Monday, September 12, 2022

On grief and tiny giant things

 I thought I was doing okay with this whole grief and loss thing, but then when you least expect it you get sucker punched in the face. Like when you've got big news and you realize that you don't have any parents to share it with. That's pretty fucking lame. I have great siblings who responded with the appropriate level of enthusiasm, and awesome friends who can't wait to celebrate with me, but I'm realizing that you're never too old to want your parents to hang your gold star on the refrigerator. 

And then yesterday Averson and I went to Michaels in search of lanyard string. Such a small, innocuous errand and when I walked in I nearly drowned in sadness. My mom and I didn't have a ton of things in common, but what we did have, we had hard. And Halloween crafts, that was our jam. The three years she lived with us, we made dozens of tiny dioramas in pumpkins, bought more ridiculous decorations than anyone could ever need, squeed over ridiculous zombies and sugar skulls and bats and all the things. She loved my ridiculous skeleton menagerie almost more than Averson does and would move them in the night, setting up vignettes and back stories and giving them names. 

Michaels has a whole aisle now of tiny things that wasn't there before. Tiny little tea sets and doors and tables and garden tools and bottles and animals. Halloween and Christmas and regular every day options. Hundreds of tiny little options for tiny little scenes and she's never going to see them. She would have loved it, and instead of being so thrilled to tell her about it and bring her back, I stood in the aisle choking back tears deciding whether I wanted to continue the tradition or never go there again. 

3 comments:

  1. Oh, I'm so, so sorry Chiconky. That sounds really, really hard.

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  2. I understand this completely. I had really intense little grief spells in Oxford, Ohio last week because we had so much fun there with my dad. It's just so unexpected, these grief sucker punches.

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  3. Grief is so hard, lying dormant and then jumping out at your when you least expect it. I'm so sorry.

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