LOSS

JIM RICHARDS

When Katherine Kittlestip says to me at church, “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I have no idea how to respond. Do I say, “Thanks”? Or “It’s alright”? I feel like saying, “He was seven years old. He was my favorite child.” People say parents shouldn’t have favorites, but they do. I want to say, “Imagine you forgot your own name, and each time you tried to think of it, your brain filled with thick hot tar.” That’s what it’s like.

When I look at pictures of him, I don’t feel close to him at all. Two days after the accident, I unloaded the dryer. I folded his clothes. Put them in his drawer.

“Aren’t those Toby’s clothes?” his two-year-old brother asked.

“Yes,” I said, then closed the drawer and walked out.

“But he’s dead, Daddy,” he said, and followed me, repeating it. “But he’s dead, Daddy. He’s dead.” He kept saying it. Even after I had gone into my room and closed the door.       

What’s my name? What is my name? I heard a program on the radio yesterday about a scientist who has managed to create the blackest material known to man. Did he lose his son, too?

Jim Richards’ words have been nominated for Best New Poets, two Pushcart Prizes, and have appeared in The Atlantic, Poetry Northwest, Copper Nickel, Hotel Amerika, Sugar House Review, Prairie Schooner, Juked, and others. He completed a PhD at the University of Houston in creative writing and literature. He lives in eastern Idaho’s Snake River valley and has received a fellowship from the Idaho Commission on the Arts. jim-richards.com