WHAT IS AND ISN'T ON THE PAGE

I spilled it all. Wrote all the way through my greatest grief as though it was before me now, shimmering, not half a dozen years ago. Details tumbled onto the page: all the textures, sounds, words, sensations, people, movement, shadows, of those hours, all the way to the end, when I pulled up the zipper of the long dark bag and made a joke with the apologetic undertaker about the flimsy wire that had replaced the missing tab.

The shape of what I spilled was amorphous, like a pool in the street after rain, like a squashed caterpillar, like a bog at the bottom of a field. 

I'd been waiting to write this for a long time. I'd touched on bits and pieces of it, sure the bigger animal of its being was getting ready to show itself. And it did. 

I pushed and coaxed and nudged it into a form that was almost recognizable. Then I noticed what was missing: my mother, whose grief was without measure. 

Sometimes what isn't on the page is as telling as what is. I wrote as though she wasn't there. As though my grief was the only animal. An inconsolable beast.

It unleashed a whole new wilderness of grief.