Grief and Joy and Every Darn Thing

“To spare oneself from grief at all cost can be achieved only at the price of total detachment, which excludes the ability to experience happiness” -- Erich Fromm (1900-1980)

Yes. Yes. Yes.  I have been having a mini nervous breakdown.  Someone told me that I had already crossed the threshhold (sp?) and it was like holding on to a teddy bear I didn't need anymore.  Later on I cried, got in bed with my husband's Yankee jacket and stayed there.  I went to my storytelling class, came darn near shooting a taxi driver who took me in the wrong direction because he was talking on his cell phone - don't panic - I can't shoot anyone - don't have a gun.  I did curse at him though. Spent the next day mostly in bed.  Today I am ready to go again.  Since Artie died I have crossed many threshholds; some with grace - some just tripping over them and landing on my - well you fill in that word.  I have so much resistance to happiness and yet -  and yet - if I allow time for my grief I can allow time for my happiness. My resistance to happiness doesn't stop me from having a lot of happy moments.  There is a balance here I am always looking for.  Sometimes, though, I seem to need to give myself permission to go backward in order to go forward.  I took a shower this morning and when using the back brush remembered how Artie used to scratch my back on request.  All the small things, all the huge things - how can we not miss them?  How can we not grieve for their loss.  It doesn't stop me all the time from getting out there in to the world and being me.  I am trying to tame my resistance - turn it from a big growling monster to a mischievous puppy.  I think the best way to do this is allow my grief when it comes; express it in some way - and then ask it for permission to get on with my writing or whatever else I want to do.  If I tell my grief to go away that doesn't work for me.  It's there with all the other emotions I have.  Maybe some day I won't write this blog any more.  I don't know.  Someone stopped a grief blog saying they were joining the living.  I am with the living.  I'm also with the dead.  Wearing our wedding rings less.  Thinking of putting some (maybe one?) memento away.  But - o my darling husband - I miss him so many different ways every day.  I even miss the things that irritated me.  No chance now to make more memories together, to make up for any time we wasted.  Maybe there is.  Maybe there will be.  I'm just an earth bound person.  Who am I to say what eternity holds?  There's a lot of strength in our tears. 

Grief Poem

I haven't put in  poems in a while.  The first one is rather dark so I added a short one I wrote in a poetry workshop today.  My work right now is staying in the present.  My eating, sleeping, and everything is off because I am already anticipating the second round of holidays without my husband (including his birthday Dec. 11 and my birthday/wedding anniversary Feb. 3).  How not to react to something that even happening yet. Keep on keeping on - it is such a gift to me to witness the courage of so many people after losing the person they love most. 


The Last Dance

I’m dancing the dance
of the broken bones

dissection is painless
for the already dead
the scalpel inserted
pulls the face from the head

feeling a little disjointed
with the flesh peeled away
the eye socket winks
the throat has something to say

Don’t close the curtain
lie down in my grave
there’s energy left
something to save

the theater is empty
the audience gone
no one remembers
the name on the stone

An insistent tap tapping
won't end our dance
of the broken bones.


Morning Glory

This morning when I woke up;
I woke up
was baptized by a pigeon
and heard the owl laugh.

Grief: Am I Really Filled With Grief All The Time?

I think of myself as being sad and lonely and heartbroken all the time.  Years ago when I was a mental health counselor clients would come in and say "I was depressed all week."  We would talk and sooner or later they would say something - maybe as simple as, "My daughter brought home a picture from school."  I would ask, "Did you enjoy that?"  They would say, "Yes." and I would say, "Gotcha!"  I didn't not respect their dark and painful feelings.  The gotcha was that they weren't depressed all week - just some of the week.  When I am enjoying something, or writing something, or even going to the gym - I don't put any emphasis on that.  When I am laying in bed crying, overeating, watching DVDs or feeling paralyzed I think that expresses my true feelings.  I'm trying to gotcha myself.  I will always grieve for Artie.  I miss him every second of every day but I also have happy moments. How do I switch my focus and pay more attention to the happy moments than the sad ones?  How do I build on them?  I know Artie wouldn't want me to be in pain.  He loves me.  I don't serve him or our love by remembering my pain and not remembering my joy. 

I am so lucky to have be loved by him.  How can I hold that love as a comfort instead of only a loss?

I don't know about the color black.  It is actually an absence of color - and yet takes over everything.  If you mix blue and yellow you get green.  If you mix blue and red you get purple (my favorite color!).  Maybe the color of my grief can be something that mixes with the colors of my life in such a way to create new colors instead of wiping out all color. 

Which won't - or will it - get rid of the walking along happily seeing or hearing something breaking into sobs moments.

Questions, questions, questions.  Wish Artie was here to help me figure all of this out.  Of course, if he was here I wouldn't have to figure it out!!

Fear and Resistance Doesn't Belong Only To Grief

Check out a book called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. It's all about resistance and fear.  From page 40 - "Are you paralyzed with fear?  That's a good sign.  Fear is good.  Like self doubt, fear is an indicator.  Fear tells us what we have to do...The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it." The last two lines of the book- "Don't cheat us of your contribution.  Give us what you've got."


