Grief

They say that when you are about to die, your life flashes before your eyes.  I suppose I’ve been lucky enough to never have any experience enabling me to prove or disprove that theory.  I can say however, that something similar, yet profoundly different, happens when you lose a loved one. 

                I wish I could see a scan of my brain; one taken since my dad passed away.  I’m guessing it would have flashes of color, bright and intense, around whatever part or parts of the brain focuses on family, loved ones, memories, and loss.  I’m guessing there would be a bunch of synapses lighting up, signaling that something has happened.  Something out of the ordinary and all together painful.  They flash memories of the loved one; perhaps for comfort, or merely to release pain.  For me, it is both.

                Everything is in overdrive.  Everything I see, everything I hear, reminds me of my dad.  I find myself constantly saying to people; “My dad would have loved that,” or, “My dad used to say this,” or, “My dad once did this.”  I wonder if I am beginning to annoy people, or seem like a woman obsessed.  Would they care, would they understand that I am mourning?  Is it something they too need to experience before they can listen with an understanding ear?

                Each night, I lay in bed, and memories are particularly potent.  Times I had not thought of since they happened, but that were locked away in the secret parts of my brain.  Seemingly insignificant.  The time my dad took us to a carpet store, and we ran around, hiding behind large rolls of carpet.  I remember imagining the owners of the store were in the mafia, and used the store as a front for more sinister plots.  I was sure if I looked hard enough, I would see some feet poking out of one of the many rugs lined up against the wall.  Eventually, I fell asleep, nestled by a sibling; only to be woken by my dad, headed to the next home building store.

                That memory leads me to the next, a string of quick images: my father and us kids playing baseball in the back yard of our newly built home, my father admonishing us to look out the window on our many trips, my father feeding us delicious little treats he brought home from work.  Every memory makes me smile, and makes me hurt.  Why do they have to come so hard and so fast?  Is this how grieving always is?  Will the intensity of the memories eventually fade into a more palatable and less emotional ride? 

                I find myself angry at everything.  Everyone.  I hate this, or that.  I hate that I hate this or that.  I’m angry that I’m angry.  It is an irritating Merry Go Round that I both want to escape and hang tightly to.  I’m afraid that if I let go, I may have to feel something less controllable than the anger I am used to.  Something deeper and more frightening than just wanting to sock someone in the face.  This terrifies me.  Is this normal?  Will I ever get past it?  Do I even want to?

                Throughout my studies I have learned plenty on the cycle of grief.  Although it explained to those reading that the cycle doesn’t always play out in order, or for specific periods of time, it annoys me that I am not able to control my grief; to plan for the next stage, and to know where I am.  How rude of the brain to play tricks on us and make us believe we are moving past grief, only to remember the time that dad took us to help families after a flood in a neighboring town.  How we learned that he was in fact, a charitable person, and that he worked hard until the job was done.

                Losing a parent is a new thing for me, just as it is for everyone who finds themselves a semi-orphan.  I can unequivocally say that I don’t love all new experiences.  I don’t enjoy searching for meaning in something as painful as this.  But it is apparently what I am supposed to be doing.  So eventually, when I stop wanting to hurt people and start wanting to heal, I’ll get started on that.  Not today.  Maybe not even this month.  Some day.

                For now, I’m left with those flashing brain synapses.  I, along with my family, am left with the memories of the dad and husband we loved so much.  As annoying and irritating as he could be sometimes.  We are left wondering if we did the right things for him; if we loved him as much as we could have.  Did we give enough of ourselves so that he had the very best life he could have had in his short 60 years?  We weren’t ready for him to go, but was he?  Was he satisfied with what we were able to offer him?  I hope so. 

                Grief is a flowing, ever changing life form of its own.  It apologizes to no one, and leaves no one behind.  Perhaps this is a lesson to be learned.  No one escapes it.  Everyone suffers.  And, if we allow ourselves, everyone’s wounds scar over.  Not gone, but healed sufficiently enough for us to be compassionate to others suffering, and to remember our past.