Kamilah Story: Grief

My mother said, “What a great boyfriend, to have stood by you in this difficult time.” My father had passed away suddenly (a massive heart attack on the tennis court) and my boyfriend came over. He stayed until the funeral, never leaving my side. What my mom didn’t know was, in actuality, he had the flu, and didn’t have anyone to take care of him, so he inserted himself into my grief so that I could. I remember laying in the bed crying, him holding me and coughing into my hair, then asking if I could fix him some tea. . . As if that wasn’t enough, a week after my father was in the ground and he was feeling better, he told me that i was “a lot of drama” because my father had died, and he just didn’t have time for “that type of drama.” A light went off at that moment, I excused myself from the conversation, and I was retrieving my things from his place a week later.