the ordinary grief
losing someone is not always a big moment. sometimes it is a song coming on while i am alone, one we used to sing out loud during late-night drives. i still know the part where your voice would get louder. i still know the next line before it comes.
grief is knowing exactly how much sugar you put in your coffee. it is standing somewhere with a cup in my hand and remembering that you would add more than i ever could. the thought arrives before i ask for it. i do not even have to be looking for you. because you're not there.
yesterday i read the menu twice before i noticed what i was doing. there were prawns in the noodles. i had already begun looking for something else you could eat.
you hate leeks too. i remember the way you would find even the smallest piece and leave it at the edge of your plate. i know this without having to think.
i wish remembering you took more effort.
maybe that is the cruel part. the ordinary things do not understand that you left. the song still plays. coffee still gets made. menus still list prawn and leek as if i should be ready to tell someone, carefully, that you cannot have this and you will not like that.
i wonder what i am supposed to do with all this knowing. there is no place to put it down. i cannot return it to you because it no longer belongs in the same way. i cannot forget it on purpose either. forgetting would feel like pretending you were never here, and you were.
some days, the memories feel almost gentle. i can hear that song and think of the road, the late hour, the way we filled the car with noise because neither of us wanted the night to end. other days, i feel angry that my mind still makes space for you so easily. i resent how quickly a small thing can pull me backward.
it is strange to miss someone through details that seem so unimportant. nobody sees grief when i remember your coffee. nobody knows what happens inside me when i pass a restaurant and think about what you could eat. from the outside, i am only listening to a song or reading a menu. inside, i am carrying a version of you that keeps appearing in ordinary places.
i used to think memories would become less sharp with time. perhaps they do, in some ways. but the facts remain. they settle into my habits. they wait in the small pauses of my day.
nothing erased itself when you left.