The first sign that the world had moved on was the silence. Not the deep, holy kind people write poems about. The ordinary kind, full of the hum of the fridge, a distant car, neighbours laughing, children playing. The kind that makes you realise a certain voice will never fill the air again and yet the traffic still flows, the emails still arrive and the bins still go out on Wednesday.
A week earlier, the apartment had been full. Apart from my family, there were relatives, friends and neighbours everywhere: bringing food, making tea, hugging too tightly, avoiding eye contact when their words ran out, others standing quietly in a corner, others wiping tears, whispers and small talk. There were beautiful flowers and cards lined up in rows like small fragile witnesses. Everywhere I turned, there was proof of sadness and sorrow.
And then, slowly, the doors stopped opening.
The casseroles ran out. The messages turned from “I’m so sorry” to “How are you doing?” and “How are you holding up?”
The questions meant well. It is what people normally say and it comes from a good, caring and concerned place. They were asked with the kind of brightness that suggested there was a correct answer. Is there ever a correct answer? My reply was a simple “I’m fine, thank you” or “I’m okay, thanks for asking.”
People went back to work, to school runs and to plans they had postponed. The world slid back into its own rhythm.
I remember standing in the kitchen, staring at the last vase of flowers on the counter. The petals were starting to curl at the edges, going brown and brittle. It struck me that this was what grief looked like to everyone else: something bright, then fading and then eventually thrown away. I wish I had dried them.
Inside me, though, nothing had faded. Time felt stuck, like the clock on the wall was moving for everyone but me. On the outside, I was doing all the “right” things like answering texts, nodding in the supermarket when someone said, “You’re so strong.” On the inside, I was still in that first terrible moment, replaying it on a loop while the world sped ahead without me.
If you have ever felt that gap, that strange aching distance between your inner world and the life that keeps marching on, you are not alone. You are not broken for still hurting when others seem fine. Your grief didn’t get the memo that things are “back to normal.” What is normal to another person does not have to be normal for you and me. That is okay.
You are allowed to carry what you carry, even when the world forgets to notice.
With gentleness,
Ruthie
For my father and my mother. Forever.
Next Thursday, a poem. I am going for a walk now, to be normal in my own way.