On June 9, 2021, my 19-year-old daughter Kamila died suddenly at Queen's University. We were deeply close. It was a monumental loss that felt impossible to endure.
​
Nothing made sense after that. I was in a dark new territory I knew nothing about. Out of Order is where I try to speak from inside that hole made by grief. To name what it’s like to keep living, when everything you expected was ripped from your life.
The Thing Is
BY ELLEN BASS
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.
Recent Posts
