This last point is making me feel VERY uncomfortable. How come I'm not a teary hot mess right now? While I participated in these sessions and engaged with others, I was able to talk about my grief almost calmly, as if I had made my peace with it. As if this is all something that happened to me a lifetime ago. Or as if I was telling someone else's story.
Right now I'm trying not to judge the way I'm feeling or force myself to 'be' a certain way, but I can't help but wonder ... where is the pain? Am I heading towards a bad grief crash? Surely it's coming. I mean, it always comes, doesn't it.
I arrived in Tampa on Thursday night, fresh from a wonderful week in New York and firmly in holiday mode. I'd wandered around the city that I had planned to explore with my husband, seeing the sights that he'd spoken about from his previous trips and wishing he were by my side. But I had fun. The ache for him felt almost... compartmentalised. As if my brain had packaged up my grief in to a neat little box and stored it on a shelf in the back of my mind so that it didn't mess up my holiday.
It's still there, I can touch it but it's almost like I'm opting to let it sit there for now, rather than bringing it down and unpacking it again. I know I have to at some point. One thing is for certain, that grief can't be left in that box on the shelf. It needs to be aired and sorted through regularly so that it doesn't fester and get stale.
The box may come tumbling down this evening at the welcome reception (I'm writing this quickly in my room before I head out again). It may burst open during a workshop or presentation tomorrow or the flood gates might come undone on the flight home to Australia, when my brain starts to slow and think about returning to the life I have there without him. Who knows.
For now, I am trying to enjoy the moment of peace and the company of the wonderful people here at Camp Widow.
If you're here and we haven't met yet, please find me and say hello. I'm the tall one with the accent.
UPDATE: I've just had the great gift of sitting through Michele's key note speech at Camp Widow. Not only did Michele very gently and kindly help me take the box down, she made me feel grateful for it, feel brave enough to carry it with me today and made me want to embrace it. What a gift, thank you for the hope Michele xo
ReplyDeleteI am starting my fourth year of this awful journey--and wondering when the box will stay on the shelf until I choose to take it down. It seems to burst out way too often yet. This 'stone in my breast' is awfully large sometimes, even after all this time. Need to learn to be braver.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure it's so much about learning to be braver as it is learning to just "be," like Rebecca said. Perhaps it's not time for the box to stay on the shelf. Maybe what seems like "way too often" is exactly what needs to happen. Whenever the time is right, the box will stay on the shelf and one day you'll realize you've reached another transition point without being really conscious of it. I'm not sure of when that time will be because I'm only entering my third year but I know you have the love and support of this community. Peace and blessings be with you always.
ReplyDeleteA woman I know lost her husband last February to suicide. She got with a new man almost immediately after his death and married the new man in September. Now the second man has just committed suicide as well, a week prior to the anniversary of the first's suicide. Eerily he did it the same way as the first. This has to be rare doesn't it. And what should friends and family be watching for in her behavior going forward? She has a four year old son to take care of. Is it wrong to question her judgement this past year?
ReplyDelete