Each year it’s harder to find the words.
I’ve said all the words many times over. Raw, immediate grief finds its way into writing more easily in the early days than the later days. Days blurred and numbed by grief. Now when this day approaches I start thinking. “What else am I going to be able to say? How many times can I talk about her death, and the loss, and my pain, and the unfairness of all things before I’m just sick of myself?”
It’s the usual, rethinking what I was doing when the police officer and the Victim Services person arrived. Trying to remember my response. Did I stand there stunned? Did I start yelling? I think I started yelling, calling for my husband. I’m not sure, but that scenario makes my stomach tie into knots, and makes me nauseous so it’s probably what happened. It feels true.
The absolute shock – and I had no idea I was in shock – was like a meteorite, or a bomb hitting the earth. That brief moment of impact before reaction. The blast pressed hard and threatened to spread outward but it wasn’t until I buried her that the massive waves actually began to hit me. Over and over, day after day and still. The waves have changed me though, as they change anyone struck with grief, and now, eight years later, although the grief is still strong, I’m too weathered to be smacked as hard, and instead it just kind of moves over and through me.
Who have I become?
Well, I’m now very middle aged. My body is sore most of the time, and I’m not fully sure why. A lot of it is the weight, I’m sure. Quitting drinking was great, but the initial constant bingeing I allowed myself as comfort kept in step with my menopausal hormonal crap and the weight went on fast. It’s stubborn, but I’m mindful of how I need to eat, and I’m working on it. Regardless, I’m sore a lot and it’s interfering with sitting at the computer, or really doing anything after work. Some days after work I just have to go straight to bed because my legs hurt so much. From foot to hip. Almost unbearable some days.
Since I’m currently trying to get my grade 12, the pain is a big problem because I’m not able to get homework done if I worked that day due to it. I might be switching to a full time program that also allows me to get my business technology certificate along with the Dogwood (adult graduation certificate). It depends on the math. I had to withdraw from the math I was taking via the university because it seemed my math placement was a bit off. The math it placed me in was too far ahead of my knowledge level. To be honest, I failed grade 9 math twice back as a teenager, so technically I only have grade 8 math. the placement exam found me 1 point away from the Grade 11 program and so I took the Grade 10 second half but hat class was just a big nope. It was too advanced for me. The program I’m looking into uses Accounting 11 math so that might be better for me. I did get an A+ in the English 12 and the Computer Publishing is going well so far too with a letter grade of A for it currently.
So – that’s it for me. I’m sober, I work at a big retail store, I’m trying to get my Adult graduation so that I can do something else for work when my legs get tired of holding me up.
Every year at this time I do this sort of check in – see where I’m at compared to the year before. My trajectory is decent, even though I have a broken heart.
I wish she was here so I could tell her about all the funny things that happen at work – she worked in retail, she’d get it. We would laugh over so many things. I want to tell her all so much, about all sorts of stuff, about games I play and that she would love, about Sam and Dean and how much I love Cas (Supernatural), we could pet the new cats and she would love our little dog Riversong so much! I’ve changed and grown a lot over the past 8 years and damn it – we would have been even better friends than before. I’m so much more present, and have so much less anxiety. Just the fact that I’m working at a real job and not my work from home stuff I used to do, is huge. There’s no way my anxiety would have allowed me to work at a big store like I do now, yet I go in for my shifts and feel so at home there, it’s easy-peasy and I’m still shocked by it. And I’ve made such great friends!
The truth of it is though, much of this growth came out of my grief, and the initial part of this growth was a mess. My life fell apart when she died because she was an integral part of it. Intertwined with my being. She had been with me for 23 years, her sweet words, our silly fights, all our memories, and laughter and tears we shared – when she died it took a part of me. That part of me was a key player in the framework that made up who I am. So down I went, like a house of cards, like a single strand of beautiful colour suddenly pulled out of a knitted blanket – it all unraveled.
Now the knitting is slowly continuing, and reconnecting, but different. I’ve picked up the fragments of my life to put back together, and the picture has changed. Putting yourself back together after such a huge loss is something done intentionally, painfully full of purpose, and so the strengths I’ve discovered in the past few years, the person I have become – would not be the same if it were not for the grief that put it all in motion.
If she hadn’t died I would likely still take Life for granted. In many ways, her death has taught me how to love, and educated me on how to cherish, accept and forgive. The loss is still the most uncomfortable, heavy, awful sensation ever experienced. Every day. But these gifts have emerged through her passing – her goodbye gifts to me that saved me from falling into the void forever, and which continue to sustain me.
In the Wind 