Grieving One Death on the Grave of Another

The often unspoken things we do to navigate the intolerable.

My wife reposted this picture of our girls the other day.

She took it five years before Chloe died.

Yesterday, I found myself staring into Chloe’s eyes, trying to unravel what was in her head, heart and soul.

And wrestling to accept that I’ll never know more than I know right now.

Throughout the day I felt intense physical and emotional pressure building. It felt like my body was ready to explode.

By the time the afternoon rolled around, I knew I had to get out of the house. Anything to try to escape the inescapable.

The urge to get stoned out of my fucking mind was powerfully tempting.

I decided to drive to Cindy (my first wife’s) grave about an hour away.

When I got there, I laid on the grass over her grave and stared at the sky.

I found it very peaceful…for about five minutes.

I left when I started to get creeped out that her mummified corpse was only a few feet directly underneath me, staring up at me.

Afterwards, I sat in my car reflecting on the twists and turns our lives can take.

And that somehow the least unbearable way to cope with my daughter’s death was to drive an hour to lie on my dead wife’s grave.

This is one of the many reasons I write about grief for men, and the people who love them. ♥️