That's what sends me back to bed and my DVDs all the time - fear and resistance.  I know what I want to do, what I need to do.  My husband used to say to himself and others, "You won't give up failure without a fight."  and he called himself "the great potential".  I know all the the amazing things he accomplished but also all the work he left undone because of fear and resistance.  Now I struggle without him - all the love and support and comfort and encouragement he gave me -  and have to find ways to break through or follow the fear without him.  That makes it harder - but perhaps that is the resistance talking - not me.


Who am I anyway?  The one who wants to go join my husband NOW or the one who wants to live and accomplish all that I have left to do.  Both, really.  How do I settle the argument between them so the living me can live and have the patience to wait until my time here is over.  No - not wait - thrive and create and not hide away.  I don't know the answer but I'm still searching. 

Grief: Guerilla Tear Attack

I don't usually post twice in one day but after I figured out all this new stuff I was dressed and ready to go to the gym (having now a slight hint of a waist) and I started crying.  I mean really crying.  I could hear either my husband saying to me - or me saying to me - "Why are you doing all this now?  Why didn't you do it when Artie was alive?"  I had a lot of answers.  I looked in the mirror.  I wiped the tears away after about 10 minutes and headed out.  It is so DIFFICULT folks to do things without sharing them with those people we love who aren't alive anymore.  Please give yourself lots of self respect and self admiration for accomplishing anything - however big or small.  I hope somehow Artie is watching and forgives me for things that would have made him happy when he was alive that I didn't do then - the way I try to forgive him for things I wish he had done that he wasn't able to.  I hope our journey continues - is continuing.  I hope you made it through your day without a tear attack.  If not...don't give up the search for purpose, meaning and comfort. 

Random Grief Thoughts Time Flies By Slowly

I felt like I was going backwards instead of forwards - sleeping too much - eating too much - went to a bereavement group I really like.  I felt better afterwards.  I am sorry that people are feeling so much sadness but it is such a comfort to know that I am free to express my true feelings and have them understood.  I think it is important to look for a group you like.  Some people do "recover" more quickly and like groups that emphasize moving on.  I need a space to talk about how much pain I'm still in - to release it.  My daughter asked me if I found it discouraging that some women are still sad after 8 or 10 years.  I don't.  I can't ever imagine not being sad that Artie has moved on without me by dying (he had too but that is knowing not feeling).  The question is for me is not how to stop grieving - but how to not let the grief paralyze me.  I have a Facebook page now.  I can't believe I put the gym as one of my likes. Ouch and ha ha for that one!  I even went on match.com - although I'm not sure I'll ever actually agree to meet anyone in person.  I signed up for a process painting workshop.  Process painting is painting from your feelings as opposed to trying to learn specific artistic skills. Still trying to find the balance between hiding in bed watching DVDs or just staring at the wall missing my husband - and being the creative me.  My friend Georgi took such beautiful pictures of me (the picture on the blog is a cropped version of one).  I am holding the trunk of a large stuffed woolly mammoth that inhabits my living room.  I think the woman in the pictures deserves a chance - and the woman in the picture is me.  My husband used to say there are no winners and losers - just quitters and trier.  I am working on being a trier.  Okey doke.  Time to get off the computer and over to that dreadful/delightful (ouch) gym. 

Grief: Accidental Shrine

Some people were coming over to look at my apartment because I have a lot of interesting things - including in the living room a stuffed woolly mammoth that is 5 feet tall and 5 feet long so I cleaned up my bedroom.  Then I looked at it.  I could not believe how many things I have of Artie's.  Even if you ignore the fact that the plastic bag of his ashes are not in an urn but inside a stuffed leopard on the bed, he has a jacket on the bed, one over a chair, his slippers are next to the bed.  The number of pictures of him and mementos are numerous.  I have made the things in the living room less noticeable but the bedroom is Artie Artie Artie.  I don't know if this is a good or bad thing.  I don't want to put anything away.  I could.  I could have a keepsake box.  I could put things in the closet.  That's the whole letting go thing.  I don't know what is "best" for me to do - or if there is a "best".  If I clear a space will something or someone come into it or will it be an empty space?  I know he's dead but am I trying to keep him alive by having his things around me all the time? They make me feel loved and comforted but do they also add to my sadness?  I don't know the answers to any of these question.  I don't need to know the answers.  I think they will come to me when I am ready.  I have a comedy sketch writing class - and for a comedy monologue I am even making his death fit that form.  Will I allow myself to have a new story?  I have lots of new stories but they all have Artie in them.  Will I have a new story that I don't put him in - that he doesn't put himself in?  Goodness gracious - I wish he would come back and then I wouldn't have to figure any of this stuff out.  I'd probably get angry with him about something silly - but the worst day with him was so much better than the best day without him.  Lots of stuff for therapy - that's the only thing I do know!!