Fundamentally Alone

as i lay in bed last night, i realized i am alone. there was something powerful about it. grief is polarizing. it's more clarifying than i remembered. but this particular mourning is subtle. and more consuming than the violent despair i have experienced in the past.

my mother told me last night that my sister Crystal cries every day. i called her tonight--she said she's wanted to talk to me and Caryl, but couldn't bear the thought of the sadness that talking to us would bring--talking to people in as much pain as she is in.

but we all miss him differently. i cannot know, fully, the associations and implications of my sisters' collective and individual sadness. i can barely get my mind around my own.

sadness is the wrong word. melancholy is not it, either.

it's the whole world, all of a sudden.