When we feel overwhelmed and consumed by the inconsolable pain of our grievance, we often wonder, will this be my life forever? Will the bread ever go away?
If grievance has crashed into our lives in fury, we are knocked down, broken and shattered, breathless in a mist of shock, numbness and confusion. The bread becomes relentless and consumes everything. The intensity and constancy of this amazes and frightens us and we feel like we will never be whole again.
In the early days of my own grievance, I was shocked at the fury of my pain, the agony I had to endure every minute. He knocked me down and I was terrified. I was terrified by the force of it. I was terrified of my fragility. I was terrified that this agony, this brokenness would be my life forever.
I went minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day… searching, wondering, asking. When does it get better? How long does it last? How did you survive? Screaming, when will the pain go away?
I began to measure my struggle by my tears or lack thereof and what happened each day. I only cried twice today. I haven’t cried for a day. When they reached two days, I celebrated. The tears lasted thirty minutes instead of two hours. Amid my tears and the shreds of my heart, I began to search for moments of comfort and moments of hope. I searched for survival stories and swallowed hard at the inspiration I found. I wanted anything that would bring a shred of light to the darkness of my life. Day after day, the tranquility came in small increments and the pieces of my life, once forever shattered, began to come together again in moments of pleasure, joy and happiness.
Those tears, those moments, those small increments became my bookmarks; the signs that helped me understand and notice my injury and my healing a little better. I saw where I was in my day and in my life. I realized when my feelings came, how powerful they were and how long they lasted. I also learned that my complaint would never be a straight line from AB, finished, recovered and happy again. It became for me a forever evolutionary spiral which is part of who I am now.
If I am around the outside of the spiral, the pleasant moments of my life merge and more so than the painful moments.
I keep the memory and presence of my son at the top of my day.
I take the time to nurture myself.
I spend time with the people who matter most to me.
I deliberately find something each day to appreciate and enjoy.
If I am moving towards the center of my spiral, the painful moments of my life merge and more than the pleasant moments:
I miss my son so much that I ache with a longing for which there is no relief.
I spend every moment wishing for the past, wishing that the magic eraser would take everything away.
The flashbacks are on constant repeat once again.
I can’t get out of bed and I want to curl up and die myself.
Depending on where I am in my spiral, these moments can be like waves lapping gently against the shoreline or waves crashing against the ground. Fleeting like the wake of a passing ship or of a storm that lasts for hours or days and I get crushed again at that moment. Sometimes I can see the storm in the distance slowly building. Other times it hits me like a bolt from the blue. I’ve gotten used to those waves. Acceptance always comes gently, and thankfully this happens less and less now.
As with my tears, my spiral and the ocean help me to know myself better. The spiral shows how softly or forcefully my grievance is rumbling through my life and how powerful it is in my life at any given time. It tells me where I am and is part of who I am. I don’t have to get over my complaint, put it away, or pack it up. I recognize the duality that will always remain. Pain and ease. The anger and the calm. The better, the worse. The sad, the happy. The pain and the pleasure.
The loss of my son will shape and mold me for the rest of my life, my grief will spin and spiral in its unique rhythms forever.
