Tripping over the Voids

Dear Reader,

I noticed when Michael Distaso died. Death is not the five stages of grieving, neither like a program nor even like the authors of that model meant it, as five fluctuating states, strange attractors for the force of loss.

Every death is different. Different feelings felt differently, different holes in our lives found at different times in different places. Shakti's death was a slap; I wept and sobbed and staggered, felt the full force at once, fell apart and fell over every day for a long time, only a little less day by day. Morgana's death is a creeping numbing, a slow, soft fading of strength from many little places throughout my day; I cried hard while I held her on Monday before she died that night, but since then I have been empty-quiet inside.

We are not individuals but communities. We are all Swiss, full of holes filled with one another. When one of us dies, the rest of us find ourselves full of confusing holes. Where we thought we were ourselves, we find we were someone else now gone. Where we thought our day was a whole, we find holes instead. We turn to look at our life but find an empty room instead.

But then Rashid gallops down the stairs like a maniac, lands facing me, stands stock still, wide green eyes like surprise, a pause, Meeps! once decisively, then turns and tears back up the stairs.

What the Hell was that? Which stage of grieving is this supposed to be?

Yours truly,
Rick