Protracted Grief and the Fleshiness of Gratitude
CW: mentions suicide and the death of my sistren in May 2020, alludes to amputee status, grief
The gratitude list writers write when they hardly want to show up to practice.
Saturday, May 16, 2020 (a remix):
Completely gutted and eviscerated, I am grateful for her death. I am grateful for her life lived that ended in this realm yesterday. I am grateful for waves of grief finally felt for a life that probably should have ended several lifetimes ago. I am grateful for amputated phantom pains felt when an estranged loved one dies. For the jagged pangs of heart there and not there, I give thanks…Eyes are wide open now like they’ve never closed with tiny rivulets of blood running slowly across the vast white sclera of my eyes toward center. Closing my eyes in gratitude, trying to see past the lids, trying to remember love. Heart-hollering grief screams ‘ingrate’ in my paralytic dreaming. Can anyone hear me? I can’t feel my legs. Why are they so heavy?
Having to explain our closeness to justify my heartbreak only brings me back to Thanksgiving and the pain of you. How will they know you were my sister when you were just my mama’s sister’s child who lived with us from when I was nine years old until you left home again and again and again?…. Can I be grateful in rage toward my ancestors, calling you to be among them so early? Why didn’t they come to your aid in this life? I am grateful for the old folks who were sure you’d die with your shoes on. And for how in your beautiful resilience and maybe your unconscious desire to do fate for yourself, you managed to prove them wrong. Does suicide count?
I am imminently grateful for the impermanence of horrifically shining moments. They never stay — coming in and out of focus. What else can die and be reborn inside the death of you? I am here for my falling apart and my coming back together — a little more me each time and for who I am as I am no longer.
May your ascension be more eased than the journey that was your life. May you rest in deep and final peace and so much love. I love you so much more than my words could ever say, and today they are all I have. Thank you.
Michelle Phillips
Liberation Strategist
Seattle, WA
