Grief.

Originally written in early 2022, shortly after my best friend died on Christmas Eve, 2021.

Hi. Format change again.

The internet told me I had to make longer headlines in order to find success, so today we're analyzing what grief looks like when it's no longer being anticipated.

It's here.

And it's weird.

Nothing is what I expected it to be.

Well, to be fair—I am feeling nothing.

I thought death would be more theatrical. I'm honestly disappointed. I wanted to sob and scream, but the time never came. Maybe it still can. For now, I'm sitting in a gnawing emptiness, watching as life goes on.

My life didn't stop like I expected it to. I managed to compartmentalize my grief as a type of trauma, putting it somewhere I could mostly ignore until I had time for it. I think that's due in part to my survival instinct—and my medication.

When Juno died, my entire world was shattered. I think I took it so much harder than my best friend's death because I saw Juno every day.

There was no doubt Morgan was suffering.

Having her move on Christmas Eve was almost like a demented gift: she no longer had to worry about what was happening to her body or watch herself deteriorate into someone unrecognizable.

That made it easier, too.

She wasn't herself.

During those years of anticipatory grief, I mourned every loss.

When the cancer came back.

When it rendered her body incapable of producing blood cells.

When the cancer spread from her hip bone to her lungs, her liver, and finally her brain.

Every step of the way, I researched her new diagnosis, her medications, her treatments. Maybe I could find something the doctors were missing. Maybe there was something we hadn't tried.

I held her hand when the doctors told her that her heart was failing.

Later, in the ICU, I held her hand as they ran dialysis on her kidneys and a machine breathed for her.

It still felt too soon, even though I had imagined it happening a hundred different ways.

I was angry that I felt so detached from her body on her deathbed, and later at her funeral.

I looked at her—empty and peaceful—and tried to memorize her face and everything cancer hadn't taken.

Her freckles, more pronounced than ever.

The longest eyelashes.

Her bent nose that she got from her dad's side.

She was so tiny, but they—the funeral home—hid that well.

It was the only thing they did her justice on.

She smelled like powder and antique perfume.

I've been writing to her when I've needed her most.

Letting Grief Speak

Morgan,

It's been 13 days.

I'm going to start a journal where I can talk to you and try to figure this out.

Everything happened so fast.

Two years went by way too fast.

There's so much I took for granted.

The last time I saw you in person, I wanted to stay forever. I should've called in. It didn't even matter that you were sort of out of it—tired, blurry eyes, raspy voice, withered body.

I literally started crying when they told you about the heart failure.

How is it that you had almost every major function in your body impaired? It's much easier to list what didn't have cancer.

The fact that you got cancer from a mutated gene...

You were born with a clear fate.

We all have an innate timer threatening our existence with every breath.

We wake up.

Cool.

We don't think about the fact that we're awake again.

It's so hard to feel gratitude in living when there's so much I know you won't see.

Maybe you can see it from above.

But if you're at such impeccable peace, would you even care?

I think I'm mad at you because you were so stubborn and irresponsible.

We never got the prognosis to be able to celebrate you beating another odd.

You wanted to be at home, but no one would just let you die. You were so selfish trying to defy the inevitable, and I feel robbed that I wasn't able to help you come to peace with it.

It was supposed to be my job to help take care of you.

You were my first attempt at being a death doula, and I failed completely because you left with no plans, no regard for the living.

Part of me doesn't blame you.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't change anything.

You're still rot.

Being my most significant loss, you've somehow managed to show me just how insignificant dying is.

It's another day that turns into a thread of connected days with no beginning or end. The chain is tethered by the unrelenting feeling of nothing.

Almost like being alive was an inconvenience.

It's boring.

It's hard.

I'm honestly starting to think that I dreamed you.

It's easiest to feel like you were never even here.

It's alarming how true it is—how we just disappear.

No texts.

Calls.

Posts.

I will never be able to touch you again.

No hugs.

No squishing your cheeks.

I'm sad because I feel like I should feel so much worse.

I'm not handling this at all like I expected.

I've had my moments, and they were great—the crying, you know—but I'm not sure I've truly grieved yet.

What even is grief?

I've been angry over your disorganized funeral and your family's denial.

I've been angry that some people haven't seemed sad enough.

I'm happy you got to experience love. I hope you truly did.

I just wish you could've had more.

I wish you went on your honeymoon.

I wish I knew everything from your perspective, so I could make sure you were actually as happy as you could be.

I'm struggling so hard not to compare my grief to other people's because I don't understand how something so painful and consuming can be so different from person to person.

It's bringing out the worst in me.

I have nothing to bargain about.

At least, no one to beg.

I just wish I could go back in time and convince you to get different treatments.

You could've gone to Texas.

You could've gotten second opinions.

Why was your pain never under control?

There's no justifying anything you went through.

You fought until the bitter end and still died.

It didn't matter how brave and inspiring you were.

It's too bittersweet.

The fact that you were so stubborn and strong is part of the reason you aren't here.

Why did you have to go on Christmas Eve?

That's really fucked up.

I didn't get to enjoy any of the days I had off.

I lost out on money.

I didn't get to see you awake again.

You literally didn't wake up.

