Sunday, January 11, 2009

The Agony of Grief

Grief is a tidal wave that overtakes you, smashes down upon you with unimaginable force, sweeps you up into its darkness, where you tumble and crash against unidentifiable surfaces, only to be thrown out on an unknown beach, bruised, reshaped.

Grief means not being able to read more than two sentences at a time. It is walking into rooms with intention that suddenly vanishes.

Grief is three o'clock in the morning sweats that won't stop. It is dreadful Sundays, Mondays that are no better. It makes you look for a face in the crowd, knowing full well the face we want cannot be found in that crowd.

Grief is utter aloneness that razes the rational mind and makes room for the phantasmagoric. It makes you suddenly get up and leave in the middle of a meeting, without saying a word.

Grief makes what others think of you moot. It shears away the masks of normal life and forces brutal honesty out of your mouth before propriety can stop you. It shoves away friends, scares away so-called friends, and rewrites address books for you.

Grief makes you laugh at people who cry over spilled milk, right to their faces. It tells the world that you are untouchable at the very moment when touch is the only contact that might reach you. It makes lepers out of upstanding citizens.

Grief discriminates against no one. It kills. Maims. And cripples. It is the ashes from which the phoenix rises, and the mettle of rebirth. It returns life to the living dead. It teaches that there is nothing absolutely true or untrue. It assures the living that we know nothing for certain. It humbles. It shrouds. It blackens. It enlightens.

Grief will make a new person out of you, if it doesn't kill you in the making.

— Stephanie Ericsson Companion Through the Darkness: Inner Dialogues on Grief

2 comments:

  1. Yes, yes, and yes. I spent the first year feeling as if my heart had been ripped from my chest, thrown on the ground and stomped on. Repeatedly. I had (still have) an Irish sweater that was my shell that year. I walked around with my arms folded over my heart.

    5 years is still a short time, Lisa. You are entitled -- no, it is a necessity that -- you be able to grieve in your way as long as you need to. It will evolve over time, but I suspect that grief is a kind of Post-traumatic stress syndrome; its intensity may ebb and flow, but it's always with you. Especially when it is for your child.

    After my daughter's death I had to go for my 6-weeks post-partum exam. I cried through the whole thing. When it was over the doctor said, "It's natural that you feel this way now. If you still feel this way in 3 months (!) come back and see me." Fortunately I had the wherewithal to know that he had NO IDEA what he was talking about.

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  2. Thank you for sharing and being so supportive.

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