Where Memory Lives

On grief that does not fade, only transforms, and the stubborn act of remembering.

I truly hate when people say that grief is temporary, that sooner or later you get used to that person’s absence. That’s the thing, grief will always be present, perhaps in different forms and sensations, but it does not disappear.
Usually, the attempt at comfort comes from those who have never actually gone through it. And I find them far too lucky. Sometimes I feel bad for envying those who have never lost someone they loved to death. And I feel a kind of anger inside me that is deeply selfish.
I think I’ve grown used to loss; I’m surrounded by it. It feels like I’m always waiting for the next death, for the next person God will take from me. Maybe it’s some kind of punishment. That thought has crossed my mind many times, and again, it’s just another selfish thought of mine.
I close my eyes while my mother is in yet another one of her psychotic cleaning episodes, and I wish I could go back to being a little girl, with dreams and preserved innocence. In my grandmother’s backyard, I felt like that was the entire world and I was its discoverer. Now I just want to truly escape any backyard or box they try to confine me in.
It feels like the people around me have forgotten the sound of her laughter. The way she liked her coffee. The taste of her food.
It feels like people no longer remember what her hug felt like, one of those rare ones she reserved only for her favorite granddaughter. It feels like they’ve forgotten that she had dreams too, that she would burst into laughter in the middle of the night when we told jokes.
She has become a grumpy and unloved memory in people’s minds, and that angers me deeply. Because she was loving, in her own way. She was the one who didn’t abandon me when everyone else seemed to have decided that I was a child who didn’t deserve a traditional family. She stayed with me and taught me how to be strong.

To me, she was like a jabuticaba tree. She took years and years to finally bloom and become the woman I knew. And I feel that I met the best version of my grandmother.
She reminds me of the yellow ipê trees we had in the backyard, and whenever I see cats, I remember our countless attempts at having pets.
I remember her when someone makes polenta and collard greens, or when I eat pot roast, which was her favorite dish. I see her in my own reflection in the mirror, because I know her features live somewhere in my face, and I feel more beautiful because of it. Her blood runs through my veins, and I am proud to say that I am Brazilian.
I don’t think she would have endured the storm that struck our family years after she left. When her youngest son — my dear and troubled uncle — passed away, I felt that nothing else could shake me.
When I lost her, it was a new kind of pain, an overwhelming pain that made me question my beliefs and my faith in God. I wished it had been me instead of her. When I lost him, I felt that nothing in this bitter world was fair.
And again, it feels like I’m the only one trying to keep the good image of people alive. I’m not saying they were perfect human beings, no one is; we are all a cluster of flaws, but we are not only that.
I simply choose to face grief this way.
I remember the way he used to make me laugh, and how we played hide-and-seek. He was funny, charming, and a wounded man. I didn’t mind lying on the couch and listening to his stories from prison. I felt like I was trapped in a mental prison inside my mother’s house, and it was almost a shock of reality to hear someone describe what the penitentiary system was truly like.
I don’t think I will ever stop missing them. I don’t think I will stop going to the cemetery in secret just so I can cry without being judged and vent to the dead. And I hate those words of comfort, because I don’t want this to pass.

Grief is not temporary, it only changes shape and sensation.

Nowadays I don’t feel sad, but I feel capable of keeping their memories alive, of remembering the people I loved and who loved me, and of honoring my last name and my roots. Forgetting them would betray who I am.

My greatest fear is forgetting. Forgetting their voices, their scents, their stories, and their hugs. So I hope the grief I feel today is eternal, that it remains in my heart as a place of rest when the world becomes too loud, that in moments when I feel unprotected, wishing the world would disappear, I can remember how to breathe and wake up. Because I have a place that was once my home, and that I can return to.