You died on your own despite life support, and I'm happy you could do that. I'm happy there wasn't a technical choice.

But there were so many choices leading up to that point.

I'm worried about M because she's just like you.

She has the same gene.

I don't even have to tell you.

What if I lose M and T to cancer too?

What then?

I can't rebuild what I have with you guys.

Every time I think about the fact that you're literally dead, it's unreal.

It's not disbelief, exactly.

I'm not sure what to call it.

Maybe shock.

It hasn't settled.

I'm excited to help go through your stuff. I'm hoping I find things I forgot about. I hope whatever I have the honor of taking heals the Earthly side of me.

Spiritually, too.

I hope I can cry going through your jewelry, all the books you haven't read.

They say you can't take it with you.

But the things you leave behind can.

—

Every time I think about the fact that you're gone gone—like, not just on vacation, actually dead—it makes no sense.

I don't have the capacity to understand what that means.

A literal month before, we were doing stuff for my birthday.

I know you were having a hard time, but you've always made it.

You were so vibrant.

I can hear you laugh when I look at pictures of you.

So stylish.

So kind.

Morgan.

I literally cannot.

Today, I am mad at you.

You looked so fucking good just in May of 2021.

I wish I knew that would be your halfway point.

Seven months later, you'd be dead.

I think it's very practical that I would be writing to you in a novel-esque fashion, as per Moulin Rouge.

I think I want this to be it.

I want this to be the book I write.

I want to break people's hearts as much as you've broken mine.

The fact that you were middle-aged at 13.5 years and had no idea.

I hope you know how insane that is.

I was friends with you before you were middle-aged.

Half your life.

You don't see how much people have changed when you're in the moment.

We saw Cats last night.

People are calling M inspiring over the fact that she would've pushed you in a wheelchair to be able to see it.

That's hilarious to me.

I'm devastated that you didn't get to see it.

It was rescheduled because of COVID.

You could've seen it back in May, when you looked so, so good.

I miss you the most.

The last time you were good was when we went to Saugatuck.

And your legs looked absolutely nuts.

(I've decided to omit details to the audience by limiting descriptions—because I'm writing to you, and you know how you were in those moments in time. It's our secret.)

That was in August.

From May to August: so good.

From August to December: it was like dropping from the sky into hell.

It's almost been a month.

I'm writing to you because I had a nightmare today that I watched you die.

This time it was different.

We were out galavanting. We sat down to eat or rest, and next thing you know, your face contorted. Your eyes rolled back and you were having a seizure.

The rest is blurry, but I remember helping carry your body to burial.

You were suddenly so small—going from your normal, healthy self to all that remained.

I'm angry that you didn't let me help you plan.

Nobody can speak for you.

There's no “what Morgan wanted.”

What you wanted was to be cancer-free and not dying at 27.

I imagine you would think a scholarship fund for dancers in your name would be cool, but nobody can say it's what you wanted.

You didn't express a single want.

There's no point in people fighting over what's right and wrong when you wanted none of it.

I hope people can make peace while processing these huge emotions and come together instead of falling apart.

I miss you so much.

You were one of the few people—one of the only people—who put others first, always.

Even to the end, you didn't want people worrying.

You didn't complain.

You were just good.

Your advice.

Your love for me.

It was all honest and unconditional.

It's not fair.

A thousand times, it's not fair.

And now everything is so hard.

Work is hard.

Being a person is hard.

Not having the support I need from parents and other friends is hard.

People think they're being supportive, but then they just unload their problems on me. Almost always without fail.

I usually don't mind because I can handle a heavy load.

H has always been the martyr, but I'm something different. He can always keep going in the face of adversity, but he's been struggling too.

I've reached the point where I have nothing left to offer anyone.

I'm realizing this world doesn't care about being good.

It doesn't care about doing a good job.

There is no reward for bleeding yourself dry because eventually you're just a corpse and a memory.

It's indescribable how much I miss you because it's not even an active thought.

It's a wave that I'm struggling to stay above.

Every time someone asks what I need or if I'm fine, I just say yeah.

I'm not.

I'm obviously not.

But I have nothing to say.

Nothing can bring you back.

Your absence has become a cock-measuring competition for who is more sad, who is doing more to honor you.

People talk about other people's feelings like they understand them.

God has been mentioned more times than I've been comfortable with.

Having a relationship with God has nothing to do with your thoughts and actions.

That's literally how cults are formed.

M sent me a message today between her and her MIL.

It cut me so deeply because I don't have that mother figure.

I'm just trying to be honest and help, but I'm told to just leave it.

I don't know why that hurt me so much.

I'm angry that M doesn't just speak up for herself, or for you, for that matter.

It's been a month and I'm sinking.

I sleep and I work.

Tonight, on the way in, I cried.

It felt so good to talk to H about life right now.

About how nothing is okay.

I'm like an empty roly-poly.

Also,

the boy.

You would love him so much.

He's so soft and fat and good.

I love you.

I just remembered tomorrow is my nine-year anniversary.

Last year we got Red Lobster as a group and feasted.

Or maybe that was the July anniversary.

Either way.

Time continues on without you here with me.

I'm sorry.

I don't want you to miss a thing.