A Soft Place To Land

When hard times require soft spaces.

There are things no one can tell you about losing a parent.

Not emotionally; logistically. The world does not care if you’re grieving; arrangements must be made. File for a death certificate. Pick a funeral home. Choose a casket. Write a eulogy.

I have given more eulogies than anyone I know.

What dress would Mom want to be buried in? How would she like her hair styled for the wake? Burial plot or cremation? Set your emotional turmoil aside and design a funeral program.

I hadn’t even bothered opening the garment bag that held the new bespoke suit I’d bought. The morning of the funeral, I finally unzipped it. They’d given me two left shoes.

I can pull off a lot of things; I can’t pull off two left feet.

---

My partner at the time had to get clearance from her doctor to get on a plane. She’d just had gallbladder surgery and flew cross-country to be by my side. A doctor herself, she knew the real risk of blood clots due to changes in cabin pressure.

I remember kneeling in front of her, kissing her scar.

I remember her calling big spoon, all 5’4” of her wrapped around me like a beautiful Brown backpack. It was the first time, maybe the only time, I felt permission to experience my own emotions. The one time I didn’t have to be that guy, the strong one, responsible for all the things.

I bawled like a child. It was the first time—maybe the last time—I truly felt safe.

---

Mom’s eldest son texted me the morning of her funeral to let me know he would not be attending. I told him to go to hell. Those are the last words we’ve exchanged. I don’t expect that to change in this lifetime.

Mom always said, “If I’m not good enough to bring flowers when I’m alive, don’t bother leaving them on my grave. If you can’t say it to my face,” she’d say, “don’t unburden yourself over my dead body. Take your regrets to your own grave, don’t leave them at mine.”

This might be why at every funeral someone feels compelled to tell me it’s not the time or place to punch someone in the face.

I strongly disagree.
I don’t know when I’ll see them next.

I shouldn’t have been surprised the adult children who abdicated caring for Mom in life showed equal disregard in death. Five children. Nine grandchildren. All adults. Everything left to me. The oversight. The details. The expense.

“It be your own people” hits different when those people share blood.

---

Fortunately, my people aren’t limited to those with whom I share DNA. Friends showed. Extended (if not immediate) family showed. I played my usual role of the Rock. Shit that needed to get done, got done. I held it together for everyone.

My partner let me come undone.

The hardest times need the softest places to land. It’s four years later, and the world still gives not one single fuck about your grief. Life be life’ing at a speed of 240 WTFs per minute, entirely disrespectful of personal trauma.

I still can’t pull off two left shoes and no place I can fall apart.

Whatever your day holds, whatever this crazy year holds, I wish you at least one soft place to land. One human, one place, one fur baby. A shower floor where you don’t have to be impressive, articulate, or strong.

Where your job description is “alive” and that’s it.

If all you manage some days is to feed yourself, take your meds, and not slap the living shit out of someone? That counts. If your soft place is a friend’s couch, mindless TV, or a car parked under a streetlight? That counts.

Arms (maybe even legs) wrapped around your body? Winning.

Not everyone gets a big spoon who flies cross-country against medical advice. Not everyone gets friends who show up in black suits and handle the catering. If you do, treasure them. If you don’t, you are still allowed to be soft somewhere, even if the only place that feels safe is behind a locked bathroom door.

The world will not make time for your grief. Steal it.

You don’t owe anyone stoicism. You don’t owe anyone composure. You don’t owe your dead a performance of invincibility. The people who loved you while they were alive wanted you alive, not armored.

If you are carrying some impossible weight today—planning a funeral, cleaning out a house, trying to remember what a loved one’s voice sounds like—I wish you somewhere you don’t have to be.

A lap. A couch. A bed. A bath. A dog. A friend. Yourself.
A soft place to land, when life insists on being hard.

Because at the end of the day it’s not who you can hold, it’s who can hold you.