Never Miss The Water ‘Til The Well Runs Dry
By Nyles Pollonais
We know what it means. You take for granted what you have and then miss it once it’s gone. A healthy relationship, that one semester during undergrad, I could go on but by now I’m sure the point is received. As we enter fall 2021, this saying is seemingly more relevant to our collective human consciousness than ever. The very planet we inhabit is suffering, and though it may be too early to express this sentiment (or not) — this piece of work is not about that.
This is about grief: the very real and essential part of the human experience.
As of September 9th, 2021, 635K people have died of COVID-19. Whether it was the Delta, Mu, or Alpha variant, it wouldn’t be a reach to say that we all know someone personally or know through someone a person who has died of the coronavirus. In the midst of our suffering, the economic world seems to still push the need for re-opening, while willfully neglecting the role of grief in our society. Obviously, we need to push for economic restabilization, but to do it without a session of collective grief would fragment our world in irreparable ways. Grief is more present than ever, but we aren’t recognizing it or allowing it to exist as it should.
My mother passed away at the age of 52 over the summer, and as the days go by it gets harder and harder to fathom what this has meant for my life. I feel as if a blackhole has been placed inside my chest and it is slowly taking everything I once knew. Even as a grown man, on the last first-day of my final semester here at the University of Michigan, I woke up in tears realizing that I would not receive that “wake up” call from her, again. She would call every first day, or any day for that matter, just to encourage and strengthen me for the day — no matter what she faced in her life. That day was hard, and I can only imagine how the others will go. I remember looking around when I heard the news and being confused at the passersby. How could they not know? How could they simply go on with life? Didn’t they know? Michelle Angela Williams had died… A stage of the grief process, as I’ve come to understand, is anger, and that was one of the expressions of it that I held.
Slowly as the days passed, it was as if an eye opened that I hadn’t used. This eye was capable of seeing an additional frequency of light that I wasn’t accustomed to seeing. It’s sort of like how we can’t see UV Rays or Microwaves, but know they exist as light waves. I began to see this place differently. What I saw and am still seeing is grief. The underlying current of grief runs through our planet, but those who have never perceived its deep, dark, reality-bending waves are not aware nor in-tuned to its ubiquitousness, its presence, or recognize the dimension it adds to this space and this planet we call home.
I had grown. Whether I was ready for the day or not, it came and I was forced to move on. Life goes on. This now is what it must feel like to be an elder: the one who is relied on with no support above them except in a spiritual form. I looked at my grandmothers who’d lost both their parents and husbands, my aunt and uncle who’d lost their father last year, and the countless living souls on the planet who’d lost a part of their support system and recognized that I too was now like them. I never wondered how they did it, to me it was just their natural way of being — I wouldn’t be so unlucky, or so I thought. I feared for a day where I’d cry out to the sky for my mother who is no longer here like the late George Floyd.
Though the grief may be dark, it adds contrast to the other forms of light like love, enlightenment, and happiness making them brighter in return. This gift, if you will, of grief is everywhere. From the Rick and Morty season finale where we learn that part of Rick’s backstory is that he goes on a rampage to avenge the death of his wife to the release of Kanye West’s Donda album where he still seems to be processing the pain of losing his mother, grief adds to this experience and has helped me to feel that I am not as alone in the dark as I thought I once was. No, to respond to myself in the beginning, they did not know that my mother had passed away, but maybe a few likely felt what I did and understood the feeling of loss into the abyss.
As I continue on this process, I smile when my curry comes out right, when that butterfly that I’ve attributed to my mom’s memory flies past my window, or when the DJ plays just the right music at that party for I know that she’s with me. Her passing has granted me another gift — one that she could not give me while alive — the value of life. I love you forever.
Can understanding grief help us with the climate crisis? This system of capitalism has encouraged a trash-positive culture. You don’t like it, use it, want it anymore? Throw it away! Though normally attributed to physical objects, it has seeped into our relationships and the ways in which we view our reality. I don’t want to delve too deeply into this, but rather I’d like to leave a question. If we all understood, felt, and appreciated the weight of grief, could we then see how valuable life is on this planet? Maybe we could save it?
There goes another part of the grief process: bargaining.
Meet the Writer
Nyles Pollonais graduated from New York University in 2018 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. He is a writer, entrepreneur, musician, and future educator who spends most of his time focusing on political theory and current events. He is currently pursuing his master’s degree at University of Michigan.
