on grief//

and ex-husbands

I was laying on my couch nonchalantly talking over Zoom about SEO optimisation with my best friend when she told me my ex-husband was getting remarried. In two weeks. My best friend slash his cousin. I laughed it off and called him dumb and erratic. I thought of those letters he wrote me only four months ago lying in that book with the beautiful, illustrated pages. What’s he doing, what’s he doing, we mused.

The next day I woke up crying hysterically. Feelings and grief exploding out of my body. Grief I didn’t know was still there. Grief I maybe never processed at all. Grief of what was and the fact that I couldn’t get it back in two weeks. Maybe ever. The grief of knowing the man I was supposed to spend my life with was marrying someone else.

I cried in my brother and sister-in-law’s arms at an English pub. I cried on the phone to my best friend while she looked up daycares. I called my mom, driving to McDonald’s at 10 pm, and could barely get the words out as I pulled into the lot and parked sloppily between two yellow lines. I told my dad on my brother’s couch, zeroing in on the crinkled white leather. My stepmom cried for me in the middle of a Christmas market. I tried untangling my thoughts with my sister. I cried and hyperventilated in the shower. The mix of water and tears softening reality.

I wrote him an email, wishing him happiness and fulfilment. Even though I wanted to ream him out and beg him to stop this. How could he not tell me he’s getting married? Why so fast? Does he still love me? Is there anything more we could have done? He wrote back on his wedding day about his views on abortion. I was always afraid he was better than me, a better person. I was insecure about it our whole relationship. And it’s like he confirmed it. You’re bad, Melody. You’re bad. How can you kill a child, you’re bad. He changed the narrative. It’s no one’s fault. We just want different things. This was the story we told. No villain.

The grief of knowing that our time will never be again. Preserved forever as a relic.

After the email, I thought, okay, I’m over it. But that’s not how grief works. The first snowfall came, and I imagined him taking my hand and running me out the door and to the park, making snow angels. On the way back, we’d stop at our favourite coffee shop, and he’d kiss me in the flurry. And I’d tell him I loved him.

My mom told me we all needed to move on. Our family. I think everyone thought he’d make his way back, she said.

I took his photos off my phone, stopped following his family members on social media, feng-shuied my bedroom, gave away the art we bought together, donated gifts he’d given me — that ring from London, the mug he bought from a local potter, burnt sweetgrass and sage, sexted that guy from Tinder, edited my book, I’m good that felt good, fell asleep on the floor. Woke up. Cried. Started again.

I’m always starting again.