We built a ship to wreck

Zac’s strength training was partly about being able to punch Nazis

I’m getting really good at grieving. When Zac died, I was terrible at it. I honestly believed in the whole “stages of grief,” and that grief was somewhat linear. Loss in my life was limited to grandparents, pets, and some friends I was not very close with. Zac’s death changed me. I learned what it meant to have grief so deep you thought you would never see the sunlight again. The kind of grief where you feel like you can’t breathe.

When the results of the election happened on Tuesday, I quickly recognized that what many of us need is to grieve. To give ourselves the gift of sitting with the sadness, the longing, the crushing disappointment. Because that is the only way to make it REAL. In 2016, I was so shocked and didn’t have the grief skills that I have now. That led to a lot of disassociating and continually thinking that it wasn’t happening. How could this happen? This can’t be real! Not this time.

Zac recommended that I read the book Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning by Timothy Snyder back in 2015. He told me the fascists and white nationalists, and Nazis were getting BOLD in the comment sections of his Anime world. He said he was constantly fighting their hate. I thought he was just plugged into a niche of the internet that disproportionately attracted them.

Now I understand that Zac saw this clearly for what it was in 2016 and up until his death. He saw the wave of the alt-right brewing in the corners of the internet and tried to do his part to warn us. When he was on his health journey, part of his motivation to get strong was to be able to “punch some Nazis.” I thought he was exaggerating, but as the Trump administration moved forward, it became clear that he had only given permission for these groups to be bold in sharing their hate in public. They have always been there and are a core part of who America is. White people have been very effective at allowing ourselves to think that the “progress” made with civil rights is an indication that we are good people. Trump is simply a mirror of our dark nature. America never fully acknowledged and reconciled the atrocities committed in the name of creating this country.

I grieve. I grieve for those who will be most affected by the second season of Trumpism. I grieve my fellow white people who decided that a dictator is necessary for cheaper gas and eggs.

It's a good thing I’m really good at grieving. I’m here if you want to share grief with me.