Whoever came up with the idea that grief is composed of five stages is full of shit. Grieving doesn’t come in stages, with a finite resolution. Grief is a cyclical, torturous process.
Grief shows up at your front door when you least expect him. After you’ve been going about your life as normal as you can, grief shows up one day to remind you of a little moment lost in time.
Most days, you’re absolutely fine. You don’t even think about him that much anymore.
Most of the time you forget he’s even dead.
Then one night you have a dream so vivid, so graphic, you could have sworn it was real. You swear he was there, right in front of you.
Then you wake up.
Grief, you vicious bastard.
We were very similar, more than you probably noticed. I knew what it was like for you, to have people love you for your care-free spirit, your infectious personality, then go home and feel like fraud. If only they knew that at home, in the presence of only yourself and the demons that accompany you, you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders; as much as you want to take it off, you’d rather carry it than hand it to someone else.
I still know what that’s like.
I wish I could tell you what it’s like when it gets better.
We used to take turns talking each other off the ledge, phone calls lasting until the early morning hours, struggling to speak through stifled sobs. You needed me as much as I needed you. I wish I could have been there the last time you needed me.
And when I think about it for too long, I’m reminded how easily it could have been me instead of you.
When I think about the last time you texted me, I want to scream. I dismissed you, I was tired of the games you kept playing with my head. I told myself I couldn’t do it anymore.
I was done.
But so were you.
I didn’t cry when I got the news.
You know me, I’ve never been much of a crier. My friends thought it was shock, or maybe denial. I think it was because I was expecting it.
For me, getting that text was never a matter of “if”. Just “when”.
I didn’t cry as I watched friends of ours post photos of you. I actually found it ironic how so many people who hadn’t seen you since graduation made it their place to talk about how much you had affected them. I am in no place to pass judgement, but it didn’t make sense to me.
I didn’t cry at the wake. I held one of our closest friends while tears streamed down her face, I hugged another friend while she read the notes people wrote for you. I gave hand squeezes and knowing glances as needed, but I still couldn’t cry. Grief came knocking, but I knew my energy was better placed giving hugs and handing out tissues than using them myself.
I didn’t cry for months. Grief left me alone for a while, but tailed me at a distance, allowing me to go about my life.
Until your twenty-first birthday.
A day that I was looking forward to spending with you, I was alone, leaving plenty of room for grief to creep in and take your place. I went to the bar that night with the intent of drinking for two. Grief followed me there, then he dragged me down the floor where I cried for the first time since I found out that you were gone.
Grief, you ruthless son of a bitch.
I remember the last time I saw you. It’s been years, but I remember that night down to the last detail. Before you left, I told you I wouldn’t see you again for a while, but you seemed okay with that.
“You might not, but you’re going to leave again soon and you’re going to have an amazing life. You deserve it.”
The last thing you told me was that you loved me.
I’m still not sure if you meant it.
You got into your shitty Pontiac and I felt my stomach sink. As I watched you drive away, I remember thinking,
“I’m never going to see him again.”
All these years later, I found out that I was right.
I wish I could tell you that I finally moved away from home,
that the freedom is everything I had hoped it would be.
I wish I could tell you that I forgave my dad,
that I finally got the relationship with him that I wanted.
I wish I could tell you what it’s like on the other side of rock bottom,
that the way back up is worth staying for.
I wish I could tell you that writing this now feels like I’m eating cotton balls by the handful,
like I haven’t taken a breath in nearly an hour.
I wish I could tell you I’m sorry that I never came back to see you,
going back there was hard enough. It wasn’t personal.
I don’t miss you,
but there’s a part of me that wishes I could have saved you from yourself.
There is no instruction manual for grieving someone who you’re still not sure how you feel about.
When someone you love passes away, it tears you apart, leaving you in shambles. When someone you don’t care about passes away, it doesn’t typically bother you that much, it’s just a thing that happened to a person.
But my therapist’s office doesn’t have a pamphlet for how to grieve someone you knew really well, didn’t quite love, sometimes hated, but cared for so deeply.
Unfortunately, I’ve found that you grieve quite similarly to grieving someone you loved. You’re not quite in shambles, but you’re not the same as you were before it happened.
There were times where you treated me like shit, used me until you got what you wanted, led me on, pushed me around, played with my heart like it was a game. And I hate you for it.
But you understood me. You got me out of the house when I couldn’t handle being at home. You spent so much time getting to know me, giving me someone to talk to about whatever I needed. You drove me home countless times and you stayed in my driveway until you were sure I was ready to get out of the car.
It feels weird to grieve someone who was so widely hated, who I often hated myself.
But I don’t miss you,
I just wish you weren’t dead.
Grief comes and goes as he pleases, unapologetically interrupting your routine.
One day, you could be driving down the highway without a second thought. Then you hear a Russ song come on the radio, and you’re reminded that the concert you were supposed to go to together is never going to happen.
Grief, you cruel, unrelenting motherfucker.
Remember to tell them you love them.
Love always,
Kristin
love always, kristin 
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