Griefwalking Into My Own Death

Last night, I couldn't sleep.  I was restless and agitated until I finally dozed off about 1 or 1:30.  A few minutes later, I was awakened by a phone call.

It was like a replay of January.  "I just wanted you to know that she has passed."  Almost identical to the words I heard that early morning a little more than three months ago. 

A dear friend, whose mother had been dying from lung cancer, made her final transition in the wee hours of the morning, just like my own mother.  At the news, I felt a similar sort of shock, panic, sorrow and fear as I had before.

I wouldn't have wanted Maggie to linger and suffer anymore than I wanted my own mother to remain as she was.  But today, as I fought back tears that I'm not sure were for Maggie or for my Mother, griefwalking has made a sudden U-turn.  I feel like I'm back just a few days past my mother's death and all the road I've walked has disappeared under my feet.  Even with the bright sunshine and soft spring breeze, I feel the chill of winter in my heart.

Mortality has once again come up and placed its cold, haggard visage in front of me, demanding that I stare into the eyes of the abyss.  I look deeply into the darkness and see my own face, knowing that I, too, will die, perhaps not today or tomorrow or for many years, but that I am now the one standing on the brink of eternity, as my son and his yet unborn children line up behind me.

So it comes to this...the griefwalk has become as much a walk into my own death as it has been a walk through my mother's and now Maggie's.  The mourning has become a wail for my own life as much as for theirs.  The pain is being transmuted from pain for them into pain for me and my own losses.

Perhaps the road hasn't really disappeared. Perhaps I've just become aware that the trail has taken a turn I hadn't expected.

But maybe it's where I am supposed to be right now.

‎My dear friend María de Lourdes Ruiz Scaperlanda put this quote on her Facebook page:

"Someone once asked the artist Georgia O'Keeffe why her paintings magnified the size of small objects - the petals on a flower - making them appear larger than life, and reduced the size of large objects - like mountains - making them smaller than life. 'Everyone sees the big things,' she said. 'But these smaller things are so beautiful and people might not notice them if I didn't emphasize them.'  That's the way it is with gratitude and letting go. It's easy to see the problems in our lives. They're like mountains. But sometimes we overlook the smaller things; we don't notice how truly beautiful they are." ~Melody Beattie

 I have a lot of trouble with letting go...of things, people, events, ideas, hopes, dreams, desire, wishes, faults...I hold onto everything that comes into my life and give it up only under duress.  Today I was talking with a friend who reminded me (as if I didn't already know) that in the past few months I've been forced to let go of many things because I simply didn't have a choice; they were taken from me.

Just for the record, I haven't like it much.  As I've had to face enforced loss, I've experienced waves of panic, fear, and a sort of roaming anxiety that alights on things like finances, health, world affairs, the Mayan calendar and anything else that happens in my field of thought.

Maria's quote made me stop and think. I wonder if I'm magnifying all the problems in my life (and there are legitimate problems right now) and failing to see the beauty in some of the smaller things?

I think I already know the answer.  Now to get my mind to accept it.

Griefwalking Observed

Our society is so instan-oriented, I feel almost embarrassed and ashamed to admit that three months after my mother's death, I still haven't "moved on."  Well, yes, I have in some ways since the acute stage of grief is passed and I am functioning more or less.  I mean, the taxes were filed on time.  The kitty litter box is scooped regularly.  Even the dishes are done most of the time.

But a lot of things are left undone. The dining room hasn't been vacuumed in I don't know how long. There are still half-drunk bottles of soda from my mother's after-funeral gathering in the refrigerator. There is a mound of laundry on the chair in my bedroom that hasn't been put away.  There are creative projects that I haven't even thought of in three months. 

I read about people who not only are back functioning 100% in this time frame, they've conquered new mountains and completely reinvented themselves. I haven't.   I feel like I'm a griefwalking laggard.

On days like today, when the sun is out I feel like I "should" be feeling more positive, more energetic, more vim-and-vigor ready to tackle life (or at least weeding the flowerbeds).  Instead, I feel a grey blanket of sadness drape over my shoulders and the tears pool just behind my lashes. It's as if I am seeing through a smudged window.  I know that there is sunlight and laughter and good times and joy out there, but I'm on the other side of the glass.

It's not just mother I grieve. It's all the other losses of life, all the other sorrows, all the other things that were not completely mourned in their season that compound the current griefwalk. I mourn decisions I made that I now regret.  People I let slip away.  Opportunities that I failed to take advantage of. Choices that I made that turned out to be less than I expected. Purchases made that didn't satisfy. Love that wasn't given...or received.  

I grieve over not having had enough foresight to have planned better for this stage of life.  For not having better prepared emotionally, physically, financially, spiritually for this time.  For having been too much of a grasshopper and not enough of an ant when I knew all along this day would come.

But then, I try to stop and remind myself that living in regret over the past is no more productive than worrying myself sick about the future.  There is only today...even if it is being viewed through a smudged window.