One Hundred Days of Grief - Thoughts, Mine and Others

“Parting is all we know of Heaven and all we need of Hell.”  ~ Emily Dickinson

I attend a widow(er)’s group that is facilitated by a nun who has lead these groups for years.  Sister as well as the other widows and widowers in the group say that keeping a journal of private thoughts will allow me to look back and see for myself the progress I am making.  I was told that this progress is all about moving forward, not staying locked in one place.   I was told that grief is not something we get over but something we live with.  I listen to the other’s speak to their busy lives with their children, or their friends whom they call to rally around them for support.  I listen to them speak about work and co-workers.  Sister asks them about what they do with their time and what they’ve done with their deceased spouses things that may or may not still be around.  I feel cold inside when they all discuss these things.   Everyone has busier lives than I do, connections I don’t have.  I am adrift without familiar land to spy and my oars are broken.

There is one woman whose husband died suddenly over two years ago.  She has come very close to befriending me, as much as she can with two very young children, and has told me to call her anytime.  I find I do not even though I think about it.  My hand does not move close to the phone at all.  I feel like an interloper since I know she has a very close network of family and friends.  But she has been nothing but nice and compassionate to me.  It’s me.  I can’t reach out.

Sister told me that I am so new to my grief, still so raw, and I was thanked for being so open about it.  Then she went on to address the group by saying that we need to stay in touch with each other; that only those who have experienced grief can understand it.

I like going to the widow’s group because it is the only contact I have with another person beyond my daughter and my son.

I don’t like going to the group because I listen to myself and I hear what I’m saying, but it isn’t what I want to say.  I can’t intelligently express myself there.  I try too hard.  Or I cry and cannot make sense.  They are patient and they do address what I speak to, but remember, I said it wrong.  They cannot adequately speak to me if they do not know the grief I cannot speak to.  After I get the advice and counsel, they move on to other topics, other concerns, and I feel heat in my face.  I feel a humiliation that I will never be able to address in the group.

I’ll continue to go because it will mean that once a month, I will have someone else to talk to.  I think I will work on not saying as much.

I almost laughed the last time I went.  Someone thought I looked better.  I think it was the fact that I had had almost five hours of sleep the night before.  I actually felt horrible that night with no way to express it without sounding like I wanted it to be about me.  I don’t talk anymore unless it’s to my children when they call, and I get there and I think I talk too much.  I am lonely and I guess I want people to know I’m there before the meeting ends and I’m shoved back offshore alone.

The more I attend these meetings the more I realize that every grief is individualized and that no advice can cater to us all.  The details of a person’s life, what they came from, what they had with their spouse, what they lived through, and what kind of death was brought to their door will keep us all apart even in our symmetry of being widows and widowers.  I wish I had a way of connecting to someone but I haven’t found it yet.  They are all so different.  They are all grieving and at various stages in that journey while I am, I am, me.  I am me.

“Death leaves a heartache no one can heal.  Love leaves a memory no one can steal.”  ~ epitaph on a grave in Ireland.

I am new.  I am raw from this pain. The loss of him is more than I can bear and I cannot find comfort in anything and from anyone yet.  I heard myself say the word, “Making the quilts, her friendship, has helped me.”  And it has.  But the solitary life I now lead without my beloved husband has me in its grasp and there is no way out.  I love him so much and I can’t imagine anything that will heal me, even though the group calls itself “healing hearts.” 

“She is no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts.”  ~ George Eliot

I have been told by the comments from the online community that my writing of my grief helps the ones who hurt and gives to the ones who have not yet known this loss a sense of perspective.  I wish I were still in the latter group.  I do not want to grow old without him.  He kept me alive instead of existing.  He showed me things I would have missed.  He gave me love that I had been conditioned into believing I didn’t deserve.  I miss him.

“There’s no such thing as old age, there is only sorrow.”  ~ Edith Wharton

I found this quote from Henri Nouwen:  “When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand.  The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”

The only person in my life, my entire life, who was that kind of friend, was my husband.  He gave to me.  He shared with me.  He stayed with me when everything went wrong.  He never left me until he died and left me forever.  I miss him and there are no words beyond that.  If I say I want him back, does that defy God?

“Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.” ~ William Shakespeare

I have words.  I have a lot of words.  But I have no outlet except to write them and put them online.  There is no one to come sit with me as the sun sets and hold my hand as I cry.  There is no one that will come listen to me talk about him for any length of time.  There is no face like his, no comfort like what I got from him.  There is no bond like what I had with him.

There is no comfort now.  There isn’t anyone to try with me.

“The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced.  Every other wound we seek to heal – every other affliction to forget: but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open – this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude.”  ~ Washington Irving.