When grieving, it was the comfort of the familiar that anchored and lulled me.
The scrubbing of eggs stuck to the bottom of a pan, the wiping down of crusted sauce on a shelf in the fridge, the low hum of the washing machine.
I recall when in those moments, when I wasn’t sure if my partner would make it two years ago when he experienced a medical crisis, or a year ago today, when my Yeh Yeh left his physical form, it was the ordinary mundane things that held me, as these rooms and the tasks that filled them knew me more than any other. The kitchen sink and the baskets of laundry offered me a recognition; it was never a romantic or glamorous one, but one of grounding familiarity. When the world seemed uncertain, there was also another world — this world— that welcomed me with mundane certainty.
I also recall an anonymous comfort — that was at once personal and impersonal — of sitting in the waiting area outside the surgery room. Most were strangers to each other, and we were all falling apart yet enduring; red, puffy eyes; nodding off from pure exhaustion; pacing the room or pacing by scrolling through our phone; sympathetically smiling to each other; offering an elder our seat. Grief is lessened when shared, even by strangers, and in these instances, it was our similar concerns that held space for each other.