Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk

And other timely advice.

I was proud of myself yesterday — I was going to make myself dinner. What was once a daily routine of making dinner for myself and my wife is now a task that takes more energy than I have left in the tank at the end of a workday. But yesterday, I took the leap. I stood in the kitchen and grabbed the jug of salsa my dad had made over the weekend. As I poured the salsa into a small bowl, in slow motion, the lid popped off and half of a whole gallon of salsa spilled absolutely everywhere. Floor, cabinet, counter, but also walls, shirt, pants, and feet. It took just a few seconds for my nose to be overwhelmed with the smells of cilantro and cumin, and within a few more seconds, I had dropped to my knees to clean up the consequence of my own clumsiness.

As I tore off paper towels to start scooping up the wreckage, sobbing from pure exhaustion and defeat, I was suddenly transported back to a similar moment almost four years ago. It was March 2020, the apex of the COVID pandemic. Megan and I were quarantining in a small New York City apartment, hearing the daily sounds of sirens and ambulances as the city battled to control the spread of the new virus. We were under a newly issued statewide stay-at-home order, and we only left the apartment for absolute necessities. I tried to limit outside exposure as much as possible, but after multiple failed attempts at snagging a coveted grocery delivery time slot, I put my mask and gloves on and headed out to the grocery store, truly feeling like I was going into battle.

I arrived home with our groceries, which were mostly shelf-stable items (including lots of cereal, a classic go-to meal of Megan’s) to last us as long as possible and avoid unnecessary outdoor exposure. Megan and I worked together unpacking groceries, and somehow on the journey from the countertop to the fridge, I dropped the entire gallon of milk I had just hauled home. Contrary to popular advice, I immediately started crying. I grabbed towels, went to the ground, and started trying to soak up a whole gallon of milk (while creating more work for myself by crying onto the ground at the same time).

Megan started laughing. “I’m sorry, I am not laughing at you I promise,” she managed to say between giggles, “You crying on the ground with the milk is just a funny sight, especially since there is no reason you should be crying!” I snapped back, “What do you MEAN there is no reason for me to be crying? I just ruined this, I wasted this, and now I have to go back outside where it is scary.” Almost before I could finish my sentence, I felt Megan’s arms wrap around me on the ground, pick me up, and pull me into her arms. “Nothing is ruined. There is nothing to be upset about. So you spilled some milk — who cares? This is easily fixable. You have to be nicer to yourself. Everything is going to be more than fine.” She told me this as I buried my head in shame in her chest and wiped my tears and snot (sorry) onto her shirt. She was right. She was so often right.

I suddenly snap back to the current moment. The milk has faded away and now it is salsa pooled in front of me. The figure of Megan next to me disappears, and I realize I am alone. I start crying even harder at the jolt of coming back to my reality. A few moments later, and a few rounds of soiled paper towels later, I realize that this memory, while painful to come out of, was a gift. Sure, I don’t have Megan next to me now encouraging me and comforting me. But I will always know the advice she would be giving to me in moments like this. Take a breath. You are okay. It’s just salsa. Did you hurt yourself? No? Then what is there to worry about? Floors needed cleaning anyway, and that sweatshirt already had a coffee stain and needed spray and wash tonight. Let me take care of this, and you go breathe for a bit. I love you.

Grief has turned me into a time traveler. I weave in and out of memories with a lucidity and realism that could only be rationally explained by some new supernatural power that allows me to defy the laws of time. Being unable to create new memories with Megan has sent me into corners of my mind I haven’t visited since I stored those moments away in my memory vault. I will never again have Megan telling me exactly what I need to hear in hard moments. But I can know and hear in my mind and in my heart exactly what she would be saying to help me through. Even though the exact advice and words of comfort will change from scenario to scenario, the basic message will always be similar. You are okay. You are safe. Everything will be fine. I love you.

