Nine years ago tomorrow, my son Alex died & every August 6th became the eternal last day. I hadn’t found those words until now. The day before everything changed. The last day of “before.”
This is a poem I wrote when I woke today—rising from the weight—where memory meets survival.
Most days, I carry grief with grace. My soul is expanded. Alex is always with me. I now do work I never would've chosen—but know is the deepest calling of my life: walking with other grievers thru the wilderness of loss.
But this day—& the one that follows—is different. The duality sharper. The air heavier. So I write. I speak. I survive—how I need. I hope that for you.
The Eternal Last Day
the eve that always remembers
I awoke this morning heavy—
Heavy like an unrelenting fog,
where nothing beyond the fade is seen.
Heavy like the sadness that lives in my soul,
a constant very best worst companion—never-ever leaving my side.
Familiar is this painful comfort.
I awoke this morning
with the wish to end all wishing—
to erase tomorrow
from ever entering,
oh those years ago.
A wish flung—hurled—into the blackness of a bottomless well.
I awoke with tears at the ready—
ready to carry the unimaginable
back down my face,
on a well-carved path to my heart.
One more day
in this year—before another year is marked.
One more day
in the rest of mine.
To be permanently heavy.
To over-wish an impossible wish.
To forever exist in the unimaginable.
To wander with certainty through the wilderness
of an enlightened soul.
A harsh reality no one sees.
The impossible undoing of today.
To survive again today—
& in the changeless worse, the unnamed tomorrow.
To just survive.
Lighter… hopeful… bearable—
I know they must still live
on the other side of this dripping fog—
thick as sorrow, damp with memory,
and yet just as deafeningly silent.
A breath. An echo?
Relief? Promise?
Dreams?
No. Yet—perhaps.
And somehow still—impossibly believable they’ll return.
Just not this morning.
Just not on this eternal last day.
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Grief isn’t all I am, but it will always be part of me. On days like this, it takes the lead. If you’re on your own eternal last day, please know: there’s no one way to survive. Say no. Be still. Binge TV. Garden. Cry. Create. You’re not alone. I’m here. Alex is here. And this podcast, this community—it exists because connection always matters. Just survive. We’ll carry the rest, together. —Melissa 💜
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