Good Grief

Last night I dreamt that my husband called me on the telephone. He wanted to know what I was doing to miss him. I told him I cried everyday and thought of him constantly. I told him how the children and I speak about him and miss him terribly. He kept asking the same question over and over again. How am I missing him? How am I missing him? I kept answering until my voice was dry. Finally I asked him – do you miss us? Silence. Just utter silence. I woke up soon after with an aching in my heart. What does this dream mean? – please like I really know.

Six months is soon approaching and I think I have gotten no where. All I do know is that I totally get this grief thing now. I am not sure how to explain myself but I will try.

I have good days and terrible days. The missing my dead husband is always constant. I don’t always want to talk about him – sometimes I only want to talk about him. But I am aware of how everyone in my life is moving on. They don’t ask the questions they all did in the beginning and I cherish this. I don’t want to always talk about just death all the time and I doubt anyone wants to hear about death all the time either. Grief is just this thin sheet I am always wrapped up in, that covers me - maybe it will forever. Grief is always present, even if sometimes I tuck it up my sleeve for an hour or two.

It doesn’t bother me that I am watching the world live life as usual. I think back to people I know over the years that have lost loved ones – I don’t ask anymore how they are doing - unless they bring it up. Almost as if asking would be reminding them about their loss. I won’t ever need reminding – it lives in my heart always. But grief is now something I want to do alone – in the shower, at night before I go to bed, whenever I find quiet moments alone. I don’t want to grieve publicly anymore – I just won’t.

In my grief therapy book I have found a lot of quotes that I can relate to. Who knew a silly little hallmark book that I shelved all these months would be the one thing that may save me. Maybe because it is just so simplistic. It takes the chaos of my feelings that I can’t focus on and puts it out there in simple phrases that totally makes sense to me.

“There may be a small place within you that remains hollow. Value it. This quiet, abiding feeling may be one of G-d’s ways of sustaining the connection to your precious loved one.”

If you don’t know how it feels to lose a loved one – you may not understand how scared I have been of this hollow, empty feeling I carry. But now not only do I realize why I feel this way, I can embrace and not fear it.

I am missing therapy this month to move. Honestly I am happy about it. The thing about my suicide group therapy is that it is just so freaking sad. Of course I don’t expect anyone to walk in and do stand up comedy but something uplifting would be welcome. But this is me. If I don’t have humor and laughter in my life then I have nothing. It is so hard to walk into a room you know everyone is every bit as sad and miserable as you. Who needs to be reminded how awful their life is? Someday I want someone to walk in with a big smile and say - I am doing great and someday you will too. But this doesn’t happen. Instead I hear about depression and there is crying and misery and life has no meaning and I will never be happy again. I feel this way too – but it is hard to hear other people say what you fear the most – that they are not over the death of their loved ones and they don’t think they ever will be.

So I decided today that I am sticking to my grieving in private. I don’t want to look and sound miserable to the outside world. I don’t want people to think they can’t talk to me about the good in their lives for fear of saddening me – I want people to be real with me – no matter what.

Though I count this blog as private, which is funny in itself – maybe I will blog forever about this. This blog is my comfort blanket that lies over the sheet of grief and fills the void of the evening after the children have gone to bed. When it is just me and I wander around the house missing him the most – when it is just me alone. So I blog to not feel so alone and of course to get it all out.

Every book I have read about grief says basically the same thing. There are stages you go through, though in no particular order- some may reoccur and some take longer than others. Thanks – that is helpful.

Personally my take on grief is this - I will never ‘get over’ the loss of my husband and father to my children and I will forever be a changed person. But how I change and what I do with the change is inevitably my choice.