Love, Grieve, Repeat (ePub)

Everyone You Love Will Die.

I know. It's not a great realization to be slapped in the face with. But it's true: every love ultimately ends in some sort of grief-either they die or you do, or someone decides to walk away. Not just lovers, but friends and coworkers and cousins and neighbors-all of them will eventually pass out of your life, in one way or another.

Grief is the cost of a love well-lived. And yet, I argue, healthy love is worth every damn tear grief will bring your way.

In late 2021, my mother received a devastating blow: colon cancer, stage IV. Too late for chemo or radiation to do much, my mother refused to accept or even acknowledge that she was dying-which she did, in January of 2022, just four months after her initial diagnosis.

Left without a mother at just 35 years old, I fell into a new and terrifying abyss, a grief I had never before encountered and wasn't prepared to face. In the coming months, I would burn bridges, give away all my fucks, and end up homeless and broken-again.

But what began as heart-wrenching sorrow soon developed into a revolutionary new lease on life. The grief of losing my mother shook me awake to my own mortality and ultimately became the rich, fertilized soil from which my new life-and new love-would grow and blossom.

In that year, I learned that grief is just love in widow's raiment, and the two feed and nurture one another, in an endless cycle of evolution and elevation, if we but have the courage to face our grief and open ourselves to new love.

"Love, Grieve, Repeat" is a collection of the poetry I wrote during that year as I worked through the pain of losing my mother, and the shocking experience of finally being ready for the sort of love I never imagined I'd find.