Seven years ago, I started a blog about losing my mom: Here is post 1.
http://findingmymom.blogspot.com/2009/03/day-1-cancer.html?m=0
This showed up on my Facebook feed today in my Memories of this day along with this post from last year:
"I can't let the day end without marking this day in my history. Six years ago, my life stopped...I was dropped to my knees... And my world started rotating on a different axis. Six years later, looking back... Gosh... I am such a different person than the girl who started this blog. Reading this still makes me cry for what I've lost, but it also makes me deeply honor the growth I've experienced because of my loss. I GRIEVED. I walked every ugly, painful step. I'll never stop missing my mom but I know I've done my grief work. And as painful as this day was six years ago.... Today I can honor the day for what it was...the beginning of a very difficult, but incredibly powerful, journey. And that's what life is all about... Many different journeys rolled together into one amazing life."
And today's musings...seven years after the day I wrote that first blog post. I did grieve. So much. I did SO much work. I AM a different person than the girl who started that blog seven years ago. Completely different. Death and I came to an understanding. A kinship almost. And then death took my dad. And I felt angry and hurt and betrayed by this entity I had come to honor. But, of course, death was going to have to take my dad at some point. I just wasn't ready. And it was a reminder that we're likely never ready. And then grief was in my life again. Uninvited. Unwelcome. But here nonetheless. And all the work I had done was sort of tossed up in the air and strewn about and left lying on my floor for me to work my way through again. But it was even messier this time. That was unexpected.
I'll be honest, I am just starting to feel like I have dug my way out of the deep, dark ugly part of grief. I describe it as having my fingers over the top edge. I can't quite see the top, but I can feel it. And I'm hanging on to this place for dear life. It's hard right here. There's still so much work to do to pull myself up over that edge. But I don't want to let go either. I don't want to fall back into the pit. So...I hang here. Feeling hopeful that I'll find the energy to pull myself up and over. Knowing that at the top, once I pull myself out, I'll find myself face to face with multiple mountains that need to be crossed before I find my way out of this grief journey (not that it will ever truly end, but the mountains get smaller and smaller and smaller...). But those mountains don't scare me. They're above ground. Occasionally the sun will shine as I'm crossing them. Now and then, people can walk beside me in support as I make my way. This pit has been hard, and dark, and scary, and lonely. Because I had to be there alone. No one could join me. They could offer their support from the top of the pit, but they couldn't crawl my way out for me.
As it does for all of us, life keeps going on. Thank goodness for my work and my safe and comforting office. That's the one place where I feel like ME and alive. I'm grateful for that safe haven every single day. But I'm looking forward to feeling some peace outside of my office as well. Not to say there hasn't been any...but I do feel like a dark cloud has been with me pretty much every day since my dad died.
I'm ready for spring. I'm ready for more sun and longer days. I NEED that. Flowers are blooming. Birds are chirping. The northern hemisphere is awakening. I am hopeful my awakening is coming too.
I am no longer angry at death. I am better able to look grief in the eyes and remember that it brings great gifts. You have to muddle through the mess it brings to find them, but they're there. :)
It's hard to believe it's been seven years since that first blog post. It's hard to believe I've survived six and a half years without my mom. But now, I've also survived almost five months without both my parents. In the big scope of time, that's nothing. But when you spend those five months with a black cloud following you and trying to climb out of a dark, scary pit of despair...it feels like forever.
But posts like these remind me how much I have survived. And I know I will survive this too. And that great growth is happening and will continue to occur along this road. First I have to get all the way out of this pit. I'm "this" close. I can feel it. :)
