A Let’s Talk About Grief Post
I posted this quote on Instagram a little over a year ago. It was at a time in my grief journey I’d realized that I no longer woke up reaching for Dan. That realization knocked me on my ass, and represented a new chapter for me.
It’s been two years since he died. But this morning, for the first time in over a year, I woke up reaching for him. In that confused moment between sleep and awake, I was back in the bedroom of the house we built together, wondering where he was. Dan struggled with PTSD related insomnia the entire time I knew him, so I figured he’d gone out to the living room to avoid waking me. Something he did often.
And then I rolled over and remembered that he wasn’t there. That I’d sold that house. That he was dead and I was alone. That was all it took for those grief waves to crash in on me. Sadness. Grief. Aloneness. Loneliness. And it was suddenly fresh again, like I’d just lost him.
People often ask why it’s so difficult for the grieving to move forward (please, never say moving on). Lately I’ve been getting a lot of after two years it’s time for you to focus on the positive and remember the good times. (Translated as: We’re tired of your grief so please stop grieving.) Well lemme tell you, sometimes the happiest memories are the most painful. And it’s mornings like this that start the grief cycle over again. In that split second I was back in time, before cancer and before widowhood, before reality came crashing back on me.
I made the commitment to explore and talk about this grief process. So here ya go. One of the ugly bits. That’s why it’s hard. It’s not just that they are gone, it’s that we have these times where the scar is ripped open and we bleed again. Thanks to whiskey coffee and my lifelines who let me sob it out on early morning phone calls, my day will move forward. I’ll get through it. But like the song says, it’s a Mother F*r.
XOXO,
The Wandering Widow
Live Now. Dream Big. Love Fierce.
POST SOUNDTRACK
It’s a Mother F*r, Eels
It’s a motherf*r
Being here without you
Thinking ’bout the good times
Thinking ’bout the bad
And I won’t ever be the same
It’s a motherf*r
Getting through a Sunday
Talking to the walls
Just me again
But I won’t ever be the same
I won’t ever be the same
It’s a motherf*r
How much I understand
The feeling that you need someone
To take you by the hand
And you won’t ever be the same
You won’t ever be the same