eileensdaughter-blog

[eileensdaughter-blog]

Every person has experienced or will experience life-changing days. No one is exempt. Loss is a tax on loving.

These are the mornings when we wake up as normal, have the coffee, walk the dog, go to work or school-- and then the phone call comes and life is forever altered because a loved one is absolutely gone. The unexpected ones are the most surreal. Early May six years ago I was attending an in-service with a bunch of strangers when a friend sent a text for me to call her. I left the room and went to my office and closed the door. "I'm so sorry, but Norm passed away." 

And that was that. I dabbed my eyes and went back to the in-service. The news comes in as bare fact, like a push notification. "Everything is going to be different now, just letting you know." In the meantime, I had to make it through the day. Norm was my counselor and meditation teacher; not a family member, so I couldn't just leave work. I had to shelter in place and breathe in the fact of his passing while the instructor rambled on. I had a staff meeting two hours later, and had to go over to Eileen's after work. Things weren't going to change much today. Just how different life would be after this day-- I had no idea. 

First there was the ugly sobbing phase, which frightened my dog. She would skulk from the room and later I would find her in the narrow space between the bed and the wall. Then there was the "Why is everyone acting so normal?" phase. Then there was the all-day-tear-leaking phase, my personal favorite. Next was the brain fog phase, the I-can't-get-out-of-bed phase, and the "oh my god don't make me interact with people" phase. The only successful therapeutic relationship of my life was over and the most compassionate, objective person I had ever known was gone. That kind of intimacy is not very common. I might forget everything we ever talked about. Depression, grief's second cousin, came for an extended visit, settling in and redecorating my interior.

Several weeks into my grief I met with the EAP counselor from work. Grieving was oozing into every corner of my life. The poor girl wasn't helpful. She validated the difficulty of my situation and confessed that she had just graduated from college and never lost a loved one. I couldn't fault her for being honest but I had to get the beast by the reins or else my life was really going to fall apart. She handed me a print out of the Kubler-Ross stages of grief and I threw it out the car window on my way to get a pedicure. 

My new normal was a trudging circle of days. My concentration was shot, I could hardly do my meditations, I felt like fighting with everyone and simple requests felt like weighty demands. My prayers were mechanical. Attempts to help others were bungled. Functions of my job were bungled. Relationships with co workers were getting bungled. The only thing I wanted to do was watch Deadwood reruns and I was tired every moment. I knew I had to seek momentum. I couldn't just sit, even though I knew this was one time in my life where it was better to take no action at all and just let grief run it's course. I didn't have the luxury to surrender to grief but fighting it made it harder.

Now, years later, I can't single out a day or a moment when I felt a genuine smile bubble up to my face and realize that I was out of the acute phase. Life simply went on. Some conclusions I am allowed to draw about grief are that it is complex, exhausting and highly subjective. I experienced it as an altered state of consciousness: reduced self awareness followed by reduced awareness of my environment. I was unavailable; unable to be reached for comment.

The universe works in mysterious ways, says the adage. It is true. Grief hasn't made me any stronger. Grieving Norm was unpredictable and I was powerless over it. It gave me another layer of contrast and depth as well as a frame of reference for major loss.

I did dream about Norm a few weeks into the grief. He was teaching from his bed like Socrates in David's painting. It was one of those gifts from beyond, filling me with a comforting sense of the infinite. The week he passed away, in meditation, I heard him ask me: "Why words?" It was almost as loud as a shout. My immediate reply was: "Why not words? Why anything?"

With a smile in his voice he would have responded: "Good work, Sweetie."