Day 67: You’re the weeds in my garden.

December’s actual white picket fence

Written by December Bowles

I broke down yesterday.  I cried sitting on a public sidewalk, like a toddler, in front of god & everybody. For you.

I mowed the front lawn.  I weed-wacked until the line broke, and then I blew the trimmings into oblivion.  I noticed the grass and weeds growing too far over the edge of part of the sidewalk, so I got down on my knees and started ripping them up by hand, thinking about how what I really wanted to do was rip the face off of the person that hurt you the most.  Then I thought about how ripping at weeds was a more productive and less… illegal use of my time.  Y’know, jail is bad and all that.

And then my husband came out to check on me, probably because I was literally yanking up hunks of lawn with my bare hands.  I looked up at him and his face immediately changed as he asked me what was wrong, and I said what I always say when he asks that:  “My brother died, and now everything is wrong.”

At the beginning of summer, I had started work on this year’s warm weather pet project: landscaping.  I have a gloriously cliché white picket fence in front of my house that sits before a 12 inch strip of grass that is the absolute bane of my existence.  For years, I’ve been wanting to rip out the grass and put in some low maintenance plants to eliminate the need for mowing, so this year, that’s exactly what I did.  I dug up my random mass of hostas and transplanted them.  I bought a few hostas of another variety and some beautiful coral bells.  I got a fair amount of grass ripped out of there.  I was off to such a great start.

And then you died.

And I spent my time grieving.

I cried on the couch.  I cried in my bed.  I cried in the car every time I had to leave the house.

I spent time with my kids just trying to stay present and grounded and not spiral.

I drove to North Carolina to clean out your house and rescue your dogs.

I brought your heart-and-soul-in-dog-form back home with me, the one who was the entire reason for our last conversation– “If anything ever happens to me…”

I counted all my lucky stars that she’d chosen me as her new person, while also cursing your name that she ever fucking had to.

Each day that passes, I continue to breathe.  I breathe and I grieve and I breathe, stumbling through this infinite cycle of just trying to exist in a world where you don’t.  There are moments when I’m okay, of course.  Moments where I’m at peace with just knowing that you are at peace, and not in any more pain.  And then there are the moments where I turn around to see a row of beautifully blooming hostas, absolutely overrun by weeds.  Nine weeks of weeds, to be exact.  A not so gentle reminder that while I had planned to be gardening, instead I was grieving.  Instead of this being the year I got my yard shit together, it was The Year My Brother Died.

So my husband asks if I’m okay, and I tell him that I’m not because everywhere I look, there is you.  It may not be your ghost staring at me through the window (but how cool would that be! And so creepy actually… I’m just kidding, please don’t do that), or a thing you left at my house, but there are still tangible reminders of my grief all around me.

You may not have planted my flowers, but you are the weeds in my garden.

You are this sweet dog, currently curled up next to me, even acknowledging my existence.

You are the breeze on my cheeks that reminds me you’re not here to enjoy it anymore.

You’re in all these small moments that whisper to me that you exist only in my heart now;  which is closer than North Carolina, but still so very far away.

You are the knowledge that a piece of my heart will always be messy, because a piece of my heart will always be grieving you.