David handed me a cup of coffee and as I sipped it slowly, trying to make sense of things as tears rolled down my cheeks and I struggled to find breath, he continued on with making breakfast. When it was ready, I sat at the dining room table as he set the plate of eggs before me. After several minutes he said, “I know it’s hard, but you still have to eat.”
“I know,” I tell him, “I will.” And I will. “I’m just working on my coffee.” It rolls over my tongue and slides down my throat and fills me with some kind of warm that isn’t comfort at all. Eventually, my cup is empty and I look at the cold eggs and mushrooms on my plate. I push them around with my fork and try to remember how to eat them. But nothing is the same and everything is different.
I take a bite and it feels wrong in my mouth, but I force myself to chew, chew, chew until it’s a soft, small, ball of mush. And as I swallow, it sticks in my throat before settling like a rock in my stomach. How will I get through the rest of this breakfast? How will I get through the rest of this day? This week? This life?
“It feels so wrong,” I tell him, “that I have to carry on with life as usual. But what else is there to do? As I try to make sense of this?”
It hurts. My heart, my soul, my head after sobbing and reminding myself to breathe, the tender skin beneath my eyes, despite the gentle dabbing motion I’ve used to dry my tears.
Pour in; dump out. That’s what they say about managing grief and supporting the grieving. Pour into those who are closer to the pain; dump out to those who are further away from it.
But how do I pour in? When time and distance and life has left our connection, mine and my baby brother’s, fragile and tenuous and as thin as the finest filament and somehow named “hope.” Hope for some time in the indeterminate future when I feel more prepared or maybe stronger or maybe less overwhelmed by the requisite work of holding boundaries that matter only to me in that fine dance of relationship, when I’m trying to step nimbly and lightly and graciously with someone who barrels through life at 177% all of the time. How do I pour in support to someone I love, who has just experienced the most incomprehensible loss, when I’m not sure I even have a place in the dance anymore?
Does he know, my baby brother, how much I love him? How much I have always loved him? How I keep my distance and hold a boundary, perhaps more rigid than is truly essential, because it is the only way I know how to hold my love for him?
And when the unimaginable happens, a tiny child, just six and a half years old, is gone…. What now?
I know it sounds like I’m trying to justify myself, but I’m trying to make sense of something that makes no sense. Not just in the microcosm of this horrible moment but in the larger something of life and I don’t know how the pieces fit together in this awful jigsaw. I don’t know what the puzzle is even supposed to look like. I do know that I want to rage and scream and throw the fucking thing at the wall. I want to keen and wail with the pain and grief. I want to do something, anything, to make my heart stop hurting.
I go to lunch with my spouse and I think about what it would mean to make my heart stop hurting. Then, I think of Victoria Hutchins and her poem, “reasons to stick around for awhile” and though none of these reasons resonates with me, I find one of my own – as she suggests. There is so much pain in the world, I want to not add to it. That means sticking around for awhile. Equally, however, I appreciate Victoria’s poem, “reasons to stick around for a night” and its opening line, “If sticking around for awhile is unfathomable, stick around for a night.” Or maybe, it’s just stick around for one more meal – whatever that meal may be.
My spouse drives me back to my office after lunch and drops me off with the promise to pick me up at the end of the day. Sitting in the drive of the parking lot, he says to me, “I cannot do anything to help with your sadness but I am so grateful that I still have you in my life.”
Do you know, Oprah Winfrey’s name was supposed to be Orpah. From the biblical story of Ruth. Orpah was sister-in-law to Ruth and tried followed Naomi when her, Orpah’s, husband had died. Naomi encouraged both Orpah and Ruth to return to their people and their gods. Ruth refused and followed Naomi. Orpah returned to her people. The hospital fucked that up when she was born, not knowing how to spell Orpah and transposing the “r” and the “p.” Thus, Oprah was born into the world.
The same thing happened with Kairo. (White people fuck up everything). He was supposed to be named Kairu – Kikuyu for “black one,” a name of honor and respect, celebrating his strength, wisdom, resilience, and leadership. But, the hospital fucked this one up when he was born. They misunderstood the “u” for an “o” and thus, Kairo was born into the world.
There are a few things I actually love about this. My brother is named Christopher, which means “Christ bearer.” The Greek short-hand for Christ is XP (Chi Rho) and is pronounced Kai-ro. Christ simply means “the anointed one” and is understood to be one who is chosen by God, who has a special calling on their life, and who is empowered to lead. Not all that different from Kairu.
These are the things I wanted to tell Christopher when he first shared Kairo’s name with me, the mishap in the spelling, and the meaning behind the intended name. As is often the case, I did not speak these words to anyone. There are a lot of reasons why. Probably none of them are good reasons.
Somehow, at the end of the day, I try to do better. I try to say the things that matter, that are meaningful, that let people know that they are seen and loved and cherished. I want Kairo to know that he was celebrated for all of who he was. He is so loved. He is so cherished. He is God’s child, and we got to love him for such a brief time. And it hurts more than I will ever be able to put words to – knowing he is gone, never having gotten a good-bye, and barely having had any hello-s in between. Now, even the hoped for indeterminate future when there is more time, and more engagement, and more connection is gone. The hoped for future has been extinguished. And all that is left in wake of Kairo’s death is grief.
And grief is a hungry, hungry ocean. And I am on a beach. Cautious of the sneaker waves that threaten to overwhelm me and carry me out to the abyss. Will I see the bubbles of my breath as they rise to the surface? Will I follow them? Will I learn to float? Will I know how to swim? Of course. But that knowledge does not make it easier. It does not, in any way, ameliorate the pain. It does not make it less scary.
So, I throw my arms wide open, embrace the waves, and live life afraid.
