On June 9, 2021, my 19-year-old daughter, Kamila, died suddenly in Kingston, Ontario, where she was attending university. We were deeply close.
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Nothing made sense after that. Out of Order is where I try to speak from inside that rupture, to name what it’s like to keep living when the expected order of things is gone.
The Thing Is
BY ELLEN BASS
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.
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