January 27, 2018
The writing prompt was about "wondering what remains, and also claiming your fear of forgetting." Specifically what it said doesn't matter so much. Here's my response.
_______________________
I don't want to write about whether not counting days means I should worry that I'm forgetting him. I don't want to let the thoughts in of whether I'm grieving "right" or falling apart enough or whatever the fact that I'm going on living might mean about my love or my fitness for parenting or the coldness of my heart. Unbreakable? I don't want to write about those things or think about those things. They're always dancing around the shadowy edges, just out of sight. Terrifying things that want to devour me.
I haven't counted days or observed the seventh of every month, but I remember six months approaching. It would be Pearl Harbor Day, which is always of note to me because my paternal grandfather was there, on the USS Raleigh. It was a year before my dad was born, so if John Wesley Nesbitt had not survived, the family line would only have continued through my uncle, already a few years old.
Six months. I didn't want it to have been six months. If Rader has to be gone, I want him to have just gone. I want to have just lost him. I think because to me it always feels that way, but I believe other people interpret that the passage of time as "healing all wounds." That if it's been six months, or now seven, coming up on eight, I must be well on my way, moving through the stages of grief. Stop here, step step step, stop here, step step step. Forward ho.
"What does a shift in your grief, even a tiny, momentary one, mean to you? What does it say about loss? Or love?"
What even is a shift in grief? Is it being able to smile or laugh again? We had long-time friends, including one we hadn't seen in almost 30 years, converge on our house within days of Rader's death. Of course there was a pall over everything. But there was certainly some smiling and laughter, as old stories were told and old times revisited. A shift in grief. Is it being able to watch an episode of a favorite series that includes a suicide or a depiction of a hanging, and detach from it enough to get through it? I've been able to do that.
I can't torment myself with "what does it mean if this" and "what does it say about me if that" and "who am I if I'm functioning this way" and "what kind of person would ..." I mean, I do torment myself with those things, to some degree. I try not to. I don't want to keep ascribing some kind of deep philosophical meaning to every little thing.
What I want to assert is that whatever it is — a shift in grief, or the day Rader's absence is not my first conscious thought, or something that looks like some other kind of "moving on" — all it says about loss, about love, is that every person grieves uniquely. I'm sure it wasn't the intention, but I feel like when I read this prompt, it invites me to criticize my own grieving, and I really do not need an invitation to that party.
I feel so prickly about this subject. This proverb (28:1) keeps coming to mind: "The guilty man flees though no one pursues." No one is attacking me, yet I fight. No one is accusing me, yet I defend. No one pursues me, yet I run.
Is learning to accept the way I grieve as simply the way I grieve the lesson of Writing Your Grief for me? Is this the whisper of Oprah's illustration?
“The only time I’ve ever made mistakes is when I didn’t listen. So what I know is, God is love and God is life, and your life is always speaking to you. First in whispers … It’s subtle, those whispers. And if you don’t pay attention to the whispers, it gets louder and louder. It’s like getting thumped upside the head, like my grandmother used to do … You don’t pay attention to that, it’s like getting a brick upside your head. You don’t pay attention to that, the whole brick wall falls down. That’s the pattern I’ve seen in my life, and it’s played out over and over again on this show.
“What I’ve gleaned from this show: Whispers are always messages, and if you don’t hear the message, the message turns into a problem. And if you don’t handle the problem, the problem turns into a crisis. And if you don’t handle the crisis, disaster. Your life is speaking to you. What is it saying?” — Oprah Winfrey, May 25, 2011
Is my grief normal? Is my grief OK? The whisper says yes, yes, yes.
Let me hear.