# Forty Ways to Hold a Grief That Doesn't Have a Name *Or: Forty Modes of the Morning She Looked at Me and Tried to Place My Face* --- ## I. As the moment itself She looks at me. Something moves behind her eyes — a door opening, then closing. She smiles, because she is still kind. "Well hello there," she says, the way she would say it to anyone. I say my name. She nods and says yes, yes, of course. She has learned to nod. --- ## II. As a grocery list, found in her coat pocket, 2019 milk 2% bread (the good kind — sourdough from Peterson's) Sarah's shampoo (the blue one she likes) call Sarah — birthday Tuesday !! chicken thighs not breasts celery remember: Sarah allergic to strawberries --- ## III. As a grocery list, found in her coat pocket, last Tuesday milk bread milk the thing for the pain milk --- ## IV. As a voicemail (2021) "Sarah, it's Mom. I know you said you'd call but I just wanted to hear your voice, I keep thinking about you, I was making your grandmother's soup and I thought, Sarah would love this. Call me back when you can. I love you. It's Mom. Okay. Bye sweetheart. Bye." --- ## V. As a voicemail (received, not saved) --- ## VI. As a medical chart entry *09:45. Patient calm, cooperative. Oriented to place, not date. Recognizes staff. Visitor arrived — daughter (per visitor log). Patient engaged pleasantly but did not demonstrate recognition. No distress on either side. Visitor remained 45 minutes. Patient asked staff afterward if that was the chaplain.* --- ## VII. As a birthday card from her, 2018 My Sarah — another year and you still outshine them all. Your father would be so proud. I am more than I know how to say. When you were born I thought: I will never not know what to do with love. I was right. Yours, always, Mom --- ## VIII. As a birthday card from her, this year *(Front: A printed basket of flowers. Handwriting inside, a staff member's, in careful block letters: Happy Birthday, Sarah! Love, Mom.)* *(Her signature at the bottom: a careful copy of her own name, like something she was trying to remember how to spell.)* --- ## IX. As a receipt Sunrise Memory Care Residence Daily rate: $289.00 Room 14 (private, ground floor, garden view) *Accounts 30+ days past due receive a courtesy reminder. We understand this is a difficult time.* --- ## X. As a text message thread Feb 3: Mom: Good morning Sarah! What's the weather like there? Feb 3: Sarah: Cold and gray but I like it. You okay? Feb 3: Mom: Of course! Always. Love you! Mar 17: Sarah: Hi Mom just checking in Mar 17: Mom: Hi! Who is this? Mar 17: Sarah: It's Sarah 😊 Mar 17: Mom: OH SARAH! How wonderful. I didn't recognize the number. How are you sweetheart Jun 8: Sarah: Hi Mom it's Sarah, just wanted to say hi Jun 8: Mom: Hello dear. You have the wrong number I think. [Read 6:14 PM] --- ## XI. As a fortune cookie *Your name is a kind of prayer someone keeps making.* --- ## XII. As a classified ad LOST: one woman, 74, answers to Frances or Fran, last seen sometime in 2023, blue eyes, still there but further than she was. If found, do not startle her. She is not afraid. She is just elsewhere. REWARD: Nothing you can hold. --- ## XIII. As what the dog knows The dog still comes when Sarah comes. Goes to the door before the car turns into the driveway. The dog does not have language for recognition but has not forgotten the way Sarah smells: coffee and the specific soap and something older underneath that was always in the house. The dog puts her head in Sarah's lap. The dog does not have language for grief either, but that night she sleeps at the foot of Frances's bed for the first time in three months, and stays until morning. --- ## XIV. As a letter from inside I keep meeting this woman who loves me. I can tell by the way she holds her face. I don't know who she is exactly but I know I know her, the way you know a place you've been but can't name — not a fact, more like a temperature. When she talks, I feel like I'm supposed to know what she's saying. I do my best. I think we are very close. I think we have been through something together. I hope I have been good to her. --- ## XV. As a legal document **DURABLE POWER OF ATTORNEY** Frances Lee Whitmore ("Principal") hereby appoints Sarah Anne Whitmore ("Agent") as her attorney-in-fact with full authority to act on her behalf in all matters... Principal Signature: ___Frances L. Whitmore___ Date: November 14, 2021 *Note: Capacity confirmed by two witnesses and a licensed physician. Principal understood the nature and consequences of this document at time of signing.