It's been a Year

It's been a year.

Nothing has really changed.

Everything has changed.

I still can't believe it that you're gone.

It's the same thing I hear every grieving

person say.

It's so hard to fathom, you'll never

have another moment in this life with

someone you've known most of your own.

It's difficult on many levels, because

the circumstances were not ideal.

Not by a long shot.

I really had a hard time the first few months,

and I thought all about the many years we

shared. I found photos of you and put them

in frames for the first time.

I painted a rosy picture and remembered

the good years. I talked to you nearly everyday.

I felt bad, and had that old regret so many have:

what could I have done more of?

Then one day I had to clear out an old email

account that was yours.

I found very hurtful things, that I was aware of

from the past.

It brought me back down to earth.

You were a complex person, like everyone is.

You had good qualities, and bad.

I still can't quite put it into perspective how all

the pieces fit, but when I came back to earth,

I couldn't paint you to be that noble person anymore.

Maybe it's good I can see the picture more

in focus.

Grieving is a difficult process.

And it is a process.

Our society has moved away from allowing us time

to grieve. People don't want to talk about it.

I think it needs to be talked about.

If you haven't lost someone who has a great impact

on your soul, then long term grief is very difficult

to wrap your head around.

People tell you to "move on", and if they do

that tells you all you need to know about how 

it is incomprehensible to them. They've never

gone through it and so from their perspective

it's bewildering it is to watch another person

"wallow" in their grief.

Yes, I've been accused of "wallowing" and told

to "move on", and now I know better.

When you know better,

you do better.

There is no wallowing, 

and there is no moving on.

You learn to carry the grief, 

it grows within you,

and over time, 

you find a way to make peace with it.

But, it never leaves you, if only everyone could 

understand this. Maybe it would make them

be more compassionate.

When you have multiple losses on top of each

other it just extends the pain and the loss.

I have a long way to go to fully understand my own

loss and my own grief, & it is something I am 

working hard on.

I'm not hiding it anymore.

***

And I still do miss seeing that phone number

appear on my caller id.

It's hard to know a number he kept for over 15 years

now belongs to someone new.

It's strange you never expect a loss.

Because you lose so much more than just a person.

I guess that's part of what people

who haven't suffered a significant loss get.

You don't just lose that person,

you lose an identity,

a lifetime of memories.

A future that is muddled.

There is much that has to be 

updated and changed when you least are able

to do tangled complex maneuvers.

There is a great deal more

than just losing one thing.

You lose what feels like everything 

all at once, and you have to begin

rebuilding from the ground up.

It takes each individual a different path

to find their own way back up again.

That's one reason why grief is such a

difficult process because you can only do it

alone.

 

Abby

Six years ago...

I held you for one last time.

***

I understand that sometimes,

maybe too often, for some

 I touch on the subject of

grief.
I understand if you don't wish to read this.
I get it.
I was once there too.
It's not light reading.
It's not easy reading.
But, this is how I feel.
I'm done apologizing for feeling this way.
It is as they say how it is.

Because I do to understand myself,
and ultimately to process

all of these feelings. 

I write about it here to
release my very tender thoughts

and deepest emotions and fears.
I thank you if you read this far.
I also appreciate any comment or thought you might have.
How do you deal with it,
if you're going through it?

I cling to my memories

 which is all I have left now.

I can't get any "new" memories.

I can't take any more photos.

I can't hold her again.

All I have is what once was.

Sometimes I talk out of fear of her being forgotten.

Other times I'm simply trying to make myself

understand the nightmare and only those

who have walked the same nightmarish path can.

I cling to my memories

even as they fade.

I miss you.

The only thing I could
not protect you from was
...time.

***

And I will always remember
and I'll always
ALWAYS
love you.

***

I do understand that there are some who think:
HOW LONG HAS THIS BEEN, and when is she
going to 'get over this'.

I get it.
Truly I do.
I used to think that way too about someone
grieving.

I thought those thoughts and did so until I grieved.
Then I became a member of the 'club' and boy
what a club, and wow what an education I got.

I don't think those things anymore.

Since that day I've come to realize that Grief doesn't
visit you for a temporary stay, oh no. Grief sets up shop --
permanently.

Yes time passes and the intensity of it mutes,
but there are days, oh yes there are days when
it rears up and slaps you down -- hard, and then
goes away to hibernate again.

It forces you to face the inability to do anything
but feel it all and fall apart again. It's hard in those moments
to realize that you're not the same person you once were.
It's strange too because you didn't realize until
you went through it how much change it brought inside of yourself.

You keep wanting to get your old self back, not truly
understanding that it's NOT coming back.

But that odd feeling of healing and that permanent scar of
sadness is the thing that is carried in your soul.
It is the way your love outlives your loved one.
But it's a constant chafing of the soul.

I've now walked down a bit of the Journey and I've come
to realize that this is the road I'm on now. It's NOT
a detour. I will have good days, and happy days, but I will
never ever get over this loss.

That is the price for sharing your life with someone worth missing.
And miss her I do.

Six years in and it's a lifetime sentence that I've finally accepted.
So at the end of MY journey I will be either be
beautifully reunited with her, or I will stop breathing.
Either way I will finally at that point
stop grieving.

So when you experience this and someone asks you
when you're going to get over it, tell them that.

Resilience

Merriam Webster defines resilience as the capability to recover or to adjust to misfortune or change.

***

Sometimes I believe one's ability to cope with grief depends on their own determination to just get up everyday and face the world. To stand in the deep shambles of a life crushed into a million teeny tiny shards, and declared : I don't know how or when, but somehow I'm going to survive this . Everyday is spent struggling to put those teeny tiny pieces of the past back together whole, until you realize you can't. There isn't any way to put it back together the way it once was.

***

So the days and months and even years are spent feeling troubled, resentful, in deep sorrow and outrage. There are rages against injustice of the realities, feeling deceived out of what could have, should have might have been. In all that pain, still one does not give up. There is still the desire to try and make sense of it all, until in a moment of clarity you see you can't put it back together the way it was. But you have to take what's left over in the rubble and turn it into something different.

***

So again you begin to rebuild, despite set backs,
failures and low spirits,
 you keep going.

When you have a terrible day, you still get up and go through the next one.

When you see images that bring tears of sadness, you cry, it's OK.

When friends & family let you down, you forgive them.

When life seems worthless and pointless, you hold out hope

that you will feel different,

with time.

There is no question each day you will feel weak and alone.

Maybe even believing you are the only one who feels this way.

You're not.

You're not alone,
and you're not alone in feeling the way you do.

***

But you keep picking up the pieces and rebuilding.

You are rebuilding an entire world, your world.

But what you fail to acknowledge is that each day,

each one is a act of resilience, against grief,

and it demonstrates the immense strength you possess.

You will stumble, yes, and you will fall.

You may even buckle completely.

But as long as you get up and keep trying you will grow 

stronger.

It may not feel like it but you will.

And one day,

it will not feel as bad and then you'll reach a tomorrow

where resilience will win.

***

Abby

7/1/99

8/12/13