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Grief
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This is from a thread I started at The Hypertribe, 12-26-2001. It still brings tears to my eyes to read it, but posting it publicly was an important step in dealing with it.
Grief
Grief is like the tide.
Sometimes it comes flooding in, rising inexorably, driven by the storm to inundate my life and leave me desperately floundering, struggling to find a point of solidity to which to cling, crying out for help to keep from drowning.
Other times it ebbs, sucking out and out, leaving me on a barren, sandy shore to dessicate in it's brilliant sunlight, shriveling, dying like a starfish caught upon it's shore.
I know it's shape, it's textures, it's raging power and it's sneaking depression of my soul.
I know it's process, it's stages, it's daily isolation and pain.
I know it will pass away, as all things eventually do, as I someday will. I wonder, though; will it pass before I do?
It blindsides me with sucker punches to the heart, to the soul, that stagger me and drive me too my knees. I get up, but every time it's harder, every time more of a struggle that leaves me diminished.
It leaches away my being, my soul, and leaves blackness and void upon the face of my deep.
I do not know how to quit the struggle, it is not in me to surrender. The cost of sucrease bought that way is too high. But, oh, the cost of the fight is becoming more than I can bear.
Daily, the pain in my heart grows stronger, the struggle to contain it more difficult, the rage it engenders more expensive to control. I must, but I do not know if I can.
One week ftom today will be the first anniversary of my wife's murder, my heart's compression into the jar that holds it walled from the world. Please help me to find a way to open that jar and let out the pain, the rage, the heartache without destroying all else I hold dear.
01-06-2002
Here I sit, in my lonely house, my only companions my cats and the dog. They are a great comfort to me, especially Lady Velcro (so named because she sticks to everything she touches) who lies curled in my lap, softly buzzing.
It's not enough, but it's what I have right now. My son is at work, and the house echoes with a resounding emptiness.
The grief for my wife grips me fast in an iron fist, squeezing my heart and compressing my soul. I struggle with it daily, when I am talking with others all over this country who have experienced similar losses, and allowed it to destroy their lives.
I will not permit that to happen too myself, I cannot. I allowed a major loss to grrip me and control me once before in my life, and the result was ten years of isolation, pain, and rage which nearly destroyed me.
My darling Julie saw something in me I could not see myself, and refused to accept my rejection of her approaches. She was the best single thing to ever happen to me, and I know that if I permit her loss too control me and isolate me again she will haunt my nights, and lurk around every corner of my days to ambush me and pull me out of myself.
Slowly, I know the pain will diminish - I have to believe that to go on. But it is so slow, and ever more painful as I struggle to adjust to the loneliness and emptiness I inhabit.
I miss the littlest things, the daily intertwining of our lives, the daily sharing of our joys, our frustrations, our acheivements and our failures. I miss the comfort of knowing that I can reach out and touch someone who welcomes my touch, whose touch in return softened my heart.
I find myself crying, tears dripping down my cheeks, wetting my shirt and bleeding me of my strength, at the oddest moments. While talking to an elderly lady who lost her husband of 47 years; while commiserating with a young man whose love died in an auto accident I cry, and embarrass my colleagues and myself. I don't fight the tears, that only makes the pain grow stronger.
The worst of all of this is that I cannot deal with the man who murdered my heart as I wish - for if I do I will destroy so many other good things in my life, and cause immeasurable pain to those who love me still.
My values, my beliefs, my very self-image cries out for me to hunt him down like the miserable, rabid dog he has proven himself to be. Yet I cannot, for if I do it will cost more than I can bear to inflict on others in my life.
The conflict is slowly tearing me apart. I must find a way to reconcile this dichotomy before it rips me asunder.
02-08-2002
It’s been a year now.
“It’s time to quit grieving, it’s time to let go.” They tell me, “Get on with your life, find someone new.”
Time to quit grieving – four words shaping a concept I cannot grasp. I do not know how to quit the grief, it must quit me. So far, it shows no sign of withdrawing it’s claws from my heart.
Time to let go – another four words. I can grasp this concept, but it is so slippery it squirts from my grip every time I try.
Get on with your life – I do that every day, just by choosing to continue my life. It is a decision I make afresh every day. It is just that the emptiness I inhabit has invaded me, and now there is void where my heart was.
Find someone new –
Find someone new –
Find someone new –
How do I do that?
You see, I did not find her, she found me and drew me out of ten years of darkness, misery, solitude & isolation, and showed me that Love CAN find a way to make a door in an adamantine wall. Having made that door, her love came in and filled the frozen place I called my heart with warmth, with caring, with a need to reach out and love her back.
Now it is emptiness again, but I have learned; I will not close the door to my heart again, I will not rebuild that wall, I will NOT.
The icy wind blowing through that open door right now is freezing my soul, shriveling me and leaving me twisted into a knot of shivering pain that I cannot unravel, for I am twisted up within it.
I do not pray for succor, I do not beg for relief, for I know that prayers are empty words spoken to the unhearing wind, and relief can only come with time. I do not want the relief of numbness, I will not take the relief of intoxication, for that relief means not caring, not allowing myself to explore the pain to its foundations, so that I can rebuild what is broken.
01-01-2003
Tomorrow is two years.
Just typing those words is like sticking a knife into the wound and cutting it open again. It hurts, beyond words it is an agony I cannot express, but it has to be done.
Why?, you may ask?
Because if I do not let out the anger, the rage, the corruption of my heart in words, it WILL find other ways to express itself.
This would not be good, to put it mildly,and might well be a bloody disaster for others who do not deserve to hurt simply because I am in pain. So I try to say what I feel here. It is a poor attempt, but I must try, if for no other reason than my own self-image.
Julie, I love you, I miss you, and the biggest regret in my life is not going with you that day. Perhaps nothing would be different, or perhaps there would be even more people with an aching void in their hearts for loved ones gone. Regrets, might have beens, are useless weapons with which we reproach ourselves.
Darling, thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for the love and joy you gave too me. I have not the words to say how much your spirit touched and changed my heart, but from knowing you and recieving your love I have emerged a much better man than I would ever have become on my own.
Our time together was only five short, tumultuous years, full of joy, and constant change for both of us. The greatest gift I ever recieved was you; the most important words that dwell in my memory are you telling me, Christmas morning two years ago, that you were happier than you had ever been, and thanking me for the gift of sharing my life with you. Your gift to me of yourself was so much greater than mine.
Thank you, dearest sweetheart, for your love.
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