“Sudden” by Nick Flynn

If it had been a heart attack, the newspaper

might have used the word massive,

          as if a mountain range had opened

    inside her, but instead

it used the word suddenly, a light coming on

in an empty room. The telephone

fell from my shoulder, a black parrot repeating

something happened, something awful

a sunday, dusky. If it had been

terminal, we could have cradled her

as she grew smaller, wiped her mouth,

 

said good-bye. But it was sudden,

With the first word of this poem, “If,” poet Nick Flynn situates us in a reflective space, already wondering how the death of an unknown someone might have been described if it had happened differently. What language gets used in obituaries or death announcements to summarize the last moments of someone’s time on earth? The poet speculates that if the death had been a heart attack, it would have been described differently, perhaps in a term like “massive” that has more organic or grandiose connotations, like towering mountain peaks that the fragile heart was unable to surmount.  

The poet goes on to elaborate that the death was not described as massive, but instead as “sudden.” The term emphasizes the surprise inherent in the news of the death, as well as the rapid, unexpected nature of it. This loved one was alive and well, until as quickly as a light flicks on, things changed. The poem communicates a disbelief as the telephone is dropped and the ominous news continues to echo.

The difference between a sudden death versus an expected one becomes even more starkly highlighted here, as the poet muses on how divergent the experiences of grief might have been if the death had been from a terminal illness. They were robbed of a chance to be a caregiver for their loved one, robbed of a chance to say goodbye due to the sudden nature of the death.

how overnight we could be orphaned

& the world became a bell we’d crawl inside

& the ringing all we’d eat.

In the last section, the poet elaborates on how everything changed overnight and specifies that they were orphaned, hinting at the death of a parent. He describes grief and this new world without the loved one as a bell that encapsulates them, and that the bell’s ringing is the only thing they eat. What’s left behind after the sudden, harsh clanging of death is the reverberating ringing that echoes through the lives of those left behind.

The poet, Nick Flynn

In real life, the poet Nick Flynn’s mother did die suddenly, committing suicide when Flynn was a young adult.  While it seems clear that this poem is him continuing to process this specific event in his own life, it also speaks to the experience of anyone who has experienced sudden loss and grieved not just the person, but that there was no chance to say goodbye.  Notably, Flynn uses the word “we” to describe the missed caregiving opportunity and to describe the bell of grief that “we” live inside; it is as though he is welcoming all who mourn a sudden death into the poem with him.