part one: grief storm
Noun
- A cloudlike mass or layer of minute water droplets or ice crystals near the surface of the earth, appreciably reducing visibility.
I’ve been trying to write this for a month. Trying to find words, not even flowing words, just words to explain about grief after the storm. I have perfect illustrations to describe what I mean, but I can’t write them. I’ve struggled to write anything.
After the storm of grief, you live in a fog; I’ll get to the explanation… I hope.
Living in grief means your life becomes accompanied by ‘ifs.’
You can think back to the scenario or circumstance and run the ‘ifs’ over and over in your head.
If I’d already been on a higher dose of folic acid just because I was…
If that sperm hadn’t met that egg…
If I’d done this instead of this…
The ‘ifs’ roll into a ‘maybe’…and the pain in your heart when reality rushes back in hurts a lot.
And then there are the harder ‘ifs’
If Emmanuelle were healthy, it would be her birthday this month.
If she had lived, she would be turning one.
If she were alive, I would never know grief like this.
If she was here, I would not be so broken.
If she were with me, I’d be a completely different person; I wouldn’t have lost part of my heart.
Putting ‘ifs’ into your present circumstance bring an ache for what was, to grow suddenly to fit now. This stings with impossibility.
No one prepares you that after the loss you will live with constant ‘ifs,’ that hit you in strange moments, and cause your mind to wander and heart to ache.
Grief is different for everyone.
For me after the grief storm it became a fog.
I could see nothing around me, I couldn’t see what way to move, I couldn’t see a future, and I couldn’t see life. I couldn’t see my life.
Everything I encountered; circumstance, friends, medicine; all were through the filter fog of grief. A situation was not joyful for me, because I observed it through dark pain. Changes of relationships, growth or loss, was all because of my grief. This fog was thick, I could not see through it and I could see nothing but it. It was so thick it was nearly tangible; the darkness, pain, and sadness were intense. No matter how hard someone might try they could not penetrate its force and interact with the ‘me’ underneath it all. I think that’s because I got lost in it and lost a part of me to it; therefore who they were looking for couldn’t be found there.
See the storm broke me, in the fog I scrambled to try and put myself back together; but I couldn’t see anything. So when I emerged, yes I’d done a bit of a dodgy job and I may still look a little broken and cracked. But you know what, when you’re surrounded by grief…. well, it’s the best I could do.
* photo from yellow roses. Yellow Roses is a support network for families in the Central Queensland region who have experienced miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal death.
She Does 