Condolences

I am sorry for your loss. My thoughts are with you during this difficult time.

I want to say I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye. You’ve all been here for so long, it didn’t occur to me that I wouldn’t see you again. And I didn’t think it would be so long, but one year turned into three, and so much had changed after the first year anyway.

I should have sent this letter earlier. According to etiquette, a letter of condolences should be sent within two weeks of a loss. But instead I have waited to see you again in front of me. To see with my own eyes what has changed, to be sure of what remains.

When the storm started, I was in a house by a river. While my body was sitting in front of a window, watching the river run heavy with rain under the still-green trees, my heart and mind were being carried away by a distant wind. I was safe, but I would have preferred to be scared among loved ones than scared for them, alone.

I could only wait, heart weak, for news. Any picture of a street I knew, a roof torn away, a shoreline swept out to sea. I showed anyone I spoke to: do you see? This is my home. I don’t know if I will recognize it when I return.

And now I’ve returned. It isn’t as different as I feared.

Roofs can be repaired, new trees can grow, but that doesn’t bring back what was lost. There are things that will never return.

I missed you dearly. I missed your shade on a hot day, your branches to climb. I missed the smell of warm growth in spring and earthy decay in fall. There were trees where I was, but the birds nesting in their branches didn’t sing the same songs.

I spent a lot of time in the woods as a child. I loved climbing over fallen branches, the feeling of moss on my feet. I didn’t mind the morning dew on my ankles. I would lift rocks just to see the creatures writhing underneath. Now, I flinch at the sight of a spider web. When I see a bug in my home it’s easier to kill it than to gently carry it outdoors. I don’t own any clothes that I wouldn’t mind getting covered in mud.

I think I have missed you for a long time. I didn’t say goodbye when I left, and before that, how long had it been since I’d visited you?

I think I have been mourning you for a long time.  

Sometimes I think it’s easier to deal with death than dying. The mourning is hard and passes in waves. But I always start to mourn too early. Any moment away is as though you are already dead. I was scared to ask after you because maybe I missed something. Maybe I forgot. Maybe instead of hearing my love and concern in the asking you would only hear the silence that came in the months before.

I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep. But I want to be there. Be here more often. In some ways it’s all the same. The landscape isn’t unrecognizable. In time, decay will bring new life. But I want to take care of you while you are still here. I want to love you without thinking of death, or what comes after.

With love,