I stopped in the middle of packing and picked up the last bit of fresh fruit in the house, biting into it over the sink. The peach juice dribbled down my hand, and I bent into the bathroom mirror, resting my head against the glass. It was perfectly ripe, sweet and yellow and fuzzy, and I closed my eyes for a second. 

I am so tired, I thought. Why am I so tired? 

I had been moving around the whole morning—working a half day, taking care of a housekey situation, canceling a gym membership, sharing a cinnamon roll with a dear friend—and it felt good to lay my head against something for a moment, even though it meant I’d have to wipe the glass down again. It felt good, too, to be out of the kitchen and the living room, where boxes were piled in mounds and labeled, “glassware,” or “books.” 

Months ago, Caleb and I had begun to ask one another a revolving list of questions. “What will you miss most about this neighborhood?” “What is one of your favorite memories in this house?” “What’s your favorite corner of the apartment?” 

What was sweet about the past two years? 

I took another bite out of the peach and opened my eyes. The juice had dripped into the sink, and for a moment, against the white ceramic, it looked like blood. 

My chest had started to hurt around 1pm. Not a searing pain, or even an ache, but the type of pain that makes your ribs feel hollow. It was the type of pain that made me sit down on the floor amongst the boxes with my lunch, sharing a piece of sharp cheddar with the cat, trying to make the tears come. 

It was in this tiny apartment that I began to really notice the things that make up a place. When we started decorating it two years ago, I had to pick every wood, pillow fabric, and pattern to fit a budget (read: $0) and a style. In such a small space, even one wrong move can make the whole thing feel off. 

But what made it our home was that I learned to scale down my vision. A week and a half ago, I sat with my breakfast on our doorstep and watched a spider build its home, painstakingly weaving sparkling silk in the morning light. I have stopped to watch my cat hunt fruit flies and squirrels alike. I have waited patiently for the tiny buds of leaves to emerge on the same trees for two springs in a row. 

Joan Didion writes that after her husband died, the world became dearer to her, so dear, because it was the place where he had lived. 

And though the death of this life—these past two years—is miniscule compared to the loss of a spouse, or even other losses in my own life, it is a death. I feel it in the peach juice, as it slowly drips, rust-colored, into the drain, and with the boxed glassware and books that have made up my life. 

But with every loss, every move, every death, I confess that the world has become more and more of a delight to me. I have loved on more minuscule scales than ever, and I grieve deeper. The hole that opens in my chest is an old friend. 

Only the peach pit remains. Our space is emptied and cleaned of the blue-tack marks and the cat fur. I have lived here, along with my husband and our little cat and all the moments that have made up our time. I am full, so full, and the world is so dear to me.

Kate Wilmot

Kate Wilmot (’24) is a Grand Rapids resident who has found herself in the in-betweens of undergrad and post-grad life. She is an avid children’s fiction reader and a globally-minded cook who will feed anyone that walks in her door. You can find her losing to her husband in pickleball, weight lifting, or getting coffee with her mom.