Subscribe to get access
Read more of this content when you subscribe today.
A note on friendship and grief gifts.
One year ago…
On this day one year ago, before driving out of service for the Poetry Retreat on the Yuba River, my friend Natalie listened to a voice message from me. It was about Ian, my partner who was a missing person for two months.
My message broke the bittersweet news: his body was found. The missing person mystery was solved. He drowned. We could let go of hope that he survived. We could let go of fear that he was suffering, waiting for a rescue. We could let grief in fully.
Natalie spent the weekend crying with the river with women, writing poetry, feeling deeply connected to me, yet physically far away. Shortly after the retreat she would pack up her car and dogs and drive out to Colorado to celebrate Ian’s life.
After Ian’s memorial, she visited me in my empty house. Ian and I had moved from Colorado to Arizona just two short weeks before he went missing. The two bedroom house felt suffocatingly empty.
Natalie helped me unpack what little possessions I had. She cleaned what dishes were used. She hung up string lights, because my living room had no overhead light. She printed out photos and hung those up too. She saw how untethered I was without Ian. My whole life needed rebuilding.
Natalie gave me many grief gifts, but the most important one was a poetry class with Meredith Heller. A five week zoom series tethered me to needing to know one day of the week: Thursday.
Right before the class started, a book came in mail from Meredith called Write a Poem, Save Your Life. Save my life? I wasn’t sure if I wanted my life to be saved. And poetry of all things, humph.
Every Thursday, Natalie texted me in the morning, “Today’s the day!” because she knew I had no clue. Text messages from her continued to roll in counting down two hours until class, thirty minutes until class, you’re missing class!
That was the kind of support I needed. Judgement free constant reminders. Endless encouragement and unconditional love. So with Natalie’s help, I went to poetry class every Thursday for five weeks. Because what else was I doing?
At the time I was living alone in a new town without a job or community yet. My days were spent in solitude my dog in the desert. When I logged onto poetry class, the sound of my own voice shocked me. If I didn’t talk to someone on the phone, I went days without speaking.
365 days later
When I arrived at the Yuba River for Meredith’s poetry retreat, I was ecstatic to set up my camp next to the river and the tallest tree on site. In between blowing up my sleeping pad and laying out my sleeping bag, I wondered: is that a Ponderosa or Jeffrey Pine? Towering over my tent was a tree over one hundred feet tall!
When I went down to the river to skinny dip, I could still see that tree poking up above the cedars. I was thrilled to be sleeping at the base of the tallest tree around. Taking a deep breath, I plunged into the cold water and emerged with a grin.
Holy shit that’s cold!
Living in the Arizona desert has hardened me to heat and made me a weeny for cold. Sitting on a granite boulder, I felt deeply grateful to be alive. Tears flooded my cheeks. Holy shit, I’m so glad I’m alive.
One year ago I was looking for reasons to keep living.
Images from the last year floated through my brain: months of aloneness that felt like years. Searching for Ian, bushwhacking, finding nothing. Driving across the country. Holding my nieces hand while she jumped over ocean waves. Watching my dog Mallow run across slickrock. Swimming in the same waters Ian died in. Paddling on Lake Powell, making friends in Page, falling in love again. Disorienting grief, grounded in friendship. Writing poetry and a novel about the search. Tears on keyboards and journal pages. Crying on rocks. Running.
Now sitting by the Yuba River, unable to count the reasons because the list had grown so long. Remembering the last place I took Ian- on a California tour. We swam in the Yuba River, though those waters are long gone, his presence was palpable here. A fish jumped at the same time a mountain bluebird landed on the rocks across from where I was sitting.
Oh, hello Ian. I love you. I’m doing good, don’t you worry!
It was later that day when Natalie reminded me this was the one year anniversary of Ian’s body being found.
Traveling distorts my view of time. The day of the week is just as arbitrary as the state lines separating the desert of Utah and Nevada. I completely missed the transition from August to September. I did not remember that Ian was found one year ago.
Realizing this made me unbelievably happy.
The anniversary caught me in the midst of living. Rather than looming over me, counting down the days until what? Until the day that he was found- so I could do what? Cry? I do that most days. Hold a ceremony, light a candle? Be magically healed? Wear black?
No, the day slipped by like water gliding over granite. I thought back to September 2nd- what was I doing? Well, let’s see…I woke up on Natalie’s porch as the sun rose over pine trees and read my book. Then I made coffee and went to work writing up a story from the point of view of Hesperus (coming soon!).
Natalie and I did an Auntie Adventure with our friend’s toddler, taking her and the dogs down to the waterfall to swim. We hiked through the woods of madrone and manzanita, making it back to her porch that night to watch the stars migrate over the sky and down into the trees. The new moon gave us a dark night with a brilliant Milky Way show.
Exhale.
What a great day! Sleeping outside and exploring nature was the bedrock of me and Ian’s relationship. I honored Ian’s death by living.
And writing poetry throughout the year helped me get to this point. After the first poetry class that Natalie signed me up and paid for, I continued to pay month after month.
Meredith brings a lot of breath work into poetry class, sometimes offering meditations and visualizations to spark the muse. When I first started taking her class, I couldn’t close my eyes and breath for more than a damn second. Embarrassed, I would turn off my video and just sit there, staring at my bedroom walls, waiting for the lady to let us write instead of making us try to breathe! I’d try again, wanting to reclaim that part of myself that used to love meditation, but breathing into my grief stricken body was so deeply uncomfortable that I just gave up.
It took months and months and months for me to expand that capacity. To breath deeply into my belly and not immediately start balling or twitching or open my eyes.
By the time I was at the Yuba River Poetry Retreat with Meredith and the other women in my cohort, I could sit comfortably with my eyes closed and breathe. I could write without sobbing, I could sing along to her songs, I could write funny poetry and laugh at my mistakes, I could take deep breaths.
Fuck! Did poetry save my life???
I’ve always hated poetry and made fun of poets. Rolling my eyes at the lavish wording and the over the top metaphors, yadda yadda ya. I never considered myself a poet, nor any good at writing poetry. This was still my narrative after nearly nine months of writing poetry and falling in love with a cohort of women who shared their hearts on the page.
It was time to face some truths:
I’m a goddamn poet.
Grief is profoundly easier to understand through the lens of metaphor.
Self expression is fucking beautiful whether it’s through song, poem, writing, or spoken word.
Women are warriors.
Writing poems brought me back to this wounded world. It grounded me in listening to others. It gave me freedom to explore what felt really, really scary!
Poetry gave me community.
Poetry helped me find my new voice, unafraid to express love and grief.
Writing poetry brought me back to life.
Thank you.
Beth Henshaw 