The Metamorphosis of Grief



My grief is constantly morphing and shaping itself into this omnipotent, invisible force that always has presence around me. My mind is the creator but I have no control of my emotions once I have manifested that sorrow. 

The loss is real but unseen, and no one else can feel the pain. That, in itself, is the isolation in which I live. Members of the grief club do not go around wearing an equivalent to Hester’s scarlet A on their chest. I am part of an invisible club.

Lately, I stay busy with friends and errands, managing to go several days feeling what I guess I can call, normal…happy, but then inevitably, I am alone, and I remember.
 The visceral pain hits my gut and floods my body and brain with an ache of longing so intense, I can’t catch my breath. 
Tears are my only outlet and stream forth unwanted and wet. They are messy, snotty and tiresome.

Early on, my weeping was silent, sporadic, and personal. I seldom shared them with anyone, because I hate to show emotion. Now, the inner pain comes on so intense, it feels like birthing labor. Instead of delivering a baby to find new love and joy, I germinate an aching sense of loss so deep I want to curl in a ball on the floor. Currently, my crying includes a keening wail that emanates from my mouth, a loud companion to the ever present flood that comes from my eyes.

I grasp for words to convey my minds ability to easily relive happy memories with my husband, dad and daughter, only to blink and remember in a wash of unpleasant reality that they are gone. I want what I had, and it’s not an easy thing to let go of. 

The emptiness of their absence is the hardest part of acceptance.

I always hated window shopping. Grief feels like shopping at Christmas with no money, although comparing life loss to material items seems incongruent. The ache of wanting something I can’t have can engulf my mind, sometimes bringing me to what feels like the edge of my sanity. When the path of grief leads me to that cliff, I sit on a precipice of decision.

Do I continue to fight life for a new beginning and for those still alive who need me? Or Do I give up and cave to a pain that is created in my own mind?

I begin to get a peek into the shadows of the mind that healthy people don’t venture and decide I am not ready to get lost in the dark.


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