It's hard to lose a friend / Bridges from grief 2026-09-03 Last night before bed a friend asked me what I'd been sad about during the day. I floundered a bit. "I haven't been sad, exactly. Uhhh... It's not that simple..." I avoided eye contact. "Let me ask differently. What were the themes that were swirling around today?" Still I didn't like the question. Although sweet and broad and caring, it betrayed such a huge misunderstanding of the poignant condition of grief. I remember writing a list of questions for the grieving. "What do you miss? What do you remember?" That's as far as I got. "I think I don't want to talk about it," I said to her, retracting away from the subject at the touch of an unprepared listener. Almost jokingly, as a last ditch, I told her to just go listen to "Still I Crash" from the new Billy Strings album. "Then you'll understand completely," I said with a sideways smile. "I don't think I will." Here I could have despaired at the loneliness of this world of loss I live in. I have despaired at this point in these interactions time and time again. But this day, for some reason—maybe born of my recent health or built on the foundation of the last few weeks of relative stability—a creativity rose up. A speech, almost poetry, flowed from my mind. I described the meaning behind the song I'd recommended: He's singing about this thought "How can I go on without you?" and at the same time realizing he has to. The question, "How?" is one of lament but also a true question needing an answer, and he's searching for an answer to it. "I'm learning to walk on my own again" The way to go on without is a different way than how we went on before, that's for certain. Walking in loss requires a new gait. "These tears might never dry / But still I try" There's an ultimate desperation and an incredible strength intertwined in the song—and in every life lived after death. I remember signing off a particularly difficult letter to a friend about my struggle inside grief and the damage it was causing to my life, "With tears of despair from one eye and determination from the other, Will." "Mother, can you still hear mе? Wishing you were still near mе Hoping that this won't really be the end And I am still your one true friend" "This line is the strangest and most beautiful in the song", I looked at the floor and said to my friend. It's reminds me of the song "I Know Whose Tears" from the album "Live" by Mike Compton and Joe Newberry which is also about living out the rest of ones life without a mother. "Mother, my first companion Mother, my truest friend Mother, way up in heaven We'll meet again" Both these grieving songwriters sing of their mother as a friend. And of still being a friend to someone who is gone. "It's hard to lose a friend," I said shakily, tears in my eyes. "A true friend changes me a little, deep within who I am. And to keep being that changed person once they're gone, I must hold alone their place in my life since they're not around to help anymore. There's a weight to that work, being a friend to someone who is not able to be there and love me back. Sometimes this is joyous work. Sometimes it's awful, sorrowful, and hard. So it's not that I'm feeling sad today. I'm feeling that weight." Whether or not she now understood me, the poetry of these thoughts and the way they tumbled neatly from my mind were a bridge extended from the mystery of my grief to the present moment where we sat together on my couch. Bridges like this anchor me in the present where I must live to survive. (There is no food unrotted back there in my world of memories, no water still fit for drinking.) The miracle is I can build these bridges. Poetry, song, creativity, and storytelling are my tools. Whether they span to anyone here in the world, whether they can carry anyone temporarily into this other place, or not, I still must build. Otherwise I would have to pick between these two places fate has given me, abandoning either my sparkling daily life or the depths of my love: a true loss indeed. So I must build, each new pier dedicated to myself, my future, my past, my mother. "But as the seasons change And you're still out of range I can feel your light Softly glowing in my heart After all these years have passed Your love's the only thing that lasts But I still crash"