Experiencing Things Other Than Grief

Day 1084.

I have risen at 6:00 AM, alone, to capture these words.

For me, there is a certain amount of privacy required to grieving Luke.

It’s not that I don’t think about him when I’m in company, maybe more that I don’t think about him being dead when I’m in company.

Is this because we talk about him so, or, is this because when I’m enjoying myself (and yes, this now happens) 

I think of the good in my life, and that includes Luke.

or

Is it because I purposely don’t go there?

But it would appear that my body eventually builds up a grief pressure and starts to feel fit to burst.

Is the sensation of pressure a buildup of tears and sadness that needs to be drained, released? 

or 

Is the pressure the sensation that comes from holding back the thoughts?

The realization?

The truth?

The pressure of keeping the denial in place?

Whatever it is - I return home after a very successful holiday in Europe where I have laughed till I ache, I have been moved by beauty, both natural and manmade,

I have swum in deep mediterranean water and been in the bosom of my family and oldest friends, and George was with us, swelling my heart.

They were happy to hear my laughter once more, and so, just like a child, seeking the rewarding behavior map, with my newly found ability to distance myself from the panic of my truth, (because there’s no urgency - it will always be there) I laughed and played and was light and happy. Does this mean they would dread to hear my sobbing? To see my sadness but a gossamer veil away from my joy.

As we journeyed home, my unrest, my wounds, became clear once more.

I am irritable, I cope less with adversity and I am intolerant.

I feel unsafe in the USA.

Unprotected.

I feel very foreign.

But a woman with a dead kid is foreign anywhere.

And as soon as normal life resumes, and I am alone. Luke’s yahrzeit, the anniversary of his death, approaches, with all that it brings to my soul… the tsunami is coming.

I will cry.

I will beg.

I will break.

……………..And then, I will be through it.

I know this now.

Are these outbursts, these expressions of my grief to be encouraged, as a release, a soothing?

Is this process addictive?

Or the unavoidable truth manifesting in an agonizing interpretive dance, solo and private, as all grief surely is. Or, are they self indulgent? Self piteous? Keeping me in my loss?

Are they to be avoided?

“Keep busy” so many prescribe to distract your grief?

“Keep your mind off of it”

“Try not to think about it”

“Think about other things”

Almost three years later, I can tell you one thing, it doesn't work like that.

Missing someone who is alive is quite different to missing someone who is dead.

I can now finally experience things other than my grief, my aching loss.

I can put my agony to the background, put it in soft focus.

But eventually it will become center stage, in full color and surround sound.

It’s as if I have a fixed allocation of liters of tears to cry, a fixed quota of agony to feel, or a preordaned amount of wailing to expel.

As time passes, this dance between my new normal and my grief, alters, as I come to understand how to live a good life after Luke’s death.

The tears fall as I write that sentence because, to live on, is both a goal and a taboo.

I feel disloyal to Luke and also that I make him proud.