Below is my offering for Trifecta’s week 93 challenge word, which is ‘grace’. As you will see from the Trifecta blog post, the challenge is to write between 33 and 333 words of fiction, non-fiction, poetry or prose, based on the 3rd definition from the Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary. This week the 3rd definition of ‘grace’ is:

a: a charming or attractive trait or characteristic

b: a pleasing appearance or effect <all the grace of youth – John Buchan>

c: ease and suppleness of movement or bearing

Here’s my offering below. I will confess, this is a bit of an outpouring from the heart for me. Much of my writing in the past few weeks has been a bit of a life-saver.

Please check here for the other entries, and vote if you can.

*****

– Hollow –

On Saturday, it’s my birthday.

Two months since you died.

In an alternative reality, I accept my loss with grace, with dignity, with a gentle sigh.

Of course, that’s not me.

Two months since you died – unexpectedly, cruelly, devastatingly. I have careened from place to place; a pinball jettisoning between home and work and train and tube and car and supermarket and bed and sofa and – just staring.

I cry. I use my sleeve to dismiss the salt and mucus. I want material, buttons and zips to tear at the delicate skin around my eyes, to rub my nose red raw. I want to hurt, physically, because emotional pain has taken on the endless, unforgiving quality of permanence. I want momentary, sharp discomfort, and most of all visible evidence that I can point to and say – look!

Look at what is tearing me apart inside. Look what happens when my dad – my dad – dies decades too soon.

I watched the last almost-missed sigh as it escaped from you.

I felt your pulse disappear under my sweat-slicked fingertips.

I saw you leave. I saw you not coming back.

*****