Like A Butterfly...She Flies Away...

I don't eat much, and then I drink too much vodka. I throw up.

I am alone in my dead mother's house, in her bed, in her room and this sadness is too extreme. 

I am not  in my own body.   This is NOT my life.

I am disappearing.  Just a blob of raw open wounds.

Eleven months. My own insignificance in the face of all things holy.

I think...
how her body grew smaller, until it ceased to exist.
How I was not ready.
I sob.

No, I weep like I haven't allowed myself in these past few months.


I let go, no one to see, no one to hear...my grief takes over.  And I fall asleep.

~~~~~~~~~

My heart has turned a corner.  It took me eleven months to allow myself to hit bottom.

The Holidays were not terrible, I smiled for Mother's Day and cried a bit on her birthday.  But now there is only one more milestone.  Her death day.

The month of June is full of weddings, anniversaries, christenings, communions, graduations...all these milestones.  

Tomorrow my niece(Beepboop, Bebe, Bee, Beeper, Beatrix) is getting baptized.

We mark time through events.  

I am tired.  Tired of being tired, of not having any answers in life.  Tired of living in a dead woman's house, of pretending that I am fine.  Pretending that I am strong and vital, that I don't need people, that I don't need the sacred marking of time.

Dying people are like butterflies.  In Auschwitz they found drawings of butterflies all over, but aren't we all just butterflies really?  We start as one thing and life, love, grief, what happens next in our cocoon?

And dying people are here to teach us something.  They are here to teach us to live.

To live as though we are the dying, because we are. 

I am raw.  I am vulnerable.  I'm accepting this.

My thoughts are on the sacredness of all things, my niece tomorrow will have a Priest baptize her into the Roman Catholic Church.   I am her sponsor/godmother, and I take that role to my heart.  I pray that I can share with her the beauty that was her Grandmother.  I hope that she will know Kate through me.  I pray that she will love the sacred things in life.  Birth, and death--are the same just reversed.    

And Beatrix, I cannot wait to see what a beautiful Butterfly you will be.

Tomorrow, in a holy place, I know my Mom will be there with us.

Songbird was played at my Mom's memorial...it's brought me healing over the past few months.

Ready, Set...

I know, I write so much sad stuff on here.

I won't apologize.  Here's why:

There is something most of you DON'T know.  

In writing this, I am opening up my shame. 

Almost three months ago, my father was arrested.  I cannot go into details, but he will be spending about two years in prison.   I have not seen or spoken to him since March.  

Eight months.  I lost a mother to cancer and a father to...himself, prison? stupidity?

Yes, I am now an orphan in many ways.  My nearest family is two hours away.

Each year on this day, I think about my life.  I stare at my hands, observe the lines, the creases, wonder where they will be next year.  Isn't life just a bunch of anticipatory acts?

We are always almost tomorrow, next year, I mean I think of the future far too often that sometimes I forget to live in the moment of this very second.

I got paid today.  Money was put into my bank account.  I got paid for something that I wrote. Sure it wasn't a lot of money, but I don't even care.

Before she died, my Mom told me that she was sad because she wouldn't see my success.  She told me that I am meant to write.  She understood it.  Even if I was a puzzle to her at times.

Writers are a strange bunch of people.  When people used to ask me what I want to do with my life, I never have been true to myself. I've always felt that I need to give an answer that makes sense to their query.  Because of my innate people pleasing drive, I haven't let myself be who I am.

Cannot remember the first story that I ever wrote.  But, I do remember being eighteen coming home after work and sitting at the computer in my old family room, the faux wooden panelling, the green of the woods coming through the windows, the way it smelled so balsamic in the afternoon sun.  I wrote my first story.  It was forty pages long.  I lost steam, I didn't know where it was going to go.  But in those moments sitting at that computer(and this is 1998 folks so you can just imagine the size of the computer.) I was so happy in the process of writing.  My mind was in another place.  I began to see the people I was writing about as real people with motivations beyond my own imagining.

I don't know what defines good stories vs. literature anymore.  I just know that when I read something and feel something, that's a good story.


Recurring dreams of giving birth happen to me all the time, I see my babies in my sleep.  These are not real babies, I know that now.  They are the gift of my imagination.  I am standing on a precipice waiting to take flight, I've just been too scared until now.

We take our pleasures where we may, I take mine in writing.  I disappear at times into my own mind, worlds I can create.  This year I learned something very important.

When writing I used to worry about what people would think about me through my writing.  Now, I just don't give a crap.  Love it? Fantastic. Hate it?  Brilliant. Think it is disgusting? Now we are getting somewhere.

Hiding isn't for me.  My writing is in a process right now, birthed from sadness and my own hopes.  Besides, even if I never get paid again...I will keep doing it.  Because like Stephen King says, "Why do you assume I have a choice?"

Tomorrow I enter my 35th year on the planet.

Orphan. Paid Author. Aunt.   I became all those in the past year...just can't help but wonder what this year will bring to my plate.

Many Faces, Many Phases

Each day I am evolving into someone, something new.

