Category: Shared Reflections

The plate I dropped on the kitchen floor bounced and spun with a wobbly sound, slowed and came to a standstill.

Then a flash of memory — a breakfast table from my past — morning sunlight coming through the window, a table set for two, coffee cups, plates, silverware, napkins. The coffee was fresh, hot, and steaming. One cup was untouched.

This is my ninth season since her passing into the forever. And still, something as simple as dropping a plate in the present can bring all of that back.

I can write about it now and even talk about it if someone asks. That wasn’t always the case. It took me years to get to this point. For you, it might take less time, or more time, or happen in a different way.

The changes I’ve gone through over these years, I’ve tried to put into words — not to explain grief and loss — but to share with you what it has felt like as I’ve moved through it.

And if, in reading this, something touches you from your experience of grief and loss, then maybe this helps in a small way — just knowing that someone else has felt it too.

Permit me to share with you a part of my poem titled, The Physicality of Grief:

From darkness
comes the morning sun,
through kitchen shade,
to kitchen table.

Two chairs wait,
one filled with warmth,
one cold and empty.

Coffee brews.
Two cups filled,
steam rising,
one untouched.