In a Time of Mourning, Grief Stories Are a Lifeline
The comfort found in reading about loss will never replace the need to be in community with grievers.
Editor's note: We had a little scheduling disruption this week, so we're reprinting this classic from the Catapult archives. Enjoy, and thank you for your understanding!
When I was very young and we were still living in Elk, in the red farmhouse in the meadow surrounded by trees, my father got a letter in a flimsy envelope, addressed in thick pencil that had blurred on its transit from Berlin. He read it carefully, turned it over and read it again, and then he went outside and picked up the axe and chopped down an apple tree and meticulously tore the branches apart, sending leaves and bark everywhere, scourging his skin and leaving red, seeping welts. He left the fallen branches in a pile in the orchard and walked back into the house, poured himself a glass of water, and drank it, slamming it down on the counter when he was done.
No one spoke of it, and the branches slowly rotted into the earth, turning into a tumbled, weed-covered pile where once an apple tree had stood.
In 2017, I went outside and tore out the blackberries slowly eating my yard, a massive decades-long growth that towered over my head and sprawled like the thorns around Sleeping Beauty’s castle. Day after day in the summer heat, I hacked away, sweat dripping down my back, streaks of dirt in my hairline. My arms were shredded and, despite sunscreen, my skin turned red and flaky. After a while, the neighbors stopped waving when they walked by.