Grief is weird.
Today was the Lancaster Stormers’ Fan Fest. They were to play an exhibition game against the Black Sox (a traveling semi-pro team, AIUI) before the Atlantic League season begins on Tuesday.
When I entered the stadium, I saw tables set up around the concourse. A local elementary school was holding an arts and crafts fair.
Grief came along and hammered me.
Last year’s Fan Fest had the same set-up. On the third base side there was a little boy named Gabriel selling handmade greeting cards. I stopped to look. He had two pricing tiers, he explained, and he said he had more. I bought the one that caught my eye initially. His mom had to prompt him to give me an envelope; he handed the me one he’d been holding, and it was bent and crumpled. I thought about asking for a crisp one, but decided against it. The crumple was part of the charm.
This was the last Mother’s Day card I sent my mom.
In January I got it back. My sisters had pulled together a box of my mom’s things for me, and the card was among the things. Upon seeing it, I began sobbing.
Seeing the kids and their tables brought all this back to me. I held it together until I reached the restroom. Mostly. In the restroom I started to cry. I felt unsettled for a while.
There were kids selling cards, but none of them were a little Hispanic boy named Gabriel.
Sometimes it feels like she isn’t gone. Sometimes it feels like she wasn’t real. And sometimes it feels like a bottomless chasm.