Tag: grief

Chaos Rules

“You’re mother’s in the hospital.”               It’s cancer!              Be brave!              “Your cousins are dead; all perished.”              Don’t speak of it.              You’ll upset others.             “Dad is not what you think he is.”             We have secrets.            Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.            “Your sister is pregnant.”            It’s a disgrace!            They need my help.          “Mother’s back is broken.”           Go away!          I am not wanted.         “Mom is not coping.”         Keep the baby quiet.       It’s all on my shoulders.        Suicide attempts       drug use    more deaths    illness     divorce    sexual promiscuity    breakdowns     insanity     spiraling out of control   Hold it together   We count on you.  I am responsible.  I am strong.  They need me.  Chaos  collusion
runaway rape “I have to leave.” I’ll save you. It’s never-ending.  I’m losing control. STOP!                                                  WAIT!
I AM                                    WEAK
NOT                         ABLE
to
breathe
broken
need
space
I learn to be,
gain strength from
knowledge, baby steps
Let          go
and         let
God         heal
restore                 revival
The Earth beneath me my protector; the sky above salvation; I am safe.

“You’re Mother is in the hospital.”    She wants to die.   I must be strong.
The walls around me crumble…
I am losing ground…
… a child again.

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A Child’s Grief

I didn’t cry when you died in that fire,
you and your sisters and brother.
I didn’t cry when we saw the images on the news –
the charred remains of your house,
four stretchers with black tarps being carried from the scene.
I didn’t cry when we all crowded around the coffin –
one built for four – your bodies reduced to nothing –
family members wailing in disbelief.
I didn’t cry, because I couldn’t.

Your bright eyes haunted me –
that impish smile of yours
cutting through my soul
taunting me, as you always did –
your quick tongue and high energy
dancing around me, making my head spin –
raising my ire until I could take no more.I wish you were dead, Billy!
I’d said it out loud.
Said it in front of everyone.
Said it with spite and meant it.
Said it, only days before the fire.

I know they know.
I can tell by the way they all hold each other,
and cry into their handkerchiefs
and don’t look at me.
I can tell they know it is my fault.
I know it is my fault.
I didn’t really mean it, Billy.
I didn’t really mean it, God.
We were just playing around.
Billy and me, it’s how we are.
We were just fooling.
Billy’d always make me mad,
then we’d make up – everytime
I swear.
Please God, make it not so.
I won’t fight with him anymore, I promise.
I only fight with him ’cause I like him.
You know how it is with boys and girls.
Billy’s my cousin.  I love him.
Please send him back God.
I’ll be good and learn to tame my temper –
Mommy always tells me to watch my temper –
I’ll be good, you’ll see.
I didn’t mean for you to kill all of them –
well…I didn’t really mean for any of them –
it’s just something you say –
when you’re ten and don’t know any better.

A Mountain of Grief

I exist in the spaces –
crushed and flattened –
between the rocks that form
this mountain of grief.

Each sorrowful fragment
petrified,  polished –
a collection of coldness
hardened and maintained.
I’ve never known how to grieve.

How do I shed the weightiness –
crawl out from the crevices –
breathe new life into myself?

Should I try to scale the mound?
Conquer my emotions?
Raise a flag to victory
and ultimate denial?

Or, one by one,
should I examine
and relive the losses
counting them till my head spins
and my heart beats no more?

Lacking the strength to do either
I sit and feel the hollow agony –
the overwhelming numbness
that precedes movement.

I live in the cracks
of this precariously constructed
shroud of stones –
a self-imposed prison –
and pray for resurrection.

The Same, But Broken

It is the state of fragility that blindsides me.
I am a strong woman.
Someone once told me I was courageous, but I cannot see it –
I have not chosen pain, grief,
illness.

The fragility is pervasive –
My body feels reduced to miniscule fibers:
stretched and torn, on the brink of brokenness.
Mind, overwhelmed, obsesses, but will not organize
or let go.
if only I could let go.
If you could see me I am weeping and not –
weeping from the frustration of the immediate impossibility
and unwilling to weep for the total loss.
It is beyond me.

