The stabbing pain

I went to therapy the other day (everyone go to therapy).  We talked about how to be happy. Weird topic I know. How do you make yourself be happy. My therapist said. "If you just pray hard enough you will be happy"  Then we both laughed out loud cause she know as good as I do that "just praying hard enough" is a lie from the pit of hell. This is why I love my therapist. But we did talk alot about being happy.

It's not that I'm unhappy exactly. I have a good life, I know that, I have a beautiful daughter, a new house. and a new job that so far is going really well. Those are all good things. Dan is still dead. I still miss Dan with every fiber of my being. It tends to dampen the happy.

"You will always miss him" my therapist said. I know, but how do I be happy and miss him at the same time. "Your doing it" she said. She likes to tell me that one a lot, "Your doing it" as in I'm moving forward, I'm getting out of bed everyday. I'm taking care of Baby Girl. Apparently I'm doing all the right things in order to "heal"

Heal. I hate that word, what does it mean. If one is healed. So we talked about that for awhile and then she asked me what I thought it would mean to be healed. I said "for me to say something like O Dan and I used to always do such and such, and then smile at the good memory and then carry on and to NOT feel like I was being stabbed in the heart repeatedly, because that is what it feel like."  she gave a very good answer to that "that may never happen"  "Exactly" I said "You see my dilemma"

Every time I think about Dan (which is however many seconds there are in a day) it feel like I am being stabbed in the heart. It hurts that bad. I thought of this really good analogy the other day that I think very few will know of. There used to be this tv show called Angel. One of Dan and I favorite show, only because it was a spin off of Buffy. Which is like the best show ever. Anyway Angel is about a vampire who is good and he fights demons and stuff and hilarity ensues. In One episode one of the "bad" guys is being punished for his crimes. He is placed in an alternate universe where everything is perfect. White picket fences, a wife, obedient children. About every five minutes his wife asks him to go down to the basement and get something for him.  He looks like he's afraid to go, but he does it anyway, like he couldn't stop himself even if he tried. In the basement is a giant scary monster who lays him on a table a rips his heart out.  Every five minutes his heart is literally ripped out of his chest. Yup that's what grief feels like.

I went to lunch with a very wise friend today. Her husband died suddenly when she was youngish also. I'm not sure how long ago that was, before I ever meet her. She is now remarried and very happy. So I asked her, she should know. "When does the stabbing pain stop"  Her answer was not the one I wanted, but it was the one I expected. "It doesn't" she said. "I can still feel it and it's been years, and I am happily remarried, and I still feel the stabbing pain of my grief." Awesome, guess I have something to look forward to.

I saw another friend tonight. His dad just died this week. He walked straight up to me and said "What did you do to help Baby Girl cope? I am having a really hard time and I figured you of all people would know what to do." No not really, I wish I did, I so wish there was a black and white answer for him, a here do these things and it will feel better, but there is not, there's only stabbing pain. So I told him "It just hurts. It just hurts like hell and you let it hurt. Two years and two months later and it still hurts like hell." Not the answer he wanted I'm sure but it was the only real answer I had.

I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry of Castle