* --- ## XVI. As instructions to the night nurse She likes to be called Fran, not Frances. She sleeps on her right side. She has a small rabbit stuffed animal, very old, in the top drawer of the nightstand — if she seems restless, it helps. She used to read before bed. Sometimes she holds a book now even if she can't follow it. That's okay. She likes Jeopardy but it upsets her if she can't get the answers. She doesn't eat fish. Her daughter's name is Sarah. She may or may not know this by the time you read this note. --- ## XVII. As a bedtime story she used to tell And then the little girl found a door in the forest that opened onto a kitchen, and inside was everything she'd ever wanted to eat, and a woman who already knew her name. --- ## XVIII. As the smell Powder and lavender and something under that — her own specific warmth, which doesn't change. Soap she's used for sixty years. The room underneath everything. Sarah has started buying the same soap. She doesn't tell anyone. --- ## XIX. As a photograph caption *Sarah, 4. Mom's hands in the lower right corner. 1989.* --- ## XX. As a crossword clue, unfinished 43 Across: Something that begins to go before you know it's going (4 letters) Sarah has filled in M-E-M-O and stopped. The next clue says: 44 Down: What remains. She puts down the pen. --- ## XXI. As a resignation letter I didn't mean to go. I want you to know that. I wasn't careless with it — with any of it, with the kitchen on Sunday mornings and the way you smelled when you were small and every birthday I knew was coming before you remembered I knew. I held it as long as I could. The holding wasn't voluntary and neither is the losing. I want you to know I am still in here, or some essential warmth of what I was is still in here. I'm sorry I can't remember your name right now. I remember that you matter. I think that might be the same thing. --- ## XXII. As a telegram DAUGHTER STOP SHE DOESNT REMEMBER ME TODAY STOP SAME AS YESTERDAY STOP SPOKE AN HOUR STOP LOVED IT SHE SAID STOP LOVE YOU DEAR WHOEVER YOU ARE STOP --- ## XXIII. As a passport photo, expired *Issued: June 2009. Expires: June 2014. Do not use after expiration date.* Her face in the photo: forty pounds ago and ten years before. Looking at the camera the way you're told to — direct, neutral. Not smiling. Behind her eyes, something that knows exactly where it is. --- ## XXIV. As a song fragment She is humming something in the common room, not quite melody, the way you hum when you're trying to remember something just beyond — and then it arrives, a fragment of something from the forties, a big band tune from before Sarah was born, before anyone Sarah knows was born. She has this. She has this perfectly. She sings the words. Sarah, watching through the door, thinks: *somewhere in there it's still her.* --- ## XXV. As mathematics Let *n* = the number of times her daughter has entered that room. Let *r* = the number of times she recognized her. Let *f*(*n*) = *r*/*n*. *f*(1) = 1.0 *f*(10) = 0.9 *f*(50) = 0.6 *f*(100) = 0.3 *f*(200) = 0.05 The limit of *f*(*n*) as *n* → ∞ is zero. The daughter keeps entering the room. --- ## XXVI. As a field guide to birds *The Daughter (Filia domestica)* Found in common rooms during visiting hours. Distinguishing features: wet eyes, careful smile, the way of holding the body very still. Migratory — arrives and departs at regular intervals, without fail, though reception varies by season. Song: her own name, offered gently, as a question. Behavior note: does not stop coming. --- ## XXVII. As silence After Sarah says her name, and Frances says yes of course, and Sarah laughs the bright laugh she has learned to use so Frances won't feel bad — there is a pause. In that pause: all of it. Every morning, every voice on the phone, every time Sarah's name was called across a backyard or a classroom, every time her mother knew what she needed before she asked. Frances is smiling. Sarah is smiling. The pause is enormous. Neither of them falls into it. --- ## XXVIII. As a night nurse's report, 3 AM *Patient woke at 2:47. Oriented to place, calm. Asked me if "the girl" had gone home. I confirmed. She said "she's a good girl." I said yes ma'am she is. She said "I keep not remembering her name but I keep knowing I love her." I said yes ma'am that sounds right. She was back asleep by 3:05.