Exploring Grief Through Absence by Shayla Sakkakhanaune [Essay]

Grief is said to be born from love that has no place to go. In Elisha Osorio’s short story, “A Metaphysics Lesson I Ask No One to Take: Grief and Identity,” grief takes up space through love that constantly shifts between recognition and sorrow. Grief may also occupy the space in one’s memories, like the love that takes shape as persistent, localized memories of loss in Abigail Ray’s poem “12:01am, December 31st, 2025.” Although grief manifests differently in each piece, the authors of both pieces detail intimate encounters with loss to reveal how true absence takes up an active, measurable space in a survivor's life.

Osorio incorporates physics into her short story to present grief as an everchanging force in nature, much like waves and particles are. She defines waves as disturbances capable of moving through space and transferring energy, but incapable of transferring matter; conversely, particles are defined as small beings of matter measured by their formations. With these definitions in mind, there is an objective explanation for grief in the story. The speaker explains how grief “existed in the way particles exist—definitive and still—yet, at times, it manifested like a wave, moving through me in oscillating patterns, impossible to contain or control” (pg 27–28). This scientific interpretation of grief presents it not only as a shifting nature of sorrow, but also as inevitable, undeniable, and concrete in all of its fluctuations. 

The shifting, inevitable, undeniable, and concrete nature of sorrow is particularly noticeable in the sweater motif that is present throughout the story. The speaker opens the story by giving attention to the sweater “you gave me on that rainy day in August” three years ago, and eventually explains how they tried to give grief a physical form through waves and particles in addition to the sweater (pg 27).

The story ends with the speaker looking at the sweater after realizing grief, “in its own way, simply is. It lingers, shifting, always present in some form, and it’s something you can't easily change or explain” (pg 28). In coupling the sweater as a physical reminder of loss with particles and waves as metaphysical concepts to explain grief, an emotional undertone is attached to the physics of grief. Although waves and particles themselves are devoid of emotion, they can be used to understand the emotions associated with grief. The sweater exists naturally as a physical form of grief, much like matter that cannot be created or destroyed in particles, or energy that can be transferred through waves. The sweater cannot be destroyed because the speaker cannot bring themself to destroy tangible remnants of the person they once loved and may very well still love. In the same vein, the person the speaker mourns may be physically absent, but their absence is made known in the objects they’ve left behind: the sweater actively takes up space on the speaker’s dresser, as well as in the speaker’s heart (and possibly adorning the lost loved one in the speaker’s memories). The sweater may become more tattered over time, but– like grief– its shifting nature will allow absence to come and go with the energy transferred from love to loss.

In “12:01am, December 31st, 2025,” Ray uses persistent, localized memories to detail how loss results in ever-present reminders of absence. The speaker of this poem describes their experience at a New Year’s get-together, and their lost loved one manifests in interactions between other guests. As the speaker observes how couples at the get-together speak pridefully about one another or hold each other with ease, they are reminded of the tender moments they once shared with their loved one. This recurring presence of other couples’ love serves as a physical reminder of absence in the speaker’s life. Although the speaker’s lost loved one maintains no physical presence in the speaker's life, loss itself takes up space in the speaker’s life through the reflections of love they find in other people. With this in mind, there is a loud sense of longing in the quiet acceptance of loss uttered throughout the poem.

While the speaker does not specifically long for their lost loved one, their descriptions of loss suggest that they long for a true acceptance of the newfound absence in their life. As previously stated, the speaker finds glimpses of their lost loved one in the physical ‘mirrors’ around them. In the poem’s third stanza, the speaker says, “I think of your arms only as I watch the couples' hold each other” (pg 5). From these lines, it’s implied that the speaker does not miss their lost loved one, but instead remembers the love they shared with their lost loved one. As couples reflect tender gestures, arousing memories of the lost loved one in the speaker’s mind, the speaker has no choice but to subconsciously find their lost loved one in everyone around them. Thus, this somber absence remains present in the speaker’s life by taking up space that can be measured in the love around them.

Both works depict vulnerable experiences with grief and loss, though the concepts take different forms for the speakers of both pieces. “A Metaphysics Lesson I Ask No One to Take: Grief and Identity” interprets grief as an experience that fluctuates like waves and particles, while “12:01am, December 31st, 2025” finds loss and absence in the persistent presence of love. These personal understandings of grief and loss parallel each other with drifting thoughts of a lost loved one, as well as reminiscences on something that no longer exists. Such pieces may particularly resonate with those who have experienced grief to any extent: whether it be from the loss of a loved one, something that mattered to you, or a even a menu item that no longer exists, the authors of both works understand how it feels to reserve space in your heart for something you love and to come to terms with absence in your heart. True absence takes up an active, measurable space in a survivor's life, and both works understand this delicate dynamic between physical, as well as metaphysical, absences and presences.