What can be imagined, I wanted to say is like what can be put into words. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions—it doesn't matter how many of them come together, they fall short together. I could imagine Nikolai arriving five minutes earlier than his brother, recounting the day while popping a cashew into his mouth now and then. I could imagine the confusion of our dog when I was unpacking, and he was sniffing boxes with Nikolai's board games and books and a set of tools for making oboe reeds. Do you remember him, I had wanted to ask the dog, you, who have known him all your life? I could imagine rewinding life so I would again be making Nikolai's favorite dishes and watching him eat, or I would be listening to the conversation between him and his brother. I could imagine rewriting life so I would be buying tablecloths and cake pans and curtains and flowers with Nikolai. These imaginations made it easier for me to feel sad, to weep even, but the tears were a veneer over the unspeakable. It was what I could not imagine that made the veneer dispensable: the bad dreams he had not told me over the years, the steps he had walked and the thoughts he had gone through on his last day, the adjectives he would have taught me, the days and the years ahead—with or without him. The unspeakable is a wound that stays open always, always, and forever.
Holly Margl is the award-winning author of Witnessing Grief; Inviting Trauma and Loss to Our Coaching Conversations, An Enneagram Perspective, coach, coach mentor, and trainer specializing in grief, trauma, and the Enneagram.
