Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends
When grief befalls us, our sunken hearts feeling like they already stopped, tearing out of your throat, the shadow of the day falls over your soul, and there is no one that knows how you are busy dying. This is the moment I want to talk about today.
In the past give or take three years, I have had to deal with the death of no less than eleven impactful, and a few more noticeable deaths. All but one of them, my grandmother, was unexpected, or at the very least, still hopeful that they won’t happen so suddenly. I have had to deal with family, friends, and friends loved ones. Not a single one was easy. Thank goodness they weren’t, because at least it meant they mattered. They mattered to their children and parents, friends, colleagues, pets, acquaintances, and me. Each with a degree of their deep, unyielding, grief.
Grief is a process, or so they say. I call bullshit. A process implies you can pick up a manual, start at step one and finish at the last step, and have a conclusion. In my experience, the closer the impact, the higher the degree of grief, the more confusing it gets. Sure, there are stages of grief, most of us know them: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. But if anyone has ever gotten it right to have those placed magically in order, I would love to know how. My own personal scenarios for the real bad ones have been more like, WTF, lets make a deal, WTF, WTF, some other weird emotion, then several iterations of the stages of grief in no order, until one day it hurts less. I am however, not in general an overly emotional person, and through various self-interventions over a period, I have taken far better control over these fights, and can mostly get to acceptance fairly efficiently. Not to say the next big one won’t screw that up altogether.
You see, in my generally extremely logical mind, grief is the one emotion, no matter how many opportunities you get to fight it, it still has that uncanny ability to steal your last breath from your body.
Why do we hurt so much when grief strikes us? What makes the burden so heavy? Is it the person we lost? Is it the “If only’ s”? What about your own fear of not being able to see them ever again? True or not. Are we scared because we do not know where they are? Are we angry because they left us? Are we hopeful and doubtful all at once that they truly are in a better place? Do they know I am scared, lonely, angry, bitter? Do they know I wish I could trade places with them?
I wish these thoughts was just mine. These horrid, worthless, devastatingly, evil, self-loathing bitter and desperate feelings, but I am pretty sure everyone feels these and many more. REM even wrote a song about these exact feelings, in the hope to help people going through them, and stopping further harm. “When your day is long, And the night, the night is yours alone. When you’re sure you’ve had enough, Of this life, well hang on” Hang on indeed, because here comes the pep talk.
And I’ll keep it short, because letting myself out about such a vulnerable topic, would be a major flaw. I wish to only say a few words of encouragement, and then hand you over through some links into the hands of some experts. (I highly recommend the last one.) I too have been devastated. I too have been on ground zero. Often through me trying to absorb others pain. My one and only piece of advice I feel worthy of giving at this moment: There is a reason to hang on, even though it doesn’t seem so right now. Please reach out to the links provided, or me, if I can at least try and listen to your pain.
If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, please call 10111.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/za/basics/grief
https://the-grief-course-s-school.teachable.com/p/home
When my time comes
Forget the wrong that I’ve done
Help me leave behind some reasons to be missed
And don’t resent me
And when you’re feeling empty
Keep me in your memory
Leave out all the rest
Leave out all the rest
~ Linkinpark
Amor fati ~LK.
(You Mattered: CB,B,&Z,RB,BJ,AN,C,HN,HB,DB,A and so many more…)