Sam P. Grafton

Grief and Time

/ Lisa / 8 Comments

This month Sam Grafton’s family will mark his 30th birthday. Three years have passed since he left us.

Three years. That’s such a strange thing to wrap my head around. In some ways it was just yesterday when the call came, and in other ways it’s been an eternity since his family’s world was shattered into billions of bright, sharp points of heartbreak.

In some ways it was just last week that he was a baby rocked in the arms of a friend at the edge of the river.

It was just yesterday that he sat on his mom’s lap and turned his face from me when I was trying to practice doing an evaluation on a toddler.

It was just a few minutes ago when my husband took him in a raft down the Wenatchee River. It was just an hour ago that he and I talked about the test for his driver’s license.

How does life go by so fast? Everyone tells you to treasure the time you have, but we of course don’t. We get caught up in day-to-day work and chores and responsibilities. We get impatient and frustrated and irritable…and then the time is gone. And then the person is gone.

It takes conscious effort to slow down and remember to value those around us. And in the meantime, the whirlwind of time flies by.

Three years.

Compared to life on this planet, that’s not even a miniscule particle.

Compared to being without someone, it’s an eternity.

So.

1,095 days without Sam in our lives. 26,280 hours since all those tiny candle flames lit up the bridge over the river so his spirit could find his way home in the mountain dark.

I wish I could shape time for those I love, those he left behind. Speed it up or slow it down, or simply ease its passage. But like the river that took Sam, time keeps just flowing around us and we are powerless in its current.

For his mother, who swims those currents, I hope that river holds you in its flow and that you find beauty in its depths and healing in its passage.

Wherever you are, Sam, it’s the time we mark your birth, your arrival into our lives. No matter how much time passes, we are grateful for the years the universe granted us, and I’m sorry we took that time for granted.

I wanted to hug you, Sam, that last day I saw you, but I was afraid of embarrassing you in front of your friends. I will always regret that decision, no matter how much time passes.

From a Mother

/ Lisa / 11 Comments

There has been such an overwhelming response to my earlier post about grieving, and so many kind comments. Buried in those comments are the words of a grieving mother. Rather than leaving her there, unseen, I wanted to share with all of you what I hope others need to hear. Please pause for a moment and listen to my dearest friend and Sam’s mother.

‘For the past month I have been feeling the anxiety building as the first anniversary of Sam’s death approaches. I cry more easily. I imagine his death with a depth that makes me uncomfortable. I find that all of the ways I have carefully kept myself insulated from the deepest pain associated with his death are less effective now, this too seems part of the process of accepting that he is well and truly gone from the world.

His spirit has been a strongly motivating force this past year. I have pondered my reason for being, made drastic life changes (one of those things that you’re not supposed to do, sorry but it’s been really good for me, I am financially poorer but richer in all other ways) and am trying hard to leave some good in my neck of the world.

I have also been making some art, which is far more therapeutic than I ever knew. I’m carving lino blocks for printmaking, most recently one with his kayak, one that says ‘for Sam’ which I will put under the other blocks I have made that say ‘shine’ and ‘love’.

I made some prayer flags and will block print them and those who attend the one year anniversary get together can write messages and then the flags will hang around his kayak. His dad and I have plans to go to the rapids where he died and hang some there as well. It’s a difficult place to get to, by land, by water and also emotionally.

I thank you so much Lisa for continuing the conversation about the grief associated with his death. For saying his name, for not letting this whole thing slip into the past. My biggest fear is the erasure of time and as long as I live I have to keep him here close by.’

As she says here, we say his name lest we forget. We say his name in order to allow others to grieve with us. For all of those grieving, never be afraid to speak their names, or to speak up about what you need as you grieve. There are many on that path with you who will understand.

Hair and Loss

/ Lisa / 7 Comments

Warning: language

I’m losing a lot of hair. I mean, a lot. Way more than seasonal. The last couple weeks, when I brush my hair, there’s enough to over-fill my hand. Enough you can’t see the brush. During the day I can run my fingers through my hair and come out with handfuls. I find hair everywhere.

Our cat caught a dragonfly and stored it in the bathroom. It might have survived, there on the mat, if not for the hair wrapped around it. I tried for several minutes to unwind my hair from the dragonfly, feeling oddly teary.

So I did what anyone would do and went to the internet. Two things immediately came up.

Extreme hair loss several months after an emotional shock or trauma.

Health reasons such as something going on with the thyroid.

I decided to call the doctor and get my thyroid tested, because, after all, that first reason didn’t apply to me.

And then, one word. One punch to the gut. One breathless, all-encompassing weight on the heart.

Sam.

Eight months ago a lot of people went through an emotional shock.

The world lost a world-class kayaker.

A community lost a member.

Parents lost a child.

A brother was lost.

A friend was lost.

Last week someone posted a video of Sam on Facebook. He was being interviewed prior to kayaking a river in Kyrgyzstan. He was serious and focused. But right before the camera moved on, he smiled that famous Sam grin. I watched the video in sadness, but that unexpected grin for those few seconds made it all raw again.

So I’m losing hair and now I’m mad at myself. What right does my body, my soul, have, to claim emotional trauma or loss that makes your hair fall out?

I wasn’t his mother.

I wasn’t his sibling.

They’re the ones who wear that soul-deep grief. They’re the ones whose hearts will never fully heal. I actually thought to myself, you don’t have the right to that kind of grief.

How messed up is that?

But I do have the right to grieve. I do have the right to mourn. I do have the right to sit here crying as I type these words.

I have the right to go completely fucking bald if that’s what my heart needs.

I’m going to make a doctor appointment just in case. Probably. Maybe.

But I’m willing to bet those tests will all come out fine.

Because I’m losing hair from loss.

Because eight months later, nothing has changed.

Because Sam is still gone.