’t handle huge emotions that are part and parcel with monumental loss in our lives. We want to get over them as quickly as possible. I already knew that, no matter what anyone tried to tell me, this loss was fused to my DNA as my green eyes and red hair and ability to roll my tongue are, and there was no shaking it. It will stay with me for the rest of my life. And because of that, I would have to walk this walk in the only way that made sense to me. No wonder I was already exhausted. 

There would come a day that this loss would feel less like a burden and more like a guiding force. But the bitch is—I had strong sense already, that day that this photo was taken—this shift would not be cataclysmic, like his death, but excruciatingly glacial in its transformation. This work is not for the faint of heart—platitudes are not welcomed here. I remember thinking the only clear thought that day, I don’t know if I had it in me to do it, but I didn’t know what else to do. 

Even in those rawest days of early loss, I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy, or fast journey. How can it possibly be anything but messy and jagged-edged and erratic? But sometimes, it is also merciful and so full of grace in the most unexpected ways, at the most unanticipated times that it takes my breath away, and that all of it—the messy and the merciful—is holy and necessary. I have tried to escape the messy work time and again, because it is so exhausting, so defeating, so against what the world has tried to tell me, so against what my brain tries to sabotage, but the mess is always patiently awaiting my return. 

This ache I carried, still carry, is both ancient and unique. So many have walked it before me and yet, no one walks anyone else’s walk, exactly. We can learn from others’ experiences, but ultimately, we’ll do what makes the most sense for our own hearts, and the beauty is, every path is the right one…It’s our holy obligation to process our stories of loss in ways that make sense to our own broken hearts. To honor the mess and the mercy. I am so grateful for everyone in my life, who carried, me, consoled me, laughed and cried with me, who watched helplessly when nothing could be said or done, who stayed with me even when it seemed I might never move on, who walked away from me when it seemed I might never move on—there is strange grace in abandonment, too; who cheered me on when I got out of bed or got my degree, who stroked my hair and sat in sacred silence when I gave up, who stood back in awe when I stood up again (how many times did that happen, god too many to ever know), who have always allowed me to speak my story, to say Bob’s name, to tell stories about him, to keep him out in the open air of my life, rather than shutting the door on that part of my life. What a gift that’s been and still is. Every last thing, every last person has helped me more than I could have ever imagined it would on that awful day, 12 years ago. xo