A Grief Too Big

I stand at the graveside, dry-eyed and calm, watching as the casket is lowered gently into the hole prepared for it. Everyone else is crying, either soft whimpers or wracking sobs, holding tissues to their faces and clutching those nearest them. Giving in to their grief; letting it take them.

But not me.

I’ve locked my grief away.

And I’m ready to bury it with the woman I loved.

It’s something I’ve always been able to do. The first time was the death of my first dog, Butter. I thought I’d named him Butler, but I was only four when we got him, and didn’t know what either word really meant. Dad helped me bury him in the backyard three years later, after Mrs. Miller didn’t see Butter when she was backing out of her driveway. We dug the hole together, put the blanket-wrapped body, so cold and stiff, into the ground, covered it with dirt and tamped it down. I didn’t cry then; I guess I was still in shock, numbed by the suddenness of the separation. Seeing the single tear trickling down Dad’s cheek made me think my way was better. Why put up with all that sadness and pain? Why not just shut the grief away? Never feel it. Never feel anything.

“How did he handle it?” my mom asked afterwards.

“He didn’t shed a tear the whole time,” Dad said, his hand on my shoulder. The way he said it made me wonder if he thought it was a good thing or not. But I knew better.

That night, I stood in my room, staring at all the things that reminded me of Butter. His collar, with the bone shaped nametag. His worn, cozy, doggy bed (no blanket; we’d buried him in it). His water and food bowls. But what I latched onto was his favorite fetch ball, yellow rubber, squeaky, and covered in tooth marks big and small. We’d played with that ball since the day I got Butter. Now we’d never play with it again. I felt the grief then, for the first and last time. Felt my eyes burn and the tears threaten. Felt that I couldn’t go on without Butter, couldn’t imagine life without him. I didn’t like those feelings. It was the ball causing them. The ball had to go.

I grabbed that ball and shoved it into an empty Lego box, shut it tight. Instantly feeling better, feeling the grief recede, I ran out into the yard in my pajamas, out to Butter’s grave. I dug into the still-loose soil with my bare hands, shoved the box with the ball into the hole, covered it over.

The grief was gone. I’d left it there, with the squeaky yellow ball, buried in the grave with Butter.

Ever since then, any time I suffer loss, experience the pain of separation, face the prospect of grief, I do the same thing over again. Find the one thing that reminds me the most of what I’ve lost. Stuff it in any convenient box. And then bury it.

I don’t always bury it with a body. Heaven forbid. When Alice Shaw broke up with me after two years, two blissful years in which I thought she was the one, I took the ticket stubs from the movie we went to on our first date, put them in an envelope, and buried them in a flower bed outside my apartment. It worked just as well as it ever had. I didn’t need to bury Alice alongside them, though I kinda wanted to. Lucky for her.

Sometimes I do have to bury a body. Like my son. Born prematurely, struggled to survive for eight days. Died peacefully in his sleep, dreaming dreams that would never come true. Ellen and I buried him together, she weeping unashamedly, me freed from the tyranny of grieving, with little David’s medical bracelet in a box, buried with him.

She confronted me about it afterwards. “How can you be this way?” she asked, sitting at the kitchen table, amidst scattered photos of David and many crumpled tissues. “How can you not want to grieve for your son?”

I couldn’t explain it to her. I could never explain it to anyone. She knew this about me when we got married, when I could barely crack a smile on the happiest day of my life. To keep the pain at bay, sometimes you have to keep everything at bay. All I could do was shrug. “It’s better this way. Believe me.”

She shook her head. “You can’t do this forever. You can’t stay dead inside. Sooner or later, you’ll have to let yourself feel it. You’ll have to live with it. It will hurt you, but it will heal you, too.”

I didn’t say anything in reply, because I didn’t feel anything.

Ellen never truly forgave me for that; I’m not sure if I ever forgave myself. But it was better than letting the grief take me. It had to be.

Now I stand at her grave. Married ten years, she was gone to a heart attack in seconds. Lost to me. It’s a loss I don’t think I can bear, not if I let the grief take me.

So I won’t.

I already have the grief narrowed down to a single object. A keychain, a cloud-shaped metal bauble with a simple inscription. “You’re the silver lining to every cloud in my life.” A birthday present she gave me while we were dating. I drive a delivery truck, so it’s something I saw a hundred times every day, something I used all the time. Something I could never forget. It’s worn and discolored from years of handling, but still as powerful as the day she gave it to me.

So it has to go.

I wait until the last of the mourners are gone, knowing that they wouldn’t understand.

“Hold on a sec, guys,” I say to the cemetery workers as they prepare to fill in the hole. I look at the keychain one last time, tracing the words with my gaze. When I start to feel the grief, threatening to grasp me in its sharp, greedy claws, I hurriedly stuff the thing into an old jewelry box, snap it shut, and toss it into the grave with my wife.

One of the workers glances from the open hole to me. “You sure about that?”

I can only nod. Still dry-eyed, I watch until the hole is filled, and they cover it with squares of turf. Then I turn and walk away.

It’s done. The grief is buried. It won’t take me.

The house is still full of Ellen’s things, mementos of our life together. Pictures of us together, her smiling and laughing, me baring my teeth in an approximation. Little knickknacks gathered on vacations. I can see her toothbrush next to the bathroom sink and remember her standing there, brushing her teeth, meeting my gaze in the mirror and giving me a smile. I can see her coffee mug in the kitchen cupboard and remember the look on her face as she took that first sip of the day. But none of this hurts. None of this causes me grief. None of this makes me feel anything. No joy or love or happiness.

Nothing.

I’ve buried the grief; it doesn’t matter if I’ve buried everything else, too.

