One night when I was quite young, my Aunt was driving me home after we’d spent the weekend together.

“I’m sorry we have to take the long way, sweetie, but it’s important that I drive through this intersection,” she said.

You see, a few months prior,
she had been in a car accident.

And since the accident, she would go out of her way to drive through that same intersection.

It was her way of dismantling her fear; of reclaiming agency over the trauma she had been through.

On Sunday I went snowshoeing.
Before this, the last time I went snowshoeing
was almost two years ago. It was also,
The last time I saw my Sister.

For two years,
I’ve avoided a lot of things.
Places. Activities. Sounds. Smells.
Not because I’ve chosen to.
But because I couldn’t muster the energy
To find a way to face them.
To wake up and say,
“I’m ready for this hurt today”

But, here I was this past Sunday.
Trying to re-write the narrative.
Trying to find a way to laugh
while doing one of the activities
that oh so dearly makes me want to cry.

Sometimes that’s all we can ask for.
A moment where we’re ready to try.

---

Continue Reading My Collection of Grief Reflections:

1. Surviving The Loss of Sisterhood
2. (SOMETIMES) | Our Matching Tattoos
3. I Wear My Dead Sister’s Clothes
4. My Cherry Blossom
5. Dear Autumn
6. Behind The Scenes
7. What Are You Thankful For
8. Little Women
9. Our Last Day Together
10. Scrabble On The Psychiatric Ward
11. What’s Harder? Death Days Or Birth Days?
12. Rebuilding Trust With The World
13. Christmas Eve
14. Maddie, I Wish I Could Run Like You
15. All We Can Do Is Try
16. What To Say To Someone Who Is Grieving

Read my Sister’s observations, reflections, and poetry:

1. Two Belugas, Two Blue Guys
2. I am not a sculpture, I am a garden