by Maria Kubitz
We’ve all heard it.
“Time heals all wounds.”
Sounds incredibly hopeful for someone who’s drowning in grief. Except when time doesn’t heal your wound.
What is the numerical value of grief?
Later this year will mark eight years since my 4-year-old daughter, Margareta, died. She died exactly 29 days after her fourth birthday. That means we had 1,489 glorious days to spend with her — the only daughter in a family full of boys.
One of my grandmothers died last year at the age of 98. My other grandmother is in her 90s. Based on those genes, I can probably expect to live until close to a century old. If that is true, Margareta will have been alive for about 4% of my life.
4%. 0.04. A small fraction by most measurements. A blip in my overall life. Except that she’s anything but.
Coming up on eight years since her death, she will have been gone twice as long as she lived. The small details of her life are already being lost to time. And yet I still think of her every day, multiple times a day. This isn’t a bad thing. Every time I think of her is an opportunity to celebrate the love between us.
But lying just under the surface of my day-to-day life is the endless pain that surrounds the memories of my daughter. Anything can trigger it. My chest tightens. My breathing pauses. The tears begin to well up behind my eyes. Read More...
|