Page 136 of The Warmth of Our Closest Star

Gratefulness doesn’t make it better; it simply makes it easier.

So, I choose gratefulness. I’ll deal with grief as it comes. Its less frequent visits have become less severe each time. Maybe one day it will decide to no longer stop at my door. Only time will tell. Only more living will tell. The trick is to want that life; to live.

Life is easier with purpose, meaning, and possibility.

When I’d walked into the house, going around to the backdoor, up the back steps, and into the kitchen, I found I could go no further. I sat down at the kitchen table, holding the bundle I’d carried all morning against my chest. I laid my plastic bag of cherries on the table.

The kitchen was warm and yellow from the sunbeams shining through the windows, bright enough that turning the lights on in the room was unnecessary. Our gloomy day in Minneapolis was burning away and the early spring sun was making itself known. As grief is to life, so is winter to spring, existing to give each other meaning.

Grief for my family was mostly a distant memory, since thinking of them as the days since my thirtieth birthday had passed by made me smile instead of sad. In the kitchen of my home—our home—I no longer felt like I was living with ghosts. I felt the ghosts were living with me. Hopefully, honored by the life I’d built from the rubble created by their loss. My home was their home, because, while moving on is the most important stage of grief that no one talks about, those ghosts would always be a part of my life.

I hope that, in some way, that had given their lives some meaning.

You can’t really give dead people much, but you can always offer your gratitude. And a little space in your memory and your home for them to occupy from time to time.

So that they never truly died.

Holding the bundle against my chest, thinking about my life in its entirety, those I’d lost, I knew for certain that I knew nothing. I was no closer to understanding life. I was uncertain if I’d decided on a perfect purpose, or if anything I’d done or would do had any meaning. But I knew that my life had held possibility, and possibilities laid out before me.

I’d learned to create something out of my life. Peter and I had created something together.

We’d keep creating together. And separately. Because even if you have someone to create with, it’s still rewarding to also have a little something of your own.

So, I pulled the bundle away from my chest gently and stared down at it, a broad smile stretching my face as the sun seemed to glow in the kitchen windows, chasing away the cold.

If you’re fortunate enough to live, maybe the most important thing you can do is to give life to something else.

I guess that’s the purest definition of “creation.”

Bundle of Joy

“When did you get home?” Peter’s voice woke me from my daydream.

Unknowingly, I’d closed my eyes and smiled as the sun from the window shone on my face, warming my skin as I sat at the table and held my little bundle. When Peter spoke, I slowly opened my eyes, my smile widening as our eyes met. He stared at me with a goofy, confused grin for a moment—the smile I could never get enough of—then looked at the bundle in my arms. Grinning, he made his way from the kitchen door to the table and sat down in the chair across from me.

Holding his arms out excitedly, he said: “Give it here. Let me have it. I’ve been waiting all day!”

Laughing, I felt frozen for a minute, but then managed to let go of the box I’d picked up at FedEx and slid it across the table to Peter. Having missed the delivery the day before, I’d been deflated. However, having a morning alone with the box, contemplating its contents had been good for my nerves. For the longest of seconds, Peter stared down at the plain, cardboard box with a single shipping label affixed to the top. Then he looked up at me, concern etched across his face.

“You haven’t opened it,” he said. “I don’t—”

“Open it,” I said.

“You really should,” he said, shaking his head.

“I’ve been too scared to,” I said.

“Scared?” He laughed. “Why would you be scared?”

I shrugged. “Do the honors?”

Sighing, Peter nodded and smiled.

“Only if you want me to?”

“Yes,” I said. “Please.”

He didn’t need any further prodding. Peter stared into my eyes as his fingers worked expertly to strip the tape from the box and pry back the top flaps. When the box was open, we took a collective deep breath, and he plunged his hands inside. Suddenly, Peter was smiling at me. His hands had found the object held within.