The journal
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Seven years on from Henry’s death, I find that while I always have him in the back of my mind, my faithful ghost, life does indeed have a way of moving on. The days are filled with tasks of the present and not as much time to dwell on the past.
However, tucked away in a drawer, I have a notebook. It’s cheery looking with bright stripes in a variety of colors. Inside, it is anything but. This is the journal that I wrote in right after Henry died. To this day, I can’t bring myself to read it. It contains my very lowest lows and all the crazy thoughts that plagued me at the beginning. It is uncensored rage and anguish and such deep sadness.
I know that inside are unsent letters. Some to Henry. Some to the daycare provider where he was when he stopped breathing. There is something therapeutic to me to lay out all of the things on paper that I will not or cannot say in person. It let me shout my outrage and disbelief. It let me tell him how much I miss and love him.
There are pages and pages of me trying and failing to understand how this could have happened. How he could be here one second, then gone the next. How I am still here, when he is not.
I was cleaning out drawers recently and came across it. I hadn’t thought of it in a while and it was almost a shock to see it sitting there, its bright colors beckoning. I sat with it on my lap, my hands resting on the cover, my eyes closed. My throat closed up and I felt tears sting my eyes, all from touching it. This journal has become a visceral talisman of all those emotions that are too big for me to hold inside of myself. So they live here. Safely tucked away, but still with me.
I can’t bear to part with these writings, even if the book stays closed. They are as much a part of me as anything else. Maybe more. They are a gateway to those early days of grief — when even having a simple conversation with someone was often more than I could bear; when I wanted nothing more than to wake up or maybe stay asleep; when I was hardly holding it together. That time felt like being on a roller coaster that I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to get off.
Eventually I did wake up. The roller coaster hasn’t stopped, but does move at a slower pace. The journal is not needed but it will stay with me always, a portal to what feels like a lifetime ago. A reminder that things can change. And a reminder that some things can never be understood, not really, but they can be carried with us.
How did you process your most raw feelings post-loss? How does it feel to access that body of emotion now?