Love and Loss

My brother Irving,

Your death has S T R E T C H E D me!! I feel you in the coolness of an evening breeze…. I feel you in every chord of a melancholy love song. When Coco Jones sings matter of factly.. “Maybe I just feel lost without you.

Maybe I'm just pissed off without you, maybe my life's just off without you”….. Lost.

Angry

Just…off I go back over our text messages and hear your voice. You had your own octave. Even the arguments. Especially the arguments. All the times I conceded and let you win. I knew what you needed even in times of disagreements. That’s LOVE!

.

. A piece of me is gone and it’s hard to contend with. Before your death, I managed the ebbs and flows of grief. I put it on paper. I did a thing. I put Sugar In My Grits and transformed Grief to Gratitude. But this.. This… is just… emptiness. EMPTY - NESS With nothing to fill it. Some days I can step over the feelings. Other days I fall deep, deep into the abyss of nothingness. Deep. The abyss is long! And Wide! Crying has no sound. Only an unending stream of tears. So many tears, the sobbing takes my breath away. I can’t breathe. I verbally remind myself, “Breathe Mandy”. This is LOSS

.

. By the Grace of God one foot is tethered. Tethered to joy that pulls me out. Tethered to love that pulls me out. Tethered to the memories. Memories of the fierceness of your love and anger intertwined into the furrow of your thick brows. Or the curl of your lip when a smirk seeps out. We don’t smile. We smirk. Like we have a secret. The secret is our super power. The power to swallow…no gulp down grief and still move in love.

Always move in love.

God I don’t understand but I trust you as I maneuver in Love and Loss.

Stay tethered.

Mandy ❤️