Recently, my grandmother’s best friend passed away. She knew her friend was dying well before any of us did and somehow, I think this illustrates their friendship. The silent knowing that they shared. After we found out she was gone, I called my grandmother to check on her, to be an ear if she needed one.
“I’ve lost my oldest and dearest friend,” she whispered to me, as though saying it at full volume would make it more true.
“I know,” I whispered back. “I’m so sorry.” Silence stretched between us for some time. I wondered if my phone had disconnected us again or if she was trying not to cry.
“But you know,” she whispered again, a little louder this time, “I had her for all these years. Through the hardest parts of my life, things we never thought we would go through when we were young. Divorce and death and all the things you never think about when you have so much time.”
“That’s true,” I said. “You were very lucky.”
“I was, wasn’t I? I really was.”
This issue has been a wonder to assemble. The pieces in its pages are a stunning example of the way that beauty and tragedy coexist so closely; the way that their edges are so near one another they practically touch. These pieces remind us that the depths of grief often come from the beauty of having had something so worth grieving. They are at once a mourning and a celebration.
We hope you linger with these pieces the way that we have. That you sit with the orca mother who has lost her child, with the empty ring boxes bellowing from dresser drawers, with the fireflies and muddy paths, with the shifting light. We hope they surprise you. We hope they speak to you with softness and certainty at once.
With warmth and awe,
Hannah Newman & Jesse Ewing-Frable
Editors-in-Chief
Sweet Tree Review