The Shifting Sands of Grief
There are days when it seems I've lost the shadow of grief. I awake without the feeling of being cloaked with heaviness, tears brimming, my chest barely attempting to expand. I don't notice the absence as I make my pot of tea and sit in my recliner (which makes me sound old!), tucking my little dog, Bella, to my left side and positioning my laptop on my knees. How long have I been doing this? Decades... though for many of those years I was a purest and wrote longhand believing it to be a nobler truth.
On those shadowless days, I head to the office having had the foresight to pack a lunch and dress like the financial planner that I am. If I'm lucky, I only have a few appointments and there's time in between to enter notes on the computer. I will notice the pictures of Hunter on my desk without searing pain in my chest or invasive thoughts. I might even manage to make a big decision about my company without a hitch.
Then as I'm driving home... a short two miles through neighborhoods and a beautiful wooded stretch with trees that drip lichen and moss... the tears spring loose and I suddenly realize a whole day went by without thinking about Hunter or death or grief. I become aware the shadow is missing. That scares me. What kind of mother am I? Has grief abandoned me? I'm going on as if nothing happened, as if my only child, the boy who made me a mother, isn't gone from this earth. How can that be?
In Jewish tradition, Kaddish is said for eleven months when a parent dies and only thirty days when a child dies. This prayer of mourning is said throughout the world and provides advice and guidance to those left behind on how to go on. I questioned why thirty days for a child when this loss is unlike any other, then realized that most parents have other children that need their attention-- they have to tend to them. Maybe it should be different when one loses their only child.
A shift in my grief shows me that this process is not linear. It is not as simple as plummeting to the depths of hell and crawling your way out. It's not an uphill battle you win and never revisit. Grief has become less pervasive and predictable. I'm learning to honor the shifting sands and not try to hold on to either end of it. This too shall pass. The sticky pit of darkness. The joy of connecting with a friend. The stabbing pain as I realize, over and over, that Hunter isn't coming home from college. This too shall pass.
A Facebook friend sent me a graphic that illustrated grief in a way that made so much sense to me. It's not that over time your grief gets smaller, it's that your capacity to make space for it expands. I try to remember this when I have that familiar feeling of being untethered. For 21 years my job was to protect and love my boy, and in a flash, I was relieved of my duties and set adrift. My reference points have changed.
I no longer think about where I'll live so I'm close to Hunter when I retire. I can be anywhere in the world and just writing that makes me sob.
The truth is, I don't want to be anywhere. I want to be a mom with a healthy boy who is finding his way in the world.
So, there you have it--- I'm exploring the landscape of my life, noticing the familiar places as well as the new canyons revealed in the aftermath of the devastating volcanic eruption that tore the top of my life off, creating new ecosystems within the rubble.
The truth is, life persists. I'm willing to feel joy when it arises and let sorrow take me down when it does.
It will get harder. It will get easier.
As it is with life, whether you've lost a child, a parent, your beloved dog, your career. It will get harder. It will get easier.
You will persist. I will persist. This is what we do as humans on this incredibly resilient and fragile planet.