No Clock, No calendar, No Road Map

No peace, no sleep, no desire for the next day, hah, you may be thinking to yourself, she is depressed.  I mean really, really depressed, what a shame, she was so strong, so remarkable, didn’t miss a beat after Justin’s death.

Newsflash, don’t be so quick to judge someones’ mental state of health, the above is not depression, it is normal grief. I have spent much time in thought, listening more than reading, being still more than constant motion.  I have listened, backed-up and listened again to a particular presentation on grief and for the first time since Justin’s death I felt inclined to take notes, to outline, to take the time I needed to listen and then listen again.

The one to two year time frame of grief is a myth, plain and simple grief does not “end” in a couple of years.  The reality is that the first year after the death of a loved one, especially a child, is all about survival, meeting basic needs, to use a term from the presentation, it is “fresh grief.” We are “strangers in a strange land”, we don’t recognize ourselves, our life, our families, our world as we knew it no longer exists. There is a natural resistance to this reality and please do not call it denial, crap like that  really sets a grieving parent off. Oh, they will smile and nod their head at you, perhaps even thank you for your concern, but inside they are pretty much seething at your audacity to name the place they live at now.

To stand at the edge of a precipice, not wanting to step off into the unknown is not denial, it is human.  Dr. William Worden’s task based model of grief resonated with me. I am a task oriented person, give me a list and either help me with it or get out of my way so that I can get it done. Worden’s first task is to accept the reality of loss. We must hand ourselves over to the pain of loss and go through it, it must be entered into, it cannot be circumvented. To not enter into the pain is to experience a paralysis of sorts. How does one enter into the pain of loss?  It is to stand at the kitchen counter listening to the sounds of spring, your heart wanting to anticipate Justin coming around the corner into the dining room, stopping to pet a cat or two, and then for him to share what he just learned, or who he just spoke to, to have him come up to the counter and see what I was making and say how wonderful it was…to comment how beautiful spring is…to enter into the pain is to stay with the memory, to feel the fear of forgetting what his voice sounded like, to acknowledge how long its been since you heard that familiar step. To enter into the pain is to then realize that you will never hear that voice, hear that step, or hear that new thought, or story ever again.  To say that it feels like a lifetime ago and then to realize that it is a lifetime ago, a life experience that no longer exists, that now is in the past. Having Justin around is no longer part of our lives, he will never drive home again, never call again, that is to enter into the pain of loss.

Grief is not something we do for our child, our child is dead. Grief is something we have to do for ourselves to learn how to live without them. To quote from a grief counselor who experienced the death of her son “our child’s death has changed us in countless, infinitesimal and cataclysmic ways.”  We are not the same people with the same lives, we are people working through learning an entirely new way of life.

To enter into the pain is to enter into a passageway that is uncharted, it is to relinquish the road map that you were grasping of your old life and to accept that there is no road map to take its place.  It is a passageway that a grieving parent would hope that you would respect. Respect the fact that we are doing the best we can at this moment, that it is unrealistic for anyone to expect that we will not make changes in our lives.  To realize that even though we didn’t seem to miss a beat the first year, if we are quieter and less visible this second year…we are not “losing ground”, no, we are moving forward, don’t expect to find us at the same place doing the same thing.  Sometimes the motion cannot be detected, but it is there, we have to trust the process.

Do not presume to tell us that if only we have faith all will be well or that Justin would not want us to be sad and to grieve for him. Wrong answer.  It is faith that keeps us going to the grocery store for food, it is faith that keeps you from entertaining too frequently thoughts of finding the nearest airplane propeller and walking into it, it is faith that nudges you down the passageway.  And Justin would want us to grieve and to be sad, he would want what is best for us, healthy for us, to grieve is to be human.  How can we ever stop being ugly and mean to each other unless we know what it is to hurt, pain has a way of cutting through the BS of life and defining what is truly important.

Below is a thought from a very wise woman, a veteran so to speak of grief…

“Grief is a personal, transformative journey that never leaves you where it found you.”

Vicki Scalzitti

And from J. R. R. Tolkien…

“For a while they stood there, like men on the edge of a sleep where nightmare lurks, holding it off, though they know that they can only come to morning through the shadows.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

This is not a journey I wish to be on, a path that I find utterly abhorrent most days, but it is our passage to take, a passage where there is no clock, no calendar, and no road map.