The Joy in Holding on to Grief
On July 3, 2012, eight days before my friend Jay Williams turned 32 years old, he was buried in Lebanon Cemetery in Plains, Georgia. The air was still and thick with southern humidity, and sweat collected in the small of my back under the layers of my black dress. My friends and I stood on the brittle grass of the cemetery, waiting in line to say goodbye to Jay one last time. We dodged the sun by shuffling in and out of each other’s shadows and swatted at clouds of gnats with paper fans provided by the local funeral home.
In the summer of 2010, Jay, myself, and 15 other people rode our bicycles from San Diego to Myrtle Beach, raising money and awareness for an organization that empowers people to fight the HIV/AIDS and water crises in Africa. Jay was the first cyclist to arrive at the church that would send us off. As I pulled into the church parking lot in San Diego, I saw a short, skinny guy with a tan wearing a straw cowboy hat riding his red bicycle in circles. Was he one of the team cyclists? Or some vagabond traveler who perhaps illegally acquired a nice road bike? Was he drunk? He looked so happy—too happy…