Thoughts On A Life Upended

A word after a word after a word is power, according to Margaret Atwood. Is that really true? A word after a word after a word. Do the thousands of words that I have typed since Sara died give me power, are they power? Just writing the sentence fragment “since Sara died” makes me tear up. My throat tightens, my chest tightens, and a tear is now rolling down my cheek.

A word after a word after a word is power… What is power, really? I looked at the dictionary, and there are more definitions of power than I really realized. A few jumped out at me, in the context of this piece, in the context of a word after a word after a word:

• noun: possession of control, authority, or influence over others
• noun: ability to act or produce an effect
• adjective: of, relating to, or utilizing strength

My words can call forth my tears, allow me to tap into the ache in my heart that will never go away. My words allow others to connect to my grief, to see my grief, to see ME, to see Sara and George still in me. My words are a life preserver – they give me a way to channel and mold and let my grief ooze out. When I write regularly, it is a release valve that gives me the illusion of some control over my grief. I say illusion because if the last year has taught me anything it’s that there are very few things we can really, truly control. We can do everything right, everything we’re supposed to do, and the ground beneath our feel can still split open and swallow us whole.

Sometimes my words bring Sara to me, such that I can almost feel her next to me, feel her amazing hugs, her smile. When Sara’s here with me, sometimes we are reliving the past and sometimes we are transported to the future – the future we were supposed to have, the future I’m still mourning right alongside Sara and George…the cruise were were planning, that we never got the chance to take…a second trip to Fort Lauderdale where we could fill up Sara’s mermaid soul…another game night with friends. Sometimes Sara’s visits are comforting, but sometimes they just leave me soaked in my own tears.

A word after a word after a word… so many words. My first, initial gut reaction was that no, my words don’t feel like power. My words are grief and sorrow and love and pain and anger and fear… and sometimes hope. But really, these things are the building blocks of life, and what could be more powerful than life? These are the things that move us, inspire us, give us strength (or force us to find our strength), that make us human. What could be more powerful than the honest embrace of my humanity?

Don’t get me wrong – I didn’t need to lose Sara or George to feel these things. I do NOT believe that I’m supposed to find a lesson or transform myself into a better person because of my experiences with loss. I’m not quite ready for the “finding my life’s meaning out of tragedy” phase of my healing yet… But I do think that there are different ways I can respond to the deaths of Sara and George, and that by responding through words – a word after a word after a word, over and over again – I can feel some power. I can harness influence over myself, my feelings, my healing and maybe even over the lives of others who were touched by Sara & George’s deaths.

I told myself at the beginning of the year when I started writing that I would keep doing so as long as it felt useful, as long as I got something from it. So that’s still the plan – I will keep putting my words out there, one word at a time… a word after a word after a word… until I’m out of words, or I find a better way to cope and heal.