I send the text message knowing my father will never see it. I know my mother checks his cellphone now. And still I wait for those two blue checkmarks telling me it was seen from his phone. Incomplete closure. She knows I send them for him. I know it is her on the other end. But we never talk about this on our daily calls, my mother and I. The many ways we hold peace, sorrow.
I've been thinking a lot about people as repositories for the emotions we place in them. Grief, in a way, is love untethered. Emotion as refugee, uprooted and wandering. The times I want to call, the conversations in my head. Knowing that the next story that publishes is one he will never read. The little things you don't know matter until they cease to exist. Whether it is this profound awareness of the small sorrows or just an overwhelm of feelings in need of anchor, I'm deeply moved by small acts of generosity.
The friend who picked my child up the night we packed, fed and entertained her in a space removed from sorrow, at least temporarily. The one who showed up at the airport and handed me the sunglasses off her head because I forgot mine, along with medicines and a car seat, the other things I forgot. The one who sends an email helping me source a story, because work must happen even when it feels impossible. The space people hold for me, a small measure of the space left by his absence.
