Memorial Day

“Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be...” -Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche

Memorial Day hasn’t been the same since my mother’s death years ago during this U.S. holiday that honors the death of those whom served in the U.S. military. My mother wasn’t a veteran or member of the armed services but she was a warrior. She held a quiet kind of strength that was far from boastful but deliberately loving. With her gaze, she could manifest all that was truthful and encourage the very best from those around her. With armor full of love, there wasn’t a battle that she was afraid of and dared to be tested with a wide-eyed glare. She was a soldier. She was my soldier. When she left this earth, I have felt the permanency of loss since that Memorial Day years ago.

In new book release, “Notes On Grief”, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche offers a gift this Memorial Day. In “Notes On Grief”, she finds the words, following the loss of her own father, that many of us grieving souls struggle to articulate during the wake of our grief and each tearful moment that follow throughout our lifetime. Yes, there is no end to our mourning just an acceptance and adjustment to the pain of loss. “Grief is not gauzy; it is substantial, oppressive, a thing opaque. The weight is heaviest in the mornings, post-sleep: a laden heart, a stubborn reality that refuses to budge. I will never see my father again. Never again” (Adiche, 2021). Adiche says it well as she describes her journey with grief. “You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language”, she profoundly states in new book. Adiche’s quest to find and share the painstaking language is well achieved in “Notes Of Grief” and I’m grateful that it came in time for Memorial Day.