Day 219: The Afterimage

October 5, 2014

I'm wrapping up participation in a 30-day grief writing course. (As an aside, registration is open now for the next round. I'd highly recommend it if you're wondering what to do with your own grief, new or old, death-related or not.)

We're asked today to think about how we know "the shape, the weight, the being, of the one [we] love, by what others see in [us]." When I read this prompt, a poem by Mark Strand came immediately to mind. I've always loved the simplicity and profundity of it and it's stayed with me for years.

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Keeping Things Whole
(Mark Strand)

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.
We all have reasons for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

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I decided to begin dancing around this prompt, sniffing it out, if you will, by doing an "echo poem" with Mark Strands words.

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Keeping Gareth Alive
(with apologies to Mark Strand)

In my laugh
is the presence
of Gareth's laugh.
This will
always be the case.
Whatever I do
there is some of him with me.
When I talk
my words part the air
and always
Gareth's words move in
to fill the spaces
where my words fall short.
We all have reasons for living.
I live
to keep him alive.

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That feels right. That feels true. But not enough.

How can I possibly detail the ways in which the shape, the weight, the being of Gareth can be seen in me? There are the little things. The words of his that I hear myself repeat time and time again. "Tea is medicinal!" I say, every night when I make myself a cup. That is Gareth.

Just the other day I mentioned something about my "sat-nav" to someone. "Your what?" they asked. "Oh, my GPS," I replied, smiling at my memory of all of the times I drove with Gareth to new places. Gareth had always called it a sat-nav (satellite navigation), and I hadn't even realized I'd appropriated this term.

I've come to appreciate the pure genius of anything with a pump-dispenser as Gareth was always quick to point out how "nothing can improve upon its design." I think of this each and every morning when I push twice on the pump of my shampoo dispenser. He's got a point. It works brilliantly.

These are the small things. The almost imperceptible ways in which his shape lingers near me. And there are the more tangible things. Gareth, from the start, was enamored by my tattoos.

I made it well into my 30s without getting a single tattoo. And then this happened:

A few days later, color was added. A lot of it:

I was single, and had been for some time, and was keenly aware that this- my body- was something I was coming to appreciate as a little vessel for my spirit while I'm on this earth. And I wanted to decorate my vessel.

These tattoos- these markings- were incredibly personal. They felt somehow a symbol of strength I had (and strength I didn't know I'd need.) Gareth saw this. He saw me. He saw me. And he was constantly in awe.

In time, these colors and shapes just below the surface of my skin began to feel as much Gareth's as they did mine. His hands laid gentle claim to them. His fingers traced their shape. His lips kissed the center of each flower. His flat palms held the leaves to my back as if they'd blow away with a strong wind. He was (and remains) the only one to have been so intimate with my decorated self.

The weight of Gareth remains there on my skin. I can feel traces of his touch and the all-of-me glows with having been adored.

This past summer when I visited home, I returned to the same tattoo artist, Amanda Pepper. I had been corresponding with her since Gareth died. I wanted to grasp at the disappearing mist of him and sew it directly into my skin.

I had initially contacted Amanda (for my first tattoo) after seeing a tattoo on a friend of mine. This friend had just walked through the hell that is a cancer diagnosis, chemotherapy, and a mastectomy. She knows loss and she knows coming through it to the other side. At 50-something, she received her first tattoo from Amanda- a series of things my friend loves tattooed across the place where her left breast once was. I admired her. I admired Amanda's work.

And Gareth admired Amanda's work on me. Her lines are delicate. Her designs often whimsical. And I learned during my visit this summer that she often has a habit of saying her version of prayers as she tattoos someone, especially if the tattoo is signifying some time of trauma. She prays for the pain of the trauma to heal, just as after the intensity and pain of a tattoo, the body heals itself. I like this. A lot.

Amanda Pepper's idea board as she was designing a tattoo for me.

So, with some ideas sent to her (a kakapo- a rare and adorable bird from New Zealand, where Gareth is from, a kiwi, and a line from one of his poems written to me) Amanda went about designing something. I knew the size (quite large) and placement (right side of my back) that I wanted, but I really trusted her with everything else.

Not long before returning back home, I received this sketch. And here is my kakapo. And a kiwi with a heart shape in the middle. Here is the Rose of Sharon, Korea's national flower, and the line from the poem: "You are the you of my words." Gareth is all over this image. I scheduled an appointment for the end of my visit home.

Amanda's studio space.

Did it hurt? Yes. But a tangible hurt that would go away was quite welcomed.

We talked a lot. About Gareth. About her dad. About loss. About choosing to go on.

Amanda unexpectedly lost her dad not long ago.

4.5 hours later and finished!

Besides the fact that I've shown it to a few friends, or posting a picture of it here, no one would know this image sits just below my right shoulder blade. It is there, next to the flowers and the leaves that Gareth would study on a lazy Sunday morning before we slid out of bed and made breakfast. It is there in what was blank space, space reserved for him before I knew I needed it.

When the ache is particularly heavy, when the lightness of his absent weight is nearly unbearable, I find myself reaching around my torso in an embrace. One hand rests still on the image Gareth loved so much, and the other rests on the new shape of him. The space of him there on my back. I trace it for him. I love it for him. I behold my marked skin, like he would, as evidence of strength- the strength needed to do this. All of it.