ways of receiving a message
on grief, winter, and our need for a sign
dear friend,
Maybe it’s November’s biting chill, but I feel a change in the wind. With making a few adjustments in what I talk about, how I write these letters, or how often it is I’m nudging you on the shoulder to say hello, above all, I hope you know with every letter there is still the wish you’re doing well, even if it isn’t the first thing to greet you. <3
Grief and winter feel like cousins, so it only seems right that I begin parsing through these thoughts now.
In June, one of my favorite people on this Earth, my grandfather (nicknamed Papa Paul), passed on. While he had a few health scares over the years, his passing still felt sudden, and took place soon after I had moved across the country. In that quick sprint of dizzying schedules and exhaustion, spanning a week and a half or so, I had journeyed from Portland to Ann Arbor, helped my partner move out of Nashville, and was preparing for my book release for You Look Like Hell.
In between, I called my Uncle Kole, on gas station stops and behind the wheel of a UHaul to check on Papa Paul’s health; wondered with my friends if I should ditch everything in a storage unit and fly out to be with him in California, and pleaded with the blue sky on long drives alone. It is suffice to say while his passing moved through me in shockwaves, I’m still feeling its full punch.
I have spent so much time talking about what Papa Paul’s presence in my life has meant, that to begin to write about his absence feels insurmountable. What language could I say to describe loss that hasn’t already been said? Moreover, how do I tell you about it without becoming just a mouthful of stories?
Grief is a heavy shadow. Since the summer, I’ve felt the urge to reach for a string around my ankles to untie it. To sit under the sun and bleach the dark it’s held me in. I am almost six months from losing him, and I can hear his laughter, his voice, clear as the wind whistling in my ear. Since the summer, I haven’t gone more than a week without looking up from cooking lunch, walking my dog, or getting ready for bed, racked with that sudden horror of, “Oh my god, it’s been so long since I’ve called him. I need to tell him I’m sorry. I hope he’s not upset. Why would I have forgotten to call?”
On a visit two Thanksgivings ago now, Papa Paul and I sat in his garden, and, as is ever the case with me, our conversation turned to ghosts. After sharing a few of his own chilling stories, he left me with a word he promised he’d try to bring me after he passed; a word to signal he’d made safe passage to the other side, whatever or wherever that may be. While I am both parts skeptic and hopeful, I’ve returned to those journal pages several times in search of this specific, clunky, mouthful of a word, reminding myself what to look for or hoping it’d jog a realization of something I overlooked.
I keep waiting. In the weeks that pass after Papa Paul’s funeral, Kole and I have long phone calls reminiscing, crying together, pondering about where a soul goes, how long it takes to get there, if there’s a there to get to; though his stories keep me as assured as I’ll permit myself. While they’re not necessarily messages—and not to ever declare I need proof, they’re something.
Kole tells me, “I wish you were with us, and could have seen the way he talked to his father and mother as if they stood beside him in bed. He was lucid enough to worry about keeping dinner dates with friends later that week, then would turn his attention and speak to his long-passed grandparents. He was singing, Schuyler. Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away. Now it seems as though they’re here to stay. Oh, I believe in yesterday.”
What shape might a message take? Is it enough that the bulk of voicemails I have saved from him are lengthy, loving goodbyes?
Bye, my child. Sorry I missed you—I’ll talk to you Sunday. I’m making pesto salmon for dinner. I read a poem that made me think of you. There was a woman on Jeopardy! today from Portland, isn’t that neat? We’ll chat soon. I love you right down to my toes. Okay, have a good day.
What counts as a message?
Noticing a desire to pray, I’ve started infrequently slipping into the church pews at a nearby Unitarian Universalist church, remembering our long chats about what I hoped to find in a community, what I imagine religion could be, and his recommendation this certain denomination might be what I’ve been looking for. It seems every time I choose to attend their Sunday gatherings, it’s been a lucky coincidence—a choir performs music with the accompaniment of drums and French horns, a day in which the parishioners escort their panting pups, crated cats, and a few bunnies into the congregation to be blessed by the pastor (minister?) who makes a point to close his eyes and bless framed photos of pets that have passed, or, most recently, an entire sermon dedicated to the holiness of pie.
My fingers twitch with the want to text Papa Paul: You were right! You would love it here. When the itch becomes too much, I call Kole and share the day’s story with him. For a moment, we are around the kitchen table together again, waiting for Papa Paul’s dry laugh or standard dirty joke. My best friend tells me to write out all the things I wish I could tell him. I imagine one blue text bubble several months long, interrupting itself, squiggled with question marks, and losing its train of thought; its body half remember when’s.
I write a garbled poem on symbols and signs; how faith’s rosy glasses can make beacons of robins and cardinals; a hallway light flickering on its own. None of it is in bitterness or disbelief, only admiration in the way we love. We know the beyond has shit cell signal, that ghosts have poor handwriting - no doubt we each have our own immediate reaction to the phrase “works in mysterious ways.”
While I can appreciate it’s okay to not be okay in theory, it’s clear, even as I write this, I’m still surprised with my own grief. But because I never want to shrug off my love, my ever-burning wish for one more sit-down with my grandfather, I won’t wave off this sense of loss either. It comes and goes in its salient force and through its visits, I spend time remembering.
Maybe, like love, the trick is to not look at all. To go about living, allowing memory to exist alongside our day-to-day. To sneak in a run before the first snowfall and dust the picture frames with every deep clean. To both dance through the oven’s chime that the cookies are ready and feel my eyes well, wishing I could share a new life milestone with him. To sit down at a post-dinner card table with my partner and his family, when apropos of nothing, the group begins singing as the next hand is shuffled out.
Yesterday,
all my troubles seemed so far away.
Now it seems as though they’re here to stay.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
with love,
schuyler (sky-ler)
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as someone who lost their grandfather last year, i see myself in a lot of this piece. thank u for sharing, ur not alone (even if grief tricks u into thinking so)
as always, you have such a clear and ceaseless ability to articulate, with perfect nuance, the intricacies that exist within us. thank you for sharing this.