Grief and Parallel Play

Waffles, smothered in unmet expectations

Penned April 3, 2025 by Penny Sue Denim

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

“Okay,” she said. “There’s a lot less black knot on your trees than I remember!” I explained that my brother and his wife had come in the fall and cut a bunch of it down.

She was back. She’d offered to come again this spring to help me prune the fruit trees I inherited the week my husband got his cancer diagnosis. We’d just moved into our new home that week, having felt we’d outgrown our family starter home of 13 years.

She and I stood in the backyard, looking up, the ladder and a few tools that felt foreign to me scattered at our feet. This year, my husband was neither watching from the picture window, nor sleeping off the awful effects of his chemo.

I’d thought he and I were going to manage the yard together. Truthfully, I thought I’d be his sidekick in these tasks that matched his skillset much more than mine.

I was wrong.

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Over the weekend, another friend sat with me while I cleaned the waffle maker. The kids wanted waffles. Turns out the waffle maker had 7-month-old grease in every crevice. It had been stuffed in a corner and forgotten when it became clear that his keto diet and the gluten-free “croffles” weren’t going to save him.

It’s a particular kind of therapy; friends who just come and chat—in that distracted, meandering way—while tasks are completed.

Parallel. Togetherness takes the pressure off and bolsters grief’s nemesis, the ever-elusive Captain Productivity. Parallel play lends life where it would otherwise be drained. And who can afford that when so much life has been lost already?

~ ps denim

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With accompaniment from My Unapologetic Playlist: