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They say grief is a tangible thing — that it dances in your steps and clings to your shoulders like a well-worn jacket.
They also say grief expresses itself in many forms, like putting a favorite flower on a grave, or listening to a certain song at dusk; noticing a lingering tightness in your mother's smile after she walks by a table, and sees car keys lying abandoned on the surface.
You don't know what grief is. You’re only ten. You don't really understand the depth of what it means to tell someone you love them, yet — you don't even know how to start telling them goodbye.
But sometimes, when you're tired, and you feel lost, you go into his room and listen; and you can almost hear his laugh, echoed in the corners of the ceiling from years ago, when you were six crawled underneath his covers, asking for a story. You remember the shatter in his smile when he came into his room after another fight with Dad when you were twelve, not expecting to find you there; and you remember the pain in his voice, young and eighteen, the weight of the world on his shoulders as he told you he was leaving you behind.
You don't think you ever forgave him for that. For leaving, and not taking you with him — he was your world, your brother, your friend, the one who gave you hugs, and had all the solutions, and bought you ice cream after you flipped your first car.
But now you're fifteen, and standing in the winner's circle, lights flashing and the purr of an engine still humming under your fingertips as your eyes scan the crowd, looking for a face you know you won't see; and you feel the vestiges of his ghost settle themselves onto your shoulders.
You think maybe now, you understand.
Grief is not the absence of pain, but rather the manifestation of it; and you've been running nonstop these last three years. That makes you stop and wonder, thinking that if you don't acknowledge this now, you'll never get another chance.
Is your grief is chasing his shadow endlessly, refusing to catch up? Because you are burdened with the knowledge that once you do, he will never come home?