Outside these walls life continues
and regards me with disgust/ indifference/ repulsion.
There is no equality for the ill and disabled.

And, yet….

In this state of rawness, stripped of “life”,
or rather, busy-ness,
I am as any other –

Just a soul trying to having a meaningful existence.

Maybe illness is the great equalizer.

(Image: background-pictures.picphotos.net)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 241 Going With the Flow

I could cry tonight,
if it wasn’t so futile.

I would weep for all my losses –
not just this moment of weakness

but the well of energy that once drove me
is

dry

arid

sapped.

Shuffling steps
are punctuated
with

stumbles

and my grasp

falters

and with sorrow
I surrender

to rest

until the tide changes
and I am renewed
and life flows again.

Day 131 “Desires”

Thor has just undergone a third surgery to his knee to remove infection.  After yet another week of IV antibiotics, the doctor is threatening a fourth surgery next week if the healing does not progress.  Compromised by his cancer and the radiation treatments, it feels as if he is scaling a steep, and dangerous, cliff wall.

What we desire right now is relief:  a sign that things are turning around and that a return to health is imminent.

There are no worldly things that can calm the anxiety of uncertainty.  Even our summer travel plans, which had previously given us something to look forward to, are now cancelled.  Life is on hold.

The kindness of friends brings reassurance and warmth, but the reality still looms, stifling.

Rationally, I know that grief has many stages and that bargaining is just one of them, however, that is exactly what I want to do:  negotiate.  I want to make a deal with God that I will give up all my material wealth if only He will promise me that my husband will be well.

It is a desperate and hollow plea.

Instead, I must find inside myself the courage and strength to carry on.   Surrendering to  fear is not an option – my husband deserves more than that.   Fiercely, I must attack this enemy with all the love and compassion that I possess.

It is all that matters right now.

 

A Witness To Death

My mother told me that when she was a child, she would wake up in the middle of the night to find her mother slaving over the woodstove.  Grandma was a midwife.  Mom said Grandma’s dreams would tell her when a baby was coming, and she would get up and cook for her family, knowing she would be away.

Grandma’s gift passed on to me, with a slight variation.

I first learned about it the night my four cousins perished in a fire.  I awoke in the middle of the night with an awful chill.  When my mother told me the news, I realized that I’d already known about their passing.

Walking home from school one day, at the age of eleven, something unseen stopped me in my tracks.  The image of my paternal Grandmother filled my mind along with the sensation of her love, and a farewell.  I arrived home to find my family gathered around.  “I know,” I said, before anyone could speak.  “She told me.”

Lying beside my ailing sister one night, I had a vision of a spirit.  He told me to listen for the howling of the wolves, and that my sister would pass through the fire on her way to the other side.  I was with her the night an unexpected storm came in.  The wind it brought sounded like a pack of wolves howling outside the window.  I had been holding her hand, but the heat from her body was so intense, I had to let go.  The nurse said her temperature was higher than her thermometer could measure.  She passed away ten minutes later.

Do I believe in life after death?  Yes.  Does that lessen the grief of losing a loved one?  No.

Grief is the natural response to loss.  Life may go on, but the relationship has been permanently altered, and that is loss.

When Dee found out she was dying, she made me promise I would be there to hold her hand.  Death, like birth, I told her, is not something we have control over, but I would do my best.  The call came at 6:30 one morning.

“Dee says it’s time,”  her mother told me.  “Can you come?”

I had children to get off to school, and so it was two hours before I arrived at Dee’s bedside.  She was already well on her way.   With one hand I grasped hers, then placed my other over her heart as I leaned in to whisper: “I’m here.”

Dee’s eyes opened and she took one last gasping breath and died.  Her spirit, like a breeze, flowed through the house, flickering all the candles her mother and sister had lit to mark the occasion.  She was free!

I witnessed the miracle, and then I grieved.