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A Drag Path: noun: the visible mark that is left behind on a surface when someone and/or an object is forcibly pulled across the ground.
I never once considered the definition of a drag path until I was doomscrolling on TikTok one night, probably way later than I should have been. “What is good sleep hygiene these days anyway?” I often think to myself, which is almost immediately met with the thought: “You’re a therapist, you should probably practice what you preach,” as I scroll along to the next video.
During my mundane nightly routine of scrolling, the TikTok algorithm presented me with a heartbreaking, yet powerful, clip of someone drowning in their grief. They had taken video clips and compiled them together, and then paired them with a song that was trending by the band Twenty One Pilots, overlaying text on the screen that read: “A drag path, but it’s…” followed by a painful tribute to a person they had lost. The text echoed their reminders, perhaps their regret, of some of their final encounters with their loved one. It was in that moment that I was suddenly met with the heavy nuance of this trend. The internet had taken a powerful track, such as “Drag Path,” and created a visual metaphor for the physical and emotional scars left behind by grief, trauma, disease, and so on.
Like many, I watched and had empathy for the creator who had posted it. I liked it, and then I scrolled on to the next video, which was likely some sort of guinea pig compilation or something about the World Cup. It’s funny how TikTok can have us just move on from something so profound to something so seemingly trivial in comparison.
My Aunt Kim was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, but most commonly known as ALS, in 2019. It is often described as a progressive motor neuron disease, but that wording feels far too simple when you have, or had, someone you love exist inside a body battling this insidious disease. The disease impacts the nerve cells and spinal cord that communicate with the muscles. Over time, the disease robs those who battle it of their ability to walk, talk, speak, swallow, eat, and eventually, breathe. The disease does not impact the cognitive mind, meaning they are still there. Their personality, memories, relationships, and love they have still exist within them. But the body slowly begins to betray the basic movements most of us do not think twice about until they are no longer available to us.
There is something particularly cruel about a disease that does not simply take someone all at once, but slowly chips away at them: a little more movement, a little more speech, a little more independence, a little bit more of the body’s ability to translate intention into action. I often imagined what it must be like to want to say something, to want to reach for someone, but the body rejects the idea of it. No matter how much time someone may want, ALS does not function on desire or negotiation. ALS makes us confront the things we take for granted: a voice, a hug, a shared meal, a text sent easily, a body that can still do what the person inside of it wants it to do.
I remember when I got the phone call. The details of where I was, what I was doing, and everything else feel irrelevant, even if they play through my head like a film reel whenever I think about it. What is important is this: the emotions were complicated. When I was young, adult dynamics blurred the lines of my personal relationship with my extended family. So when I was met with this phone call that she had received a diagnosis that was fatal and incurable, my reaction was mixed. I did not know what to feel. Someone I once knew, who had become a stranger to me, was now facing one of the most horrendous illnesses. Part of me was resentful at all of the adults, because they robbed me of time. Another part of me was just sad. But most of me wanted to repair and try to mend with what time we had left.
And we did, in ways that made sense for us. I am grateful that she and I were able to connect and repair and not be strangers anymore. I am an aerialist, and I travel both nationally and internationally to compete and perform. She had noted that she enjoyed seeing my routines and liked it when I sent them to her. Every time I performed after she said that, I sent her a video of it. She had seen every performance of mine.
When the time came to send her my performance of “Chasing Cars” (if you know, you know), I was particularly eager to share it. It was one of the simplest performances I had done with my friends, but it meant the most. We performed it at a fundraiser for suicide prevention. I was so proud to share it. Little did I know that would be my last message to her.
That message became my drag path.
The song “Chasing Cars” has never been casual to me, or for anyone who watches “Grey’s Anatomy.” “Chasing Cars” is often the anthem for when someone is about to die, has died, or when someone is facing unimaginable tragedy. It has essentially become an emotional language of the series and amongst “Grey’s Anatomy” fans. The painful irony of this being the last thing she ever received from me is never lost on me.
To rub salt in the wound, “Grey’s Anatomy” paid tribute to Eric Dane, who also died from ALS. They played a montage at the end of an episode, and the song that they used was the exact version of “Chasing Cars” that my pole routine was to, which I had sent my aunt. I do not know how to articulate the feeling that swells in my body when I sit and think about this fact for long. I can’t tell you if I find it profound, regretful, or devastating. Or all three. The only thing that circulated through my brain for days was: “This was the same cover of the song that is already soaked in fictional grief, attached to a real actor’s death from the same disease that took my aunt, and directly connected to the last message I ever sent her.”
