I received the most beautiful sympathy card and letter from my dear friend in Washington. The amil was brought in and put on the table. As soon as I saw it, it was as if some kind of fear came over me. I could not look at it. I put it on my desk and avoided even moving it to paint yet another portrait, or to do my usual morning activities. I avoided it. I knew what it was. I just felt like, with all the chaos and drama going on in my life that I simply could not add the revisiting the pain of losing my daughter. It has taken me a few days to gather up the courage and feel strong enough to read and grieve anew. Grief is never an uncomplicated thing. Everyone grieves differently and each loss has its own whole Universe of kinds of grief and grieving. There is nothing normal or usual about grief and the Stages of Grief do not fit like a few lines in a notebook, a doctor’s log, an everyday woman’s way of logging what grief is doing to her. You do not go through the stages and then heal, nicely and neatly, as all expect. Not everyone feels the comfort and healing of an Omnipresent Being. No amount of support, of loving gestures, of concerned family and loved ones, can do more than barely touch the surface of deep waters of grief. Avoidance, denial, cliches, and platitudes, prayer or even rituals do more than swipe across the surface like a cloud’s shadow skims the depth of waters that grief threatens to hold you beneath the surface of. Almost three months and I am barely coming up for breath #1.
I have not had time to grieve properly with life handing me three major life situations that left little room for such. I have been merely putting one foot in front of the other, stumbling, often, fallen flat on my face, and have struggled to rise above these situations that have left little time for reflection other than acknowledging that, under it all, I am still grieving hard. It is as if there were two alternate spaces I am caught up in; one, is everyday struggle with some huge problems caused by others and, two, is that longing for space and time where I shut out all but some few moments of calm. I wait for night to come so I can shut out the day and, yet, walking out into the night every couple of hours, I feel the strangeness and quiet of nothing but night.
The unique processes of grief, for every loss, is different but this one could be as disabling and change the quality of my life almost as badly as did the loss of my soulmate. If you have not lost a child, then you cannot relate. It takes a strength of character and a great support system to get through some parts of any kind of grief. It is persistent. It disrupts every day, at some point, as you slip into thoughts of grief about the loss. It affects you physically. I feel my heart begin to pound and there is a literal ache in the heart betimes. I feel physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually challenged, betimes, as well. I feel vulnerable. There seems to be no complete healing even for losses decades ago. There is always a wound. There is a yearning, of different kinds, for the different losses. It goes way beyond the initial disbelief, the anger, the bitterness, the pain of each loss. She is gone without ever saying she was sorry. I always waited for her to come, again, like times before, and say she was sorry. A mother forgives at the first utterance of it.
Complicated grief makes you feel alienated and strange. I try to avoid thinking about it. There is no solution. How do I define myself. I used to have seven children. Now, I have six. I “lost” one is a saying that is ridiculous. I did not lose her. I lay awake at night trying to figure out how I say that she’s gone. I worry how it is affecting my other children, some more than others. The older ones had more time with her. The youngest did not really know her. I do not know what to say to them any more either. I am still, very much, coming to terms with what has happened to all of us.
The card and letter sat, unopened, haunting me. I had to gather up my bravery and open it. I opened it but did not read it for another day. Finally, I knew I had to get through it. It was beautiful. It was the pouring out of sisterhood. I felt cared for. I felt it came at just the right time. I can release some more.
Thank you, dear heart, for such a beautiful sentiment, for sharing your sorrows, for reaching out the second mile, to care for me. You know who you are. I love you forever for it.
©Carol Desjarlais 9.1.23
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