EDLM October 4, 2023
In my world today, I trimmed a large bush outside my kitchen window. I picked up walnuts falling from my seven walnut trees in my yard. This year has produced a large crop of unwanted walnuts. I do not process them because of the extreme time it takes to pick out the inner meats. I pick them up so it does not ruin my lawn mower blade when mulching the leaves. The squirrels do their work, but it takes them all winter.
My basement windows have needed to be painted for several years and I painted them today. Some tasks seem never to be gotten to.
Later in the day I went to the grocery store to purchase supplies for the weekend guest I plan to have.
In the afternoon I attended a grief group. We started the group in the spring and continue to meet. It’s surprising how our grieving processes are much related and that the issues change through time. Some issues remain in varying degrees, but some morph into other issues.
The day’s activities seem irrelevant in the larger picture. I’m in my three years plus some months of grieving and still activities are just something to take up the time of getting through the day. There’s day-time and night-time. Getting to the night-time when sleep overcomes, is the most welcome time. It’s then that the yearning, missing, tears, loneliness and angst is on-hold.
One of the things we acknowledged in group was the media’s easy coverage of grief. A few tears, a few days of mourning and everyone picks up happiness, contentment and are into the “normal” routines of life (on screen). As a society we are ignorant of the lasting, grueling, never-ending process of grieving, yearning, adapting to a new life the loss of a beloved loved one plunges us into.
Also not shown on screen is the process of re-defning ourselves, fnding a new self, a new life devoid of the loved one. The struggle of holding on to our loved one after the death takes months to come to terms with. Then guilt of “going on” or the fear of forgetting the person we loved, holds us back. The question slices into each day of “How do I not forget?”, “How do I continue to love my spouse?”, “How do we trust that we can remember and love our loved one and still embrace a new beginning?” And after all, “Do I really want a new beginning?” What was, for some of us, the best that had happened to us. And we didn’t want it to change. So now we are in a situation that was thrust upon us without our consent.
In relationships that have been good, one partner plays a role and the other plays another compatible role. After a death, the one left must take up the mantel of the other. Many times it’s the weaker skills that have been fulflled by the loved one. Now, not only the grieving is there to deal with, it’s the developing of those weaker skills that we must take on.
Re-defning ourselves is not a short process. It takes months and years.
And the question of, “Is all this worth it?” remains in the crevasses of our minds. “How long must I live in this dilemma?” “Will it ever really get better?”
These are not to be answered by glib hyperboles or by those who have not walked in the shoes of those lost in the dilemma. And actually there is no one answer. No one can do the work for us. We must do it for ourselves and there is no playbook.
So that’s been the day, another day in Everyday Life in Muncie, October 4, 2023.