But as I climb out of bed the next morning, reaching for my glasses on the night table, my hand brushes something, and it falls to the floor. Leaning over, I feel a shock of surprise when I recognize the cloud-shaped keychain. The one that shouldn’t be there. The one I buried with my wife.

I hold it in my hand, trace the etching, read the words. I feel the beginning of something. I close my hand into a fist, rise hurriedly to my feet. I tear through the chest of drawers, the vanity table, the closet, until I find another box big enough for the keychain. When I snap it shut, the feeling ebbs, its hold on me weakening.

But now I feel anger.

I go back to the cemetery, ready for a confrontation. At best, this is some over-sentimental person trying to do an intervention, stop me from doing something they think I’ll regret. At worst, it’s a sick prank, and you’d better believe I’ll make them regret it.

“Here is your wife’s grave,” the cemetery director says, all apologetic and considerate. “As you can see, no one’s disturbed it since the ceremony.”

I can see that. The ground over her body is smooth and unbroken. They did a good job filling it in. I can barely see the lines where they cut away the turf, and it’s only been a couple of days. There’s no way anyone could have dug down to the casket, down to the little box I tossed in, without leaving some sign.

So, why is the box with the keychain in my hand?

“I buried this with her,” I say. “I want to put it back where it belongs.”

The director glances me, fidgets with his tie. “Well, that’s kind of irregular. We don’t usually let people dig into a closed plot.”

“But you’re going to. Because I left this in her grave, and it’s not there anymore.” I take a little pity on him. “I don’t need to go all the way down to the casket. A foot or so is fine.”

With a sigh, he nods, relenting. I take up the shovel I brought along, cut through the turf, dig a shallow hole, and set the box in it. When I cover it with dirt, tamp it down, and put the grass back into place, that awful sensation is gone. I’ve buried the memento, buried the grief. For good this time.

Not two days later, I’m out raking up leaves in the back yard. Just something to keep me busy, keep me going through the motions of life. I’m on autopilot, wondering if I’ll ever find anything that will make me feel again. Wondering if I even want to. Every time something good comes into my life, it leaves again, sooner or later. And I have to go through this all over again.

The rake hits something metallic, something that rattles against the tines. Curious, I bend low and rifle through the detritus. I draw back suddenly with a gasp, as though I’d found a deadly snake or touched something hot.

It’s the keychain, lying on the damp grass! I know it’s the same one, with the same writing, worn and discolored with time and handling.

What is going on? Why is this happening?

For a moment, confusion overwhelms any other sensation. But then, sure enough, other feelings start to creep in, insidious and invasive. I flush, my heart races. Heat and cold chase each other through my body. I can’t help but think of all the time I spent with my wife, all those good years with my Ellen. My eyes start to burn. My lips tremble.

No. I won’t give in. I won’t let the grief take me.

Leaving the keychain on the grass, I rush inside. In the kitchen, I yank open one drawer after another, scattering their contents. Where’s a stupid box?

I find one, half full of batteries, dump them out all over the floor, and hurry back to the yard.

I scoop up the keychain and stuff it into the box, as if it’s something hideous and disgusting that I can’t wait to get out of my sight. Dropping to my knees, I tear up a chunk of grass, scrape into the soil beneath, making a hole deep enough for the box. I drop it into the hole cover it up, stamp fiercely on the dirt to tamp it down.

Then I go back inside, breathing heavily, waiting desperately for my actions to have the desired effect.

After a few minutes, they do. The grief and regret recede, the memory of happiness goes away. I’m left empty and hollow, a shell of myself.

I sigh in relief.

Then I go back into the kitchen. I start cleaning up the mess I made, putting stuff back into the drawers, picking up the things I dropped on the floor. I’m back in control again. Nothing can reach me. Nothing can hurt me.

When I open up a drawer to put the batteries back in, I catch a flash of light reflecting off metal. I look closer; my breath catches and I stumble back.

It’s the keychain.

How is this possible? Who is doing this? Why can’t they just leave me alone?

I pick up the keychain, uncertain what I should do. I stumble to the table, collapse into a chair. I close my hand, clutching the keychain in a clenched fist. Maybe I should throw it into the ocean, but if it came back from that, I might throw myself in next.

I have a suspicion of who’s doing this, and if I’m right, she’s trying to let me know that this grief is too strong, too big to fight. That I don’t have a box big enough to hold it, to keep it locked away, buried.

Ellen.

Somehow, she’s still here. Still with me. Maybe she never forgave me, but she’s never stopped loving me. She won’t let me go on like this. To heal, you have to hurt. That’s what she said.

I look up, look around the room. In every room in this house, there are so many things that remind me of her. Maybe I should be the one to go. Just leave, put the keychain down and walk out. Find someplace new to live, a new life. One where I can be safe and content and empty and dead inside.

I look down at the thing I hold in my hand, the lock and key, the prison for my every feeling. That I don’t immediately shut it away again, determined to keep trying until she gives up, is something of a decision.

Maybe it’s finally time to start to feel again. To begin the hurting, and the healing.

I take a deep breath, and let the key turn in the lock.

There’s the grief, making my eyes burn and putting such a pain in my heart that I think I can never stop feeling it. It’s so strong, so powerful. It’s terrifying. It will take me. Consume me. This is why I’ve fought it all my life. Why I’ve locked it up and buried it. I just can’t take the pain. Better to be empty, to feel nothing, than to feel this pain, again and again.

But I don’t fight it. I won’t go on being empty, hollow, dead inside. I want to heal. To feel.

To live.

I have a choice to make.

I can give in, let the grief take me… and see where it takes me.

Or, failing that, I can try to find a bigger box.