The Story Of The Rainbow Ball: The Spirit World is Closer Than We Think
Feb 25, 2024
The summer D was one, her and Bri came back from the park with a rainbow ball. They loved that ball. They played with it endlessly together in the backyard both that summer + the next.
After he died, I’d see it out back from time-to-time, but never had the heart to touch it.
Early grief was a blur of shock + pain, but one day in particular stands out as exceptionally hard.
My upstairs neighbour spoke to me in our front foyer + accused me of ignoring her for months. She didn’t like how grief had changed me. “Mira, everyone suffers,” she said.
I remember trying to explain what felt unexplainable. That the changes she’d noticed in me - the unresponsiveness to texts, the declining of invites for coffee - they weren’t about her. They were because I was drowning under my overwhelming, soul crushing grief.
She became defensive. “You don’t know what I’ve been through,” she snapped at me.
The hardest part of all: Through the entire exchange, her husband sat quietly on the stairs behind her, visually + energetically offering support. Reminding her and me, that she was part of a team.
I cried a lot that day. That night, I turned on Bri’s phone. I scrolled through his photos.
I stopped at a series of photos + videos he had taken that first afternoon with the rainbow ball. I listened to him and D laughing and playing together. I went to sleep with their sounds in my ears. Memories of a time when I too, had a partner sitting on the stairs behind me.
The next morning, I asked D if she remembered the rainbow ball.
“Yes!” she said. “My ball with Dada!”
We looked for it, everywhere. But the rainbow ball was gone.
Later on, I was walking in the forest-park near our house. The exchange the day before had rattled me. Initial overwhelming sadness had given way to anger. The image of the husband on the stairs was imprinted in my mind.
“Bri, what the fuck!” I said out loud.
Seconds later, something caught my eye. As I walked closer, I could barely believe it. There it was, nestled calmly under the trees. As if waiting for me.
A rainbow ball. 🌈