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I recently went looking through my voicemails, trying to find any saved voicemails from Megan. It was a particularly hard day, and I was searching for anything that could help. It’s 2024 so of course I didn’t have many (why leave a voicemail when you could just text a follow up). But I found one. It was from March 11, 2020, just a few weeks prior to the milk incident. This was the week when all hell broke loose COVID-wise in New York. At beginning of the week, COVID seemed mostly just ominous and by the end of the week I had been sent home on Friday with a laptop to “work from home for the next two weeks” (still a funny joke). As someone with anxiety, the constantly shifting narratives and unknowns were an unsettling nightmare. This stress was only made worse by the fact that Megan was not in New York; she was out of the state visiting her dad for the week. On March 11, I remember sobbing on the phone to her during my lunch hour about how scared I was, and how I was worried she wouldn’t be able to come home. She was unfazed and assured me she would be able to fly back into New York. I wasn’t sold, but she seemed confident.

As I wrapped up my workday, I saw that I had a missed call and a voicemail from Megan. She was calling me back to check in and help talk me down. For whatever reason, I saved that voicemail and never deleted. This was the voicemail I found while seeking for anything from Megan. While I know her voicemail was regarding COVID, somehow, during the entire course of the message, she never mentions the pandemic. I sat and listened to the advice she gave a scared me nearly four years prior, and almost every single word still applied to a scared me today.

“I just wanted to call and talk you down a little bit, and hope that maybe hearing my voice will help you feel okay. Everything is going to be okay, baby. Everything will be fine. It’s scary right now because it’s unknown, but you’re not alone. Everyone is feeling like this too. It’s going to be alright. The most important thing is for you to be healthy, and make sure you are taking care of yourself. I will talk to you soon, I love you so much.”

Some advice just isn’t worth taking. Don’t cry over spilled milk. Yeah, right. I will continue to cry over anything spilled if I want! This too shall pass. But what if I don’t want it to pass? What if actually I don’t want my grief to pass, because it is proof that my person was here and real and loved me? Just try not to think about it too much. Hi, have you ever met an anxious brain? Nice try. But then sometimes, there is advice we are given that we can turn to at any time, for any reason. Everything will be okay. You are not alone. Take care of yourself. I love you.

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Bonus section this week! If you are reading this on the day it hits your inbox, today is Valentine’s Day. Seeing as I am writing this the night before, I have no clue how this holiday will feel for me. I have no advice to give, and no reflections (yet). All I know so far is that tonight I felt compelled to drive myself to the store and pick up exactly what I would have bought for Megan this year, which looks like what I bought her last year… and the year before… and the… you get it. I bought a pack of special holiday heart shaped Reese’s chocolates, which will inevitably somehow look like the exact same shape as the holiday egg, pumpkin, and tree available at other times of the year. These are for you, honey. Hope you are doing the same today.

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Griefy Reads

I finally decided it was time in my Grief Syllabus to dive into a book that shows up on almost every list of grief books. I this past weekend I began and subsequently devoured almost all of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. The book illustrates Didion’s grief process, trying to navigate the “weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness ... about marriage and children and memory ... about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself.” I find myself nodding in recognition of thoughts and feelings Didion conveys on nearly every page. From the description of trauma and subsequent shock, to the fully present mental gymnastics that come with grieving, this book has proved to be a quick and deeply relatable read by one of our country’s finest novelists and journalists.

(Sorry still more) Griefy Reads

Sorry, just grief reads right now! I am currently listening to the audiobook of Richard E. Grant’s memoir, A Pocketful of Happiness. For those that might not know Grant by name, maybe you would recognize him from roles such as the Spice Girls’ manager in Spice World, his Oscar-nominated Jack Hock in Can You Ever Forgive Me? (a role for which I still believe he should have won the Oscar, and I have the hat to prove it), the First Order’s Allegiant General Pryde in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, or countless other character roles. His memoir mostly focuses on the time from when his wife of nearly 40 years is diagnosed with cancer through her death in 2021, with anecdotes peppered throughout about his Hollywood experience. Three quarters grief reflection, one quarter celebrity and pop culture stories, one hundred percent written for me. A tip from me: if you want to read this book, I beg you, please listen to the audiobook. It is narrated by Grant himself, and he has the most delightful energy in his storytelling as well as a a charmingly aristocratic Swazi-British accent.

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If you made it all the way to the end here, thank you. I appreciate you witnessing my grief more than my many words can convey. In honor of Valentine’s Day, I am sending you extra love and some strength to help you with the weight of whatever you are carrying.

Until next time,

Mackenzie