A drag path.
The part I keep finding myself returning to is not just the song, not just the layers of coincidences, not the tribute, not the routine, but the message. The thread of ordinary technology that now holds the thread of permanency of our final interaction. It was something I sent not knowing it would carry the weight of a goodbye. I sent it to her as something meaningful, something I had created with my body, my art, and something I had wanted her to see. I sent it to her because she was still here, and I thought there would be more messages.
When she died, the shape of the message changed forever. It became a time capsule. The message was no longer a video or a conversation thread that existed on an ordinary day. I kept thinking about how technology has a way of preserving a moment for us. It keeps the evidence there, maybe even lets us believe for a faulty moment that nothing has changed. Until you realize it cannot give you more time. There will never be another response. The conversation is over, or now just one-sided.
I still return to the screen that is frozen in time. I keep replaying the final interaction. I still find myself looking at the same message as if I could somehow find something new inside it, even though I already know how it ended. Could I have said more? Should I have sent something different? Am I okay with this being our last interaction? I have to be okay with it, right? And then the question that felt almost too absurd and too painful at the same time: “Chasing Cars,” seriously? I find myself wondering, “Does this grief even belong to me? Do I have the right to grieve her loss? What about those who were more embedded in her daily life? Who am I to have these feelings at all?”
That is the side of grief I do not think we talk about enough. It is not always poetic. It does not have to be softened by meaning. Sometimes grief is a relationship that had stopped mid-conversation, leaving a jagged edge where there should have been more time. Sometimes it is a text message you cannot delete because it is the last place the person still feels reachable. Sometimes it is an old voicemail, a sweatshirt, a birthday card, a photo, a routine, a song, a corner of the house, or a screen that still holds their name. Sometimes, it’s grieving the “what if” when there were moments within the relationship that were not always beautiful.
That is one of the reasons some losses can feel so unresolved, even when repair was made possible. I think people sometimes assume that unresolved grief means there was no closure, no reconciliation, no peace. But sometimes unresolved grief is more complicated and layered than that. Sometimes, it’s the body and mind also grieving what never had time to fully settle into the nervous system. I am grateful that my aunt and I were able to repair some of the complicated parts of our relationship while there was still time. We found language for things that had gone unspoken. We found our way back to each other, even if we had to be separated before I felt like we could be completely whole again.
I wonder what could have been if we had found our way back before she got sick. I feel angry sometimes that illness is what ignited the reunion. Then, almost in the same breath, I feel grateful that a reunion happened at all. Grief makes room for that kind of duality. Love and anger. Relief and regret. Tenderness and resentment. Gratitude and the deep ache of wondering why it had to happen this way. The repair did not erase the “I wish I had” or the “What if I had.” Sometimes it made the loss more tender, because we had finally found our way back to each other, only to realize how little time was left.
Maybe that is another kind of drag path: the mark left by the almost. Almost more time. Almost more conversations. Almost a longer version of the relationship we were finally learning how to have.
I will still have that text that will remain the evidence of our final interaction. I will still have the routine. I still have the song that has taken new form. I still have the strange connection between a show I have loved, a song already associated with grief, an actor’s tribute, and the disease that took my aunt. I still have the part of me that wishes I had said more. I still have the part of me that is okay with our final message. I still have the part of me that wishes I had known that message would matter as much as it does now.
But I didn’t know. I just sent her something I had created and was immensely proud of. Something I found to be incredibly impactful and meaningful. Something from my body, my friends, my community, my art, and my survival. That last message was not perfect. It was not everything I would have said if I had known. But it was still a connection. It was still a thread. It was still proof that some part of me loved her, wanted her to see me, and wanted to share something with her while she was still here. There was proof that she was here. There was proof that she was here, and I was here, and at one point in time, we co-existed together.
That text message became my drag path. Not because it trapped me in the past, but because it shows where I resisted being pulled away from her. It shows that love had weight. It shows that she mattered enough to me to leave a mark, to write about it, to make this story memorable.
She was here. And that matters.
~
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