Going through the loss of a loved one can leave you grasping for anything to help you cope. Nicholaus Jackson brings us this Perspective.
What is left after the particulars of a man are gone? Grief – it seems to me – is a sort of unearthing process. A painful stabbing at the soil of our lives. Is there something buried there beneath the earth? I often find myself waiting for some supernatural event to assure me that all those details that I cherished for so long are still somewhere.
There is a picture of him in the living room. He is wearing sunglasses, a black shirt with a jean long-sleeve pulled over it. Standing in front of a wall of ferns – out on the trail. In my mind’s eye I can see more, his brown boots that are somehow too flat, his leather wallet tucked behind him. His belt, his laugh, I can hear the sound of his voice, his breath. The details contort like a loose string, taking on new shapes and loops of infinite variations.
I can hold a memory in my mind, I can investigate its contents, but I cannot see its boundaries. It seems almost like a bruise of what was– evidence of an impact of one kind or another. When I look at his face in the picture the expression seems to change at each glance – confident, proud, intrigued. Even in my mind there is no longer a center to his being.
What do I find beyond the man? I may not be able to hold it, I may not be able to see it or hear it. But faintly, softly there is something there. A big fat jewel of his presence, of love, of what was shared, built and fiercely guarded. Its brilliance is what I hold on to now. I place it in my pocket to hold close to my chest, to feel its contours. It’s there pressing into me now and if I am lucky – one day – I will give it to another.