It is 9:20 am, and I have only cried twice today – not bad. In the just over 9 months since George’s delivery and just under 7 months since Sara’s death I feel like I’ve cried my bodyweight in tears a dozen times over. Today, they were short-lived surges of tears, one at a radio program focusing on stories of those who have died from Covid-19, and one due to some of the posts in a Grief-focused writing group I am in. Stories of other people’s grief touches me in a way that they didn’t before, because I KNOW.
I know how it feels to wake up and look over to the other side of the bed every day, missing someone whose snores and sleep sounds had become a lullaby for me over the years.
I know how it feels to not know how to comfort an older grieving dog who misses his special person, who he had bonded to as a tiny puppy. I know he loves me, but I also know I am not his mother, and he doesn’t understand why she never came home.
I know how it feels to have a pile of sympathy cards that I don’t know what to do with, because part of me can’t bear the thought of getting rid of them, but another part of me can’t bear the thought of reading them again.
I know how it feels to hold the still body of my child, as all the hopes and dreams we’d had for him were yanked from us suddenly and cruelly. I also know how it feels to watch the life be drained from my soulmate, and to kiss her face moments after her heart beat for the last time.
I know how it feels to not recognize my own life, facing it down with incredulous anger and despair – but every day the answer is the same, and I know somehow I’m stuck in this alternate universe no matter what I do.
I know… and while all loss is unique, all stories are different, and everyone processes grief in their own way – I can relate to the power and the depth and the significance of the emotions that I know each person who loses someone dear to them must be feeling. If you’re one of those people, I see you, I hear you, and I wish I could sit with you and bear witness to your grief. That is really what we need – the bereaved don’t need to be fixed – the source of our grief can never be solved – we just need to be witnessed, and allowed to feel.
I guess now I’ve cried three times today – the third being the duration of writing this post. I’m grateful for this writing as an outlet for them. Now I am going to kneel on the wet ground outside and work in the garden I put into the corner of the front yard several years ago, that has been so neglected due to life circumstances. I suspect some more of my tears will be joining the moisture from yesterday’s heavy rains that have saturated the soil.