June 27 was the day that nothing would ever be the same.  And see in that moment, I knew it was all different.  Not different like most would think, but different in the way the world looks at night versus how it looks in the morning.

See  how life ebbs and flows,  we believe that we are changing things, but really we are the ones who are changing.

I am not a thinker.  I am a feeler.


I feel things.  I see a person crying, chances are I'm going to start crying too.

Since my own ordeal, I've come into contact with folks who are experiencing loss in varied ways.  I tell them, ten days or ten months, there is no limit to grief.

Here's my list of things NOT to say to a person grieving:

1. You really should go to a counselor.

Damn!  I wish that I had a dollar for each time I've heard this over the past year.  Chances are if I am going through a rough patch, deep sadness, no hope for the future, near suicidal depression, an aching longing for a person who no longer physically exists, talking to a counselor may help.  But I know that.
You know what people deep in grief really need?  A friend who doesn't make them feel as though they are just some broken toy who needs a quick psychological fix.

A grieving person, needs two things.  Validation that it is OKAY to be sad, and probably a nice hug.  Yeah hug someone in pain, it does amazing things.  NOW after doing the above things and coming alongside a person in deep grief, then saying to them maybe it would help if you went to a counselor, they will be more apt to accept that.

But let me tell you there are only two people out of the ten I know who have suggested that to me where I haven't immediately regretted even letting them know how sad I really am.  Advice like that just makes me want to isolate in order not to feel judged.

Counselors are a great tool, but they do not have a magic wand which will automatically make me un-sad.  It just doesn't work that way.

2.  It's been ....blah blah blah so long since etc. or this person I know was better in six months.

Everyone is different.  I bet that person you thought was doing great was probably just pretending because they were tired of others acting wanting them to stop grieving.
The vulnerability for those in grief is very high.  Grieving people don't WANT to feel the way they do, but loss is tricky.  There are triggers.
You see that person who has died/left in places all over.  A song.  A smell.  Certain foods.  Special days...
Grieving people have constant reminders of the one who is gone.  There is no limit to healing, certain losses will ALWAYS be there.  They don't go away.

Please don't judge those who are going through loss.  For most of us depending on the vastness of the trauma just being able to crawl out of bed and feed ourselves(sometimes I barely do that) is an act of sheer will.

Feeling sad, missing someone, trying to deal with the aftermath of a death, executing a will, selling an estate, making plans, getting rid of a dead person's clothes...these are all extremely exhausting undertakings.

Throw in many other stresses, such as money issues, and you have a perfect storm.


3. People who are grieving, are not just grieving the loss of a person.  They are grieving the future that will never be.

Here's an interesting example of how different people are.  My sister and I both lost a mother last year.   We share the same grief, but we are grieving different losses.   She grieves her son's grandmother who almost got to see him, but didn't.
I grieve knowing that when I get married someday she won't be there.
See how those are different but kind of the same?

We both grieve memories that will never happen now.

4. "I know what you're going through, I felt... when my Grandma/Great-Aunt/Cousin etc died. " Grief is not a competition.  

No. You don't know how I feel.

Please don't tell me how sad you were when your Great-Aunt Whatsherface died.  I'm sure your Great-Aunt Whatsherface was a wonderful person, and I'm sure that you were very sad, I can understand that and I will grieve with you, but I don't want a comparing of losses.

Folks trying to one-up someone's sadness, is narcissism to the extreme.  Just like I don't know what it is like to go through a divorce, lose a husband, or have a seriously ill child, unless you too have lost your mother or father, a parent, don't patronize me.

If you have lost a mother don't be afraid to tell me, we can share that together.

5. Grieving people are not downers, they're just sad.

After I had found out that my Mom's cancer had returned I was talking to someone when a "friend" came into the room and told me to stop talking about such depressing things.

That person is no longer one of my friends.

Suffering is real.  We are such complicated creatures.  So afraid to let others know if and when we are suffering, because we don't want to appear weak.  I like to say that I have a fragile strength.

If you're suffering physically, spiritually, emotionally...you are not weak.  You are human.

Watching someone die, losing anyone you love to Alzheimer's or death or moving away or anything can really take a toll on your emotions.  But don't shut down.  Allow the sadness, but don't forget the bits of joy in each day too.

How to reach out to a sad grieving friend? Acknowledge their suffering, offer them kindness, never judge their progress, and don't indulge their sadness.  The last one is tricky.  I've known folks who are truly incapable of having a positive thought, but guess what??  It isn't your job to change them!!


OKAY.

So those are just some simple observations I've made over the past year.  And
no, I still have not seen a counselor
yes, I am sad
no, not everyday
yes, I have fragile strength
no, I am not going to pretend anymore.


Hopefully, this will help anyone who has a friend or loved one experiencing loss in their life.

Between the Lilacs