You might recognize yourself below. Grief and bereavement are strangely universal experiences and painfully unique. Whatever you are feeling during your process (and it is a process, not an event) this grief is something that will change you in ways you can’t predict. There’s no wrong way to do it. There are right ways to find support through it and real help from trained professionals who have gone through it and know how to sit with you in it, walk with you through it, and support your healing. You are not alone. You don’t have to grieve alone. Call 513-530-5888 or email me at bethluwandi@gmail.com. Group is forming now. Individual work is ongoing. All of it is healing.
Humans are amazing. YOU are amazing.
From this perspective, that is, standing in today glancing back, it’s a wonder you survived. It’s a wonder you are surviving the weight of this grief.
You even think like that some days, glancing back. And I mean glancing. There aren’t many days you want to stare into the moment you learned (or watched) your loved one pass from this world into the next.
Next followed the fog of ceremony and people pressing you and somehow you moved through the fog and said words to people to comfort THEM all while wondering if your heart was in your body or your brain really attached to any kind of self you used to know. It was a blur. I know.
Your head ached with tears or the numbness of holding them in.
You wonder sometimes if you’re actually breathing now.
And some days he is all you can think about. She is the air and the soft sound and a smell next to you wafting out of nowhere just when everything was moving along like clockwork, like normal, like life again.
You see his face in the crowd. Hear her laughter in the theater.
A song, a scent, a memory.
A dream wherein you forget…
then remember on waking, pained all over again. Your brain brings you up to date on a reality you question and wrestle over with God or the Universe or the Powers That Be, trying to resist cursing them all. And then, yes, do curse them all. It’s unfair.
You feel hollow. Like your carcass and body are empty, the rest of you someplace else.
Yet you’re determined. You will get through. You will move on. You will heal. You are a strong person.
And you do. You do work. You do move. You take the kids to soccer. You hug people or you avoid touching anyone. You read to her and watch him give his speech and show up for the talent show and field the hushed questions from others who ask “how are you doing?”
“Fine,” you say, smiling, sometimes wanting to choke the pitiful look off the asker’s face, sometimes avoiding the deep wells of sympathy afraid you’ll either want to scratch them out or fall into their warm pools, wailing. And you focus on whomever might be hurting more because that’s easier. Diversion. John has a nervous stomach. He got in trouble at school. Mary isn’t sleeping.
They have a therapist. Not you.
You keep up with the tennis club, the softball team, the yearly trip with the friends even when the whole time the topic that cannot surface as anything deeper than surface talk floats dangerously in the middle of everything. It’s light interest. How are you doing and how are the children doing and how are mom and dad doing. It’s easier that way.
No one truly understands and if you had to talk about it, these would not be your people. The kids are in therapy and Steven is on antidepressants which is best because he’s away at college now and you are all good. You are doing as well as can be expected. Everyone marvels that you are holding it together so well.
You sleep. And drink. Then decide not to drink since it makes you cry and ache.
You sleep and smoke. That feels like nothing, like the stench of smoke and there’s relief in feeling nothing. Oh, that’s why people smoke, you realize and wonder if you want to be a smoker again. Probably not.
But you don’t want to feel. To process. To unpack this. There are things no one needs to know. Those who invite reflection or suddenly bring him up or recall a story with her in it or call and want payment on an expired insurance policy or whip out her photos without warning make you want to scream.
You’d spend all day telling stories and looking at pictures if you wanted to.
And time passes. You’re doing well.
Did you go a whole day without being sad? How could you do that so soon? What if someone finds out you didn’t even think of her today? You went a whole day without crying over him, without that dull ache under your ribs. Is this what it feels like to heal from grief? Is this getting better? Is this what getting better looks like – forgetting and guilt?
Then the song floods out of the car stereo. You thought you didn’t have to change the channel this time but as you let it play tears stream and bricks return to your shoulders. You thought you could control this. But another reminder surprises you, even this long after. As bad as you imagined it would be, you could not have imagined this.
You are not alone. Now may be the time to reach out. Find a therapist. Find a group.
And of course, come here. You are definitely welcome here.
Call me at 513-530-5888 or send an email. Or scroll down and leave me a comment.
