Death is a constant, a promise we can always count on to be fulfilled. We hear about death weekly, if not daily. But every once in a while, it strikes somewhere that sends tendrils to nearly every corner of the world. At this, I try to hide.
I cocoon myself in my home, with only myself, my phone, and my thoughts. Herein lies the problem– how do you protect yourself from that which lives in you? Unlock your phone and see people grieving the boy band member– wondering if things could’ve turned out differently for him– or sit with your thoughts and do the same about your dad. The choice is yours.
***
Grief. I thought I knew it. I really thought I did. But, like love, each time you experience it, you wonder if you actually had experienced it before. But now, it is all I know. It is my constant companion.
On November 8th, 2021, I called my dad from my new home in Boston to wish him a happy 55th birthday. He thanked me, before letting me know he was in the hospital and they had found spots on his pancreas. I knew immediately what this meant. He had prepped me years earlier, as we watched Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven with Michael Landon and Ghost with Patrick Swayze, that pancreatic was one of the last cancers you wanted to get.
And over the next few months, we spent the most special time together, clouded by the fact
that we both knew we had 1-2 years left together.
We weren’t that lucky. On January 30, 2022, less than three months later, my dad was taken from me.
I haven’t been the same since.
Grief stuns me with reminders of my dad everywhere. Every lottery ticket, every cup of black coffee, every mention of the New York Giants, every picture of Stonehenge is him. My grief and I have a confusing dynamic. It hurts me more than anything I’ve ever known, but I cherish it. Grief takes what’s ordinary and makes it special by relating it to Mike Guida.
My grief misses his unconditional love, but also forces me to give it back to myself. It reminds me that he wouldn’t want me to be unhappy and pleads with me to love myself enough to make changes.
It reminds me that with that love having nowhere to go, I should give it to myself. But it still hits so hard too, almost three years later. I still sometimes cry so hard I can’t catch my breath when I think or write about him. I still ache about what never will be. I still wonder if things could’ve turned out differently.
Death feels different now. I think I understand it less. I grieve my dad everyday, but it really does feel like he’s still here. It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long; how could it be if I feel his presence everyday and spend time with him in my dreams? How is it that something so permanent doesn’t feel that permanent at all?
Sometimes I feel like I’m just in the intermission, that the life I’m living now is just a placeholder until I see him again. I’ll tell him about the things that happened without him but ultimately, they’re minor compared to the life I had with him here. It’s one of the only ways I can make sense of it.
So I live my placeholder life and do what I can to enjoy it. I try my best to treat myself the way he would and try to consult his memory when I’m not sure where to turn.
And then someone else dies. In the news, in the media, in my friend of a friend’s circle. Then we all reckon with death. And, I try to hide.
My heart has had its fill of grief and continues to be at capacity for it. If I could, I’d adorn my heart with a neon “no vacancy” sign to keep more grief from squatting there. I try to shield myself from it where I can, but the truth is, I can’t. No one can. Grief finds everyone, at some point or another. And once it finds you, it won’t ever really leave. Like ringworm.
With death being our one promise, I know logically grief must have found most of us. It must be endemic, lying just beneath the surface, buttoned up beneath social niceties. It must be, but I’m not sure how. How do we all, having lost something so important to us, continue on in spite of that? How are we not all ripping our hair out, trying to find a way to make life tolerable until we live our 80+ years (if we’re lucky) and can get back to them?
***
Though I know better, I scroll endlessly through people talking about the most recent death, trying to make sense of it, trying to find something that makes me feel just “right.” Nothing will. Nothing ever could.
essays from boston 
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