I think I made it though the 9th anniversary of Donna’s death. I can carry on about the day. I can write endlessly about the days leading up to August 7th. Wail on about how much it feels like I am descending darkened stairs into a damp, dark, and cold basement of grief. Then August 7th arrives in all its glorious anticipation.
This year the days leading up to and the day Donna died were unremarkable in a way. The pain and longing was present and darted like bats from the pitch black corners and recesses of my mind at random times. Flying at my face always fresh, new, and like WTF. It seems new every year and most days in between.
My entire relationship with Donna’s death and my grief is less about rending my garments and wailing poor me. I’d like to believe my grief has a more nuanced and finely tuned reverb that others can see and hear if I painstakingly write about it. And yet to what end? They say they care. They show they care. They speak care. I believe them but I know everyone has their own world and can only offer moments. And those moments are blessings. Kindnesses. Hugs. Peace. And then the last casserole dish is washed and returned. Here I stand in a river in the same place never moving as memories of grief rush by me in swirling eddies.
Perhaps this years Donna Death Day (DDD) was less painful because a dear loving and brilliant light that came into my life shadowed me on that day prayed with me. Make me laugh. Let me share. Heard my fears. That made a difference. I didn’t hurt alone.
Being a pretend scientist I imagine that I am, I wonder if there is another viable that may have contributed to this DDD being somewhat unremarkable in the horror of its full potential?
I scratch my head I think. Have I gotten all bored with being on my grief journey? Have I finally put this grief and loss jigsaw puzzle together? Have I adulted my grief journey? Is my grief just romantic nostalgia? Do I see and can’t admit to that no one gives a fucking rats ass about what happened nine years ago and this lame ready for the glue factory one trick pony needs to be put down? So much to ponder so little time. <Insert smile emoji laughing at my own jokes>
In all seriousness the grief is there and it is less grabbing the back of my head and slamming my face into a brick wall. It's more like road rash from skateboarding. My grief is there and its wound is open and allowing light in. What I feel and see now the grief has a dull ache which may be just post DDD.
The harsh truth is that I sit here in some pandemic semi isolation finding diminishing returns on my meaning and purpose each day. I wrote about how Crisis Text Line brought so much meaning to my life filled with only purpose of doing chores and balancing my check book. Well it feels as if my gnat like attention span is finally catching up to the brilliance of CTL. I am okay at helping texters. I have saved a few lives. I have given others hope and meaning to fight their demons and fears. I always wonder how durable this really is?
I become texters in some way so I can put my pain aside. I pull their pain into me to save them. I forget my pain.
There are 10,589 other crisis counselors who can do what I do. I am in the middle of the bell curve or below. (Never been much of a great student anyway.) Perhaps it is more that my enthusiasm has evaporated. I watch the condensation from my life being returned to the air. Being a crisis counselor is good for me and okay for texters. They will survive with or without me. CTL and 10k Crisis Counselors got them. Perhaps as I've held true, hospice saved my life. CTL has saved my life for now.
There is more to the entire CTL discussion and how it effected me and puts me here and now. The training they gave me in helping those in crisis opened up an entirely new world to me. That was expressed in much greater detail with significantly more meaning as I completed more conversations with texters and learned from my supervisors. I saw that my compassion and empathy which was never really realized by me and significantly ignored while I was caregiving for Donna became oversized. I get weepy over emotions in scenes read, watched, and witnessed. I feel deeply others hurt and pain. I raise to help if I can with all this fucking new knowledge. My personal emotional walls have been broken down in ways I didn’t see. Yet I can’t help me. Not sure I ever could. Not even sure I want to any longer.
Where does all this bring me? Standing at the waters edge the distant horizon calling to me to swim endlessly to reach the unseen the never realized called horizon. Forever swimming fighting not to drown. The wound of grief is my constant companion and can live with it. I can learn from it. What I am seeing now is that the rest of my world, life, and existence. I am not sure I can live with.
All that I have realized from my grief wound and journey. All that I have achieved in my volunteer work. Presents me with a reality. My calendar is empty that my to-do's are made up nothings. I really am sitting on the edge of the water alone and lost to find a way. I consider endless swimming to that horizon until I can’t and sink to my death. I make no secret of my ideation and my plan and my means. I have nothing but time on my hands now.
I am better than I was when Donna died. Even better than I was when she was alive. Now what? I can’t be that for Donna. I can’t give her all I know now and all that I can do emotionally with compassion, empathy, and love. I remove some of her ashes and roll them in my fingers hoping she can feel what I feel. All I feel are the shards of her bones and what remains: grief scented love.
So the question I am begging is now what?