a few thoughts on loss, grief & a red jumper
When I was eleven, a classmate of mine was diagnosed with Leukemia.
I remember him getting very sick, very quickly. I also remember how he looked before. Bright complexion, scruffy head of sandy hair, with the same oversized red school jumper we all wore, a size or two too big - all our parents anticipating us growing into them over the next few years.
The cancer devastated his young body and his absences from school stretched on for weeks at a time.
During recess on one of his last days in attendance, I remember rummaging through my book bag while he was standing by his own. He looked over at me and quietly said “You guys just don’t know how lucky you all are”, gesturing to me and our classmates playing outside.
I found no words to reply to him with, we just looked at each other for a long moment. He appeared so much older than me, and resigned. I remember feeling very sad and very sorry, then I watched him walk away and join my classmates playing outside.
His words have echoed through me these twenty five years since.
He died later that year, the same month as his birthday. I’ve thought of him and his family on the 16th and 30th of that month every year since, and I often think about his red school jumper. How he never grew any bigger, got any taller, never had the chance to fill it out, or lose it to his parents dismay, like the rest of us did. I wonder if his Mum still has it, or if she gave it away, right away or years later.
& now I wonder if I’m the same age she was when he died.
I’ve been thinking about death and grief a lot lately.
I wake up from dreams where I’ve spent time with lost loved ones, feeling comforted, inspired, awestruck, devastated.
I’m often haunted by old text threads, marveling at how busy we considered ourselves, or cursing having not replied to an invitation for a last minute coffee date just a week before they died.
I’ve revisited decades old conversations, not in false hope I find a clue that if acted upon could have changed any outcome, but with deep desire to pinpoint a moment I may have been successful in demonstrating that they were very much loved.
In my thirty-six years, I’ve known two kinds of grief.
One, an abyss, an unimaginable expanse where everything good still exists but it’s much too far away to grab a hold of or really recognize properly. There are just echos and glimpses.
The second felt like a stone that had the capacity to unexpectedly change shape, size, texture and weight. One moment taking form in a million little pebbles that individually put pressure onto my heart, the next - big, misshapen, roughly textured, pushing against my lungs and stomach, ultimately turning my body entirely into stone.