Ebbs & Flows

“Grief is not carried by one heart alone. It ripples through every life that love has touched.”

The shock and numbness set in.

I remember the secretary hugging me as I sobbed uncontrollably. I was excused from all my classes for the day. I sat at her desk, lost in my own numbness.

At one point, I overheard one of our professors on the phone saying, “I believe it was suicide.”

What?! No… he would never. We had plans and dreams. He would never do that to the kids. My mind screamed. I felt a surge of anger at the judgment. No one knew him like I did. How could they even contemplate that a young, healthy, vivacious man would do something like that?

Most of the History classes were canceled for the next few days as the department mourned one of its own.

I was on autopilot for several days. Denial and guilt wrecked my mind and heart. I don’t remember leaving the university, getting home, or even seeing my children.

In the days that followed, the world around me felt distant and unreal. I moved through life in a fog of shock and grief, barely aware of the hours passing or the people around me.

But grief does not belong to just one person. It spreads quietly through the lives of everyone who loved them. While I was trying to understand a loss that shattered my heart, my children were also trying to make sense of a world that had suddenly changed.

My daughter experienced those days very differently than I did. Where my memories are blurred by shock and sorrow, hers hold the perspective of a child watching it all unfold.

This part of the story belongs to her.

Grief does not belong to just one person. It ripples through everyone who loved them—even the smallest hearts. My daughter was only nine years old when Paul died. This is her memory of that day.

A Letter to Heaven

It was a normal day, nothing special. There was no cosmic shift, no sign—it was a regular day. I got off the school bus with my older cousin and little brother like I did every school day. I remember the stillness when we walked through the door of my grandparents’ home and the quietness that was abnormal to that house. I remember the sadness on my grandmother’s and aunt’s faces as they took my brother and me into the bathroom to privately tell us what had happened. The tears were gentle. I knew what death was, but other than the loss of pets, grief was new to me, and it was strange.

Things were somber, but normalcy was still there. I still got sat down at the kitchen table to do my homework, but I couldn’t do it. Grief and focus don’t blend well, especially in tiny packages. Instead, I pulled out a sheet of notebook paper and talked to someone I knew had all the answers—someone who would take care of Paul. God answered prayers, so I thought maybe He’d answer a letter too. Being the granddaughter of a pastor who spent every Sunday in a pew, I knew who to lean on.

I wrote my little heart out, asking for comfort for all of Paul’s friends and family, asking God to forgive Paul’s sins and to please let him into heaven. I knew how sad my mom would be, so I knew Paul’s mom must be really sad too, and she deserved to have this letter—to know that Jesus loved her son as much as she did. That letter was copied by my ever-proud pastor grandfather to be published in the local newspaper, and then sent to the funeral with my mother to be given to Mr. and Mrs. Reid.

I remember crying in class the next day because I got in trouble for not finishing my homework, but I don’t remember much else that followed. My mother came home from the funeral with a red carnation, and after reading my letter, I was gifted a stuffed raccoon. This raccoon became a link for me; it kept him alive in my heart.

Currently, that little raccoon is sitting on top of my grandfather’s Bible next to my TV. It’s no longer accompanied by the faint smell of cologne, but every once in a while that nine-year-old girl still needs to hug him and know that her feelings for a father she desperately wanted were real and valid.

My mother’s grief overwhelmed her, and it was scary for two little kids to watch. I didn’t know that someone could be so sad until I watched it happen, and it was a heartbreaking lesson to learn. I tried to be a comforter in the only ways I knew how, and I tried to take care of my brother too. I realize now that she was still so young when this happened to her, and I cannot imagine the devastation of losing the person you’re in love with in such a horrific way, so young, while trying to take care of two children. She made it when I don’t think many could have in her shoes, and she will forever have my admiration for that.

Paul’s death taught me a lot about life and death—about sorrow and grief. To this day, I see death as a universal truth that connects everyone, and that’s why I use it in my creative works. His story didn’t end; it kept going through those who knew him. I used my grief as expression and eventually turned my experience into a short film. I carry his memory as a tattoo near my heart, his initial inside of a minimalist raccoon. He’s not gone, and he’ll never be forgotten.

Paul Douglas Reid, thank you for being the father figure I needed and loving my mama for exactly who she was. I wish I could have seen you at every ballet recital, football game, band concert, and graduation. I wish I could have gotten the chance to call you old man and make fun of you when you complained about back and knee pain. I’m nearly a decade older now than you were when you passed, but you never stopped being someone I saw as a dad. I love you, Paul—everything that you were and should have been.