Times of Darkness

It is written on my heart now. The pain, the loss, the sorrow. All of it etched so deeply, it has become a part of this life I now live. I find that it is not a 'new normal' for so much of the old is still there. The grief is an added extension that stays without invitation. It's hard, so very hard to accept that it will always be there, hiding at times, waiting to jump out and take our breath away without a moments notice. It use to be a startled surprise, now it is expected. We never know when or what will set us off. Sometimes, the event is not even related to our actual grief.

A couple of days ago an incident happened. No details for it involved others, but it had nothing to do with Tim's dying yet it brought about such great sadness that I lost it for a little while. The rawness of the pain was like it was new all over again. I know there will be times like that, when they happen they swamp you so completely that you lose all the progress you have made toward learning to live with your grief. You lose all your baby steps, stumbling strides, acceptance. Everything crashes for a time. During this time of darkness, we despair. We feel we have fooled ourselves into believing we are making progress. That it is all an illusion, wishful thinking. You haven't fooled yourself, you are being human. Each time we fall, we get up a little quicker, become a little stronger.

Tim has been gone fourteen months, not years but months. He was here a second ago, how can so much time have passed without our noticing it? There will forever be days or moments when the sorrow over-rides everything else. They don't last as long or come as often, but they are a part of us until we die. To say I miss him is an understatement. We can only use words that don't come close to what we feel everyday. We use words that have a watered down meaning to what grief really is. So much changed and so much remained the same, it becomes confusing at times. I look at his picture and accept that he is lost to me for now and then look at it later and stare in disbelief that he is gone. The war our emotions inflict on us is constant and unrelenting. The time of complete darkness without end has passed, but still we live in grayness, the darkness returning at its own whim. Colors return and become shockingly brilliant after so much dimness.

Grief narrows our life down to simplicity. What was important is no longer a priority. Nature, natural things, are more desirable than what we once wanted in our lives. It is a sadness that it takes death, the depth of death, to change our way of seeing the world. My family and friends have thinned out. Some by my choice, others by theirs and I find that it does not bother me now. At first, it was painful, later I saw the necessity. It is not true that blood is thicker than water. You realize that truth when you are at your lowest in life. You accept that truth in time and even embrace it. Life becomes simpler because of this weeding out process. A process you did not ask for nor want, but have no choice but to accept and forget it. It is not worth the pain, we have enough of that already.

I have heard people say it would seem to them that you would hold those you love closer after losing one you love so much. That is not how it works. We sometimes distant ourselves from that love out of fear of more pain. Only after time has passed do you start to hold others close again. Grief opens your eyes to who you want to be around and whom you don't. It is true that no matter how much you loved someone before grief, you may not love after loss. Part of that is because of how they treat you during your darkest days, it cements your feelings toward them. Part of it is the change. You cannot force yourself to love if the love is not there. Stop beating yourself up over something you have no control over. It is a tortured, winding road that we travel as we learn to live life all over again. If we carry guilt over every little thing whether it is in our control or not, we retard our ability to grow within our grief.

I still don't sleep much or eat right. It has become a learning process. We have to force ourselves to do many things that came naturally before. We have to learn to want to live and enjoy our life again even as we live with our sorrow. We have to stop the world from telling us where we should be on this road. It is an empty, featureless road without signs to tell you where the next emotion is, what the next step is. If there are ones who cause us emotional harm, we learn to step away without guilt. Sometimes, there is just too much going on an it becomes overwhelming. This is when we step back into total darkness for a little while if only to get away from the demands of an uncaring world. Don't stay there, reach for your own light. With love from a 'forever mom'.