Carry on Castle: Living with Grief

How long can you drag on grief? How long does grieving last? It's the question everyone wants to know. I certainly want to know it. I like clear defined answers. I hate answers like 'it's different for everybody, or it takes as long as it takes. That tells me nothing. I want a straight up answer; in 6 months the fog will lift. In a year you will be back to your old self. If you have never felt grief up close and personal you are probably thinking that sounds about right. If you have though, if you have had a significant other or a child or a parent die then you are laughing hysterically in your head right now because you know that that timeline is a total crock of shit. Shortly after Dan died I had someone who clearly had no idea what they were talking about that I should give it six months and I would be feeling better by then and ready to get back into life.  This is essentially what is wrong with the world of grief. Grievers are told total rubbish like that and because...

The small child rages. She kicks, she screams, she throws things. She lays on the ground, her face red, her fists clenched, her toes flexed.   Her hair is wild around her face, as she shakes her head back and forth and beats at the carpet. She will scream at anyone that comes near her. They won’t, though; they don’t know how to deal with her. I don’t know how to deal with her either, but I cannot leave her. She is mine. Others don’t believe that it is what it is, for some reason they can’t see it: visceral, indescribable pain. They can’t face that pain, and they think it's inappropriate, so they stay away. They want to go on being appropriate. They don’t want to admit that this great injustice, DEATH, is real. She’s only seven. She hasn’t learned what is appropriate and what isn't. She hasn’t learned the words to say, "I’m sad because I miss daddy.” Why would she know that? What mommy would think to teach her child how to act appropriately about the sudden de...

How is a baby nonexistent? O so many ways. Miscarriage, stillbirth, infertility. In some of those cases a baby did exist but then all of a sudden stopped existing. For me my nonexistent baby came in the form of adoption. It did exist, to my knowledge it still exists, but it’s not my baby. It was my baby for approximately one second, and then like so many things that happened it that 24 hour span it was gone in the next second. Was it ever really mine? I suppose you could make an argument that it never was. It was not mine like my 10 year old daughter is mine, but still three years later I think about the baby I had for one second, the baby that I never even got to find out the sex of. The baby that my husband and I had waited and prayed about for four years.   The baby that I poured my soul into, the baby that is to me now nonexistent. My husband and I always knew we would adopt someday. It was a given, it was always part of the deal. Even before we got married we talked ...

Today is the 12. That means it has been three years and three months since Dan died. I tell everyone on FB what today was. I think thats the first time I haven't. I guess I figured if you don't know by now your not paying attention. I pretty much dread the 12th of every month. It just hurts, I can't focus, Nothing goes right, I'm tired, lethargic, just blah. Recently it has been getting better as in nothing terrible happened that day I just spilled coffee all over myself which lets face it I could easily do on any given day. The 12 was slowly starting to blend in with the rest of the days of the month. I could handle it finally, it only took three years. Then there is Baby Girl. Baby Girl had largely stuffed her emotions inside for the first two years that her daddy was dead. They came out in sudden bursts of anger and grief tantrums. Just this last year she has been starting to deal with her emotions and been semi willing to talk about daddy.  Last month on the 12 ...

"Just let me know if you need anything" "Just let me know if I can help" I'm going to let you in on a little secret; those phrases are pretty much a joke to grieving people. They can tell almost immediately that you don't mean it.  Maybe you do mean it when you say, what is more likely true is that you want to mean it. You want to be there for the person in so much pain, you want to be able to help them. You want to tell others you helped out the widow. Really though that is all about you. Perhaps more people can understand this analogy since more people have had kids then have been struck by death, especially at my age. When you first come home with your brand new baby from the hospital you get a lot of "O we would love to come over and help you out. We can hold the baby for you while you clean the house" That might fly with a fourth child but with a first child thats not what you want at all. You want people to come over and clean your house wh...