Grief and Happiness

Sooo….you might have noticed I stopped writing for the last one hundred and eighteen days.  I just couldn’t physically write a word, and it’s as if I unconsciously put a cork in my brain to stop the flow of nonstop shit that relentlessly flowed from my memory banks. I guess it was natures way of letting me take a break and heal. I have been working on my second book, which is not about grief by the way, but filled with older, past memories that kept the grieving wound open and festering.

It was nice for a while, to not dissect every well-meaning thought to be written down, but the urge to say what I needed to say, silently prompted me to start writing and sharing once again. Naturally, my thoughts touched on why I felt the need to stop the chatter and I realized I was ashamed of my grief.

I was…am… embarrassed of my sadness…and more recently…my happiness…the fact that life continued to move forward without my husband, father and daughter just felt wrong.

Let me start with the grief shame. After three years, I felt that no one wanted to hear that I still experience despondency or what I call that hopeless feeling of never-ending anguish. Let me break it down a little more, that wake up to overwhelming sense of loss so deep, that every day is an eternity until death. Counting one breath at a time just to survive another minute bad, and believe me, I have been in that place a lot over the last thirty-six months. It sounds so dramatic, but in the onslaught of depression, I got lost.

As emotions washed over me in unexpected waves, I hid from the world and pretended that I was doing OK.  I understood it was hard for others to know what to say, or to be reminded that I lost three very loved people in a very short period of time. Maybe it brought up uncomfortable feelings for them, so Tia, Dean and Dad’s names were rarely said, and that made my heart hurt. Frankly, when feeling my worst, I had no energy to care what anyone else said or did, which was oddly freeing in itself. It may be scary to those who don’t understand and can’t wrap their brain around cancer, illness and death.   But it's OK, I get it, because that was who I was three years and nine months ago. The problem was not their inability to say the right or wrong thing, because that never mattered to me. It was my incapacity to share my true feelings and show my real self.

I once heard that when we go to heaven, our experience is more amazing by the love we leave behind in our physical life. Spirits live on through the love of their families and or close loved ones and friends (gone and present). They journey right alongside what we encounter, participating in all that we do, see and feel and as our lives progress, it broadens their growth and capacity for love, just as it does ours.

It’s hard to understand that it’s not natural (or maybe socially acceptable) to talk about my deceased loved ones, to remember their stories and lives, so that new people I meet can learn about how wonderful and influential they were to me. Or how they helped to form who I have become, along with those currently around me, like an all-encompassing spider web.

But as much as the subject of grief is talked about in books, articles or on T.V., nothing changes, or at least it hasn't for me. Dammit! I still cry several times a day, sometimes in random spurts, other times to what is predictable. Yet, I mostly never show that side of me, to anyone.

Which brings me to my point. I am ashamed of my grief. Somehow, I think I should be stronger, fiercer, maybe better at acting like it all never happened. I am frequently referred to as wonder woman or such a strong woman but, unfortunately, I just can’t accept that title, as I am who I am without a choice, and survival is the only option. So, I increasingly stay in on Friday and Saturday nights, interact less with others while out and about, shield my broken heart and protect the strange link that I feel to Dean and Tia’s souls. No one understands, my head tells me, but that could be my insecurity talking, not reality. I don’t know, I’m too scared to talk about it out loud.

Because I fall back on fear…(fear of failure, vulnerability, or showing weakness), isolation is my reward which circles me back to my worst fear, being all alone. I continue my life, living what feels like a lie at times, hiding my sorrow from even the closest around me, so that they will think all is normal and steady, when nothing ever really is.

Happiness, unlike sadness, is harder to achieve but no less guilt ridden. I felt somewhere deep in my subconscious that being happy was a betrayal to my husband and daughter. Since I have felt their presence so strongly, I know they watch me, are around me, and listen to me. Which could be considered comforting for some, but it also rears the ugly imaginary head of judgement. I know that feeling only comes from my ego, but I am human after all. 

To really move forward with my life, I have to let go of all the pain, cherish daily existence, and open my heart to new love, knowing nothing will ever replace the love lost. I work on this every day, hope being the strongest word to explain needed momentum of shedding sorrow and opening up to new opportunities and all that being alive has to offer. I work on understanding in my heart, that all they really want for me is contentment in all aspects. Actually, I KNOW that is what they want, but my mind cannot always shed the guilt of survival, when they did not.

Time hasn’t healed my wounds, only my ability to accept what has gone down in my history, in my mortal viability on earth. I do achieve periods of happiness and growth in that the feelings of grief grow farther apart. And in those chasms that are created with acceptance, I fill them as much as possible with laughter and joy. My soul never lets me give up and little by little, grief is fading away.