Read Myself Back to Life

I had always had a voracious appetite for stacks of books, devouring them one by one. Not only was I a fast reader, I wasn’t a picky reader. I welcomed all genres. My eyes were bigger than my stomach as I’d carefully ring out my incredibly large portions of literature. The passion for new stories and characters to swirl around in my mind like noodles on a fork fueled me through otherwise dull, mandated curriculum. I couldn't wait for the moment I could escape into an imaginive smorgasbord and binge.

I never would have phathomed a time when I didn’t want to read, but it happened.

After my mother unexpectedly passed last year, I was left with a stack of her books that were simultaneously cigarette smoke infused and crinkled at the edges from the steam of her baths she would read them in. The titles leered at me from the corner where I stacked them, reminding me of the stories she’d never know the endings of.

I’d completely lost my appetite.

When I’d feel peckish, I would look for books in grief and loss. All the titles seemed so pithy and obvious. They all insinuated the suck of the moment but the need to push forward. I couldn’t even be bothered to read the synopsis of most of the titles. I then came across C.S Lewis’ A Grief Observed. This was more of where I was; an outsider of my own life that currently went from dawn to dusk, waning between being catatonic or complete riddled with anxiety.

He spoke of the loss of his wife in words that made complete sense. He said losing a loved one is like an amputation and I had felt the tentacles of my being being lopped off with every passing day. He said there is laziness in grief and it was enough to raise me from my unshowered permanence on the couch in agreement. He said his wife’s absence was like the sky and covered everything and I too felt blanketed yet, also under the crippling weight of being in my own body without her.

Before I could even ask myself if I was hungry for this content I had already taken it down and was dabbing crumbs with my fingers. Complete muscle memory and the heart kicked the brain into action without me interjecting. His tragically beautiful words spawned me little by little back to life; one that I was unwilling to live without my mom before. He met me were I was and let me sit in the painfully uncomfortable.

He fed my starving soul.

I’ve taken that lesson with me everyday since I first read A Grief Observed. I remember to meet myself where I am. Take the inventory. Do something, or sometimes, nothing. I meet people where they are too and often we are in very different places, but there is always room at the table for a good helping for when everything else just doesn’t sound appealing.