Three weeks ago, our beloved Danny took his own life.
Tidying the garden is meant to be one of those wholesome distractions from grief. Maybe it will be eventually. Maybe it will be tomorrow even. But it certainly wasn’t this morning.
As I pulled the dead stalks out of the sedum, I tuned into the lifeless hollow stems and not (as I might have in other years) to the vigorous clumps of green. Those little cabbage-like clusters in the past have heralded spring and sparked my admiration. Look how brave! Look how resilient!
Instead, today almost like a mantra I hear these words in my head: when I did this last year, Danny was alive.
That’s a thing I’ve learned: that even though Danny was almost 2000 miles away and I was mostly clueless to what was going on in his life, the mere fact of his existence mattered.
If this sounds obvious, remedial even, excuse the idiocy of my heartbreak.
A hole has been ripped in the universe. Will it ever feel natural, part of the circle of life?
Where this “hole in the universe” idea comes up most startlingly for some reason is in recalling our stop at the angler supply shop in Boulder roughly a week before Danny exited. It was clear they recognized him in there. Danny held a small plastic tray designed to hold flies while shopping. Danny made careful selections.
He’ll never be back. I picture a smudge in the shop, almost like a greasy swipe on a window except grey, and ask myself: will any of them wonder, What happened to that guy?
They say grief changes you. It’s too early to tell how I might be changed. But I did notice as I cleared up the patio with our battery-operated leaf blower this morning that I felt a tender vulnerability toward my neighbors. In the past I might’ve thought: if this bothers you — good! You have no idea the distress your yard crews have caused me over the years, especially in the early days of the leaf blower ordinance when nobody was abiding by the law.
Instead today I think: Please dear neighbors, do not begrudge me this little task of tidying up.
Having lost all but one member of my birth family and a husband I can tell you. the grief lessens but never goes away……rather than hold on so tight in case you forget him- know that will NEVER happen.
I’m beginning to realize some of this. How the “time heals all wounds” saying is just not true.
I think so too Dee, and your attitude towards the neighbors past use of the loud yard care equipment is exactly like me… there’s nothing wrong with that! 😏
💙
Hello Dee, having walked (and walk forever) in shoes you now also wear, I discovered a short video by the BBC I recall, which described grief to me in the most simplistic terms which was helpful when your whole body no longer functions as it did! There was a circle drawn which is you, then traumatic grief and the circle gets coloured in so it’s black scribble, the new you, the grieving you, the forever core of you. Then as time goes by, you will grow outside of your new core and at times you will revert back, think anniversaries, birthdays and all sorts of things which will become clear in time. The ‘time heals wounds’, for me, is absolute rubbish. The only thing time has done for me is to learn to live with it. The emotion lives permanently only just below the surface. The five stages of grief was developed for those facing their own death and has become socially acceptable as a process for all. I don’t subscribe to the view but just to feel what you feel as you journey along. I wish I had written as you do. Thinking of you. Linda
This is helpful to me too. Thank you for the description. As far as my reading has taken me in the last couple of weeks, the “five stages of grief” has pretty much been discredited.
Your calendar with all the scribbles. I do the same thing. People who visit me see it and think I am nuts that I still use a paper calendar. And the saying should be “time heals some wounds”. Certainly not ALL…..that makes no sense.
I’m thinking of your broken heart half living yesterdays .. the other half today with your whole heart not knowing tomorrows. Not knowing one day to the next what your heart or how your heart will endure. It’s got to be so hard!!
Holding you ever so gently with my whole heart. ❤️
Dee~ My heart breaks for you in the 2000 miles away and now left to wonder what you even knew about your precious boy. I know those miles and they are hard in the best, day to day situation. It must be torture now.
And your calendar…plans and life and new plans…life crashing around you. I can feel the heartbreak and confusion and dire need to hold on to it all.
Sending love xo
Thank you Nancy. Unfortunately the anguish runs back in time, sits in the present, and runs forward in time.
Just here, listening to and absorbing your loss. Feeling it. It’s a wound that can’t really heal can it? Soften, scar over is how I think of it. Grieve in any way that helps you. Say his name often. It’s such a process to accept this new reality.
Love to you all.
Thank you, Glennis
how a scar marks the imperfection of healing … or how mending never quite makes the cloth whole again … and how a too vigorous a repair can cause new holes to open in tender cloth … all metaphor, none of it equal to the task of making sense of your loss, except to say that there will be change over time … may your writing help you find your way through to whatever lies ahead
Liz A
Using cloth, tearing fiber, and mending as metaphor touches deeply. No surprise there I guess. Thanks for finding the words.
(((Dee)))
grief is like ‘a switchblade honed on concrete, thin as pain’
William Gibson ‘Fragments of a Hologram Rose’
That seems to describe my nervous system at the moment.
I read and reread your posts, blown away by your words, your ability to put into words what has happened, is happening, your honesty, ruthless… compelling….dear Dee, your sharing here is huge.
I find self struggling to find words to offer you comfort and realise it’s not about me, coming here is about you and your family, your loss and the sadness you are all experiencing
All I have to do is show up and listen, you are in my heart and thoughts, days like these make me wish I do pray, for you for us all. Love Saskia