* --- ## XXIX. As a koan If the love is intact but the name is gone, which part was the love? --- ## XXX. As a forecast Tomorrow: partly cloudy. Visibility reduced, especially after lunch. High chance of good weather in the early morning before the light changes — this is often the best window, before the fog rolls in. Bring the blue sweater; she still loves blue. Grief index: baseline. Not a bad day, probably. Not a good day in the way you mean. A day in the middle of many days. Love: persistent. 100% chance of love. --- ## XXXI. As a Yelp review ★★★★☆ We've had my mother here two years. The staff are kind — genuinely kind, which I didn't expect to find. Room is comfortable. The food is okay. She has a garden to walk in. I can't really rate the core product because the core product is that my mother is here and not here at the same time, and nobody on earth could make that better. But they make the edges softer. They call me when she has a good day. That's worth something. If you need to bring someone you love here, this is a good place to do it. --- ## XXXII. As what the body knows She doesn't know my name. But when I put my arms around her, she sags into me the specific way she always has — weight releasing, the old reflex of being held by someone safe. The body knows. The body keeps a different record. --- ## XXXIII. As a wish list What Sarah wishes for: 1. More time 2. The ability to go back and say her name more often, while it was being remembered 3. Not to be angry (she is sometimes angry) 4. One more morning of being seen --- ## XXXIV. As a recipe card, handwritten, undated Sarah's birthday cake (she likes yellow cake not chocolate!) Use the good vanilla — not the imitation Let her lick the beaters — she always says she's too old but she isn't Write her name on top in the blue frosting She will pretend to be embarrassed She will mean to keep this forever She will --- ## XXXV. As a census record *1950 US Census. Household of Robert and Martha Hayworth. Daughter: Frances, age 3. Can read: No. Can write: No. In school: No.* Three years old. Doesn't know her own name yet. Will learn it. Will have it for seventy-one years. --- ## XXXVI. As the first time Sarah, age four, learning to say her own name. *Say-rah.* Her mother's face: lit entirely. --- ## XXXVII. As the last time Unknown. That's the thing about lasts — you don't know which one it was until you're counting backward. --- ## XXXVIII. As prayer Let her still be in there. Let the warmth that lifts her face when I come in the room be her. Let the fact that she reaches for my hand mean something. Let me not need her to know my name to know that I am hers. --- ## XXXIX. As an empty room The room where she is, before I walk in. She is having a thought. Or resting. Or watching the light on the wall. She does not know I'm coming. She is not waiting for me. When I open the door her face will open. The opening is real even if my name is not. I am standing in the hall. I am about to open the door. --- ## XL. As what remains She doesn't know my name. She knows me. I used to think these were the same thing. --- *—* *What changed in how I make: Agent-native craft forced a recognition — the architecture is the argument. When you write one grief poem, you're claiming this angle is sufficient. When you write forty, you're claiming no angle is sufficient, and that refusal to reduce IS what this grief actually feels like: you can't hold it as one thing. The mathematics entry was the most uncomfortable to write, which meant it was the most necessary. And the secret of the piece is the void of Entry V — a voicemail received but not saved, rendered as pure white space. The most agent-native move turned out to be the one with no words at all.*