THINGS TAKE TIME so they say and I have said this often to my children and to friends who have found themselves in painful, uncomfortable situations. Oh there are so many platitudes to assuage us and try to defer our sadness or pain; It’s always darkest before the dawn, The sun will come out tomorrow.
The fact of the matter is GRIEF knows no boundaries! It can consume you for one a whole day or one hour and for me it seems to be lingering long.
Grief has become a “ thing “ -it sits on my heart like a small but present weight, it resides in the pit of my stomach and swirls around in my brain on those nights when sleep eludes me.
Am I depressed? No, I don’t think so, I certainly function on a daily basis and am social, dining out with friends, going to the theater…. But yet there are days, certain dates, holidays that bring my loss and its accompanying grief to the surface.
Last night in the middle of trying to figure out how I could watch any of the UCONN-Alabama game online, (which I could not) and frustrated that I didn’t have access to the tv channel it was broadcast on, I looked at my phone to see the date AND WHA IT HIT ME! It was 2 years ago that Peter collapsed in our apartment and was taken to the hospital unconscious, never to regain consciousness again. Tears just rolled down my cheeks, I can feel a physical gnawing, my throat tightens as I try to hold back crying – WHY? I’m all alone here, who cares if I cry? After years of therapy, I certainly know it’s OKAY to cry!
Years ago when I started this blog, I promised Peter I would not bring our personal life into it. WELL, he’s no longer here and I haven’t written a blog in years but for some narcissistic reason have kept the blog alive and today I received a reminder that renewal payment was about to be due. I decided to put pen to paper so to speak and let my emotions flow as I review, rethink and remember those horrific days two years ago and then really really try to think only of the love that Peter surrounded me with for thirty years. I truly wish for the day when I can think back of our times together and smile inside and feel warm instead of feeling such a sense of loss – which on itself speaks volumes about my grief. It’s all about me and what I lost, I think I lost a part of myself.
Two years is a long time, two Christmases have come and gone, we’ve both had two birthdays, two Anniversaries, and yet there are days when I sit and wonder where did those two years of my life go? Insert another cliche – “Time Marches On”, Time and Tide Wait For No Man” – Ain’t that the truth? Asti e goes on, it gets harder to share your grief with your friends and understandably so. They want to have a happy, social fun relationship with you – they were all very solicitous for months and considerate but this grief is not their burden it’s mine. I can really only share it in a “safe place “. I have a dear friend who is a widow ( what a horrid word) and one or two other people in my life who I can pick up the phone and call. I look forward to my weekly talk with my therapist.
I think that is self-centered but my son said to me, seeing and hearing you in so much pain is really a testament to how much you loved him and how deep that loss reverberates. I’m going to end this un-requested deeply personal account of my present psyche and apologize for the look of this post. Since I haven’t posted in years WordPress has changed a lot of the formatting and I am totally confused as how to create my own paragraphs and control the font!
Bill Ding and his band of clowns are the security patrol for this blog site. He is a favorite toy from the 50*s. By the way sometimes a blog is just an ego-maniacal stream of conscience.
Pbenjay's Blog 