me

I think for those who are grieving, after some time has passed, we begin to present ourselves to the world in a way that does not show our intense emotions anymore.  I think partly because the world can be somewhat unforgiving of prolonged grief.  I don't say that as a statement of judgement on anyone, just a personal observation.  Before June, I was extremely blessed to have never really been acquainted with intense or incapacitating grief in my life.  But I also mistakenly thought that grief was just a deep sorrow that one feels, passes through in stages, then moving on.  I didn't get it.  Other widow/ers get it.  Those who have lost a parent or child or had some other significant loss, they get it.   I get it now.

Whether I want it to or am ready for it to, life does go on and I have to step up and attend to responsibilities and parenting and, I don’t know…just everything.  I can not just be a sobbing messy ball of emotions, day in and day out.  So I began to find my smile.  But this does not mean I am ignoring my grief or refusing to deal with the mess of emotions inside.  I am simply being functional.  It is all still right there, trust me, just below the surface, pain flowing from my heart throughout my body with every heartbeat.   In smiling and functioning, however, I am not avoiding my grief.  I read somewhere this it is like the idea of applying pressure to a wound in an effort to keep the blood from pouring out.  I apply pressure to hold my grief back so that I can get "stuff" done.  And I am blessed to have a few "safe places/people" to regularly pour those emotions out.  That is both necessary and healthy.  God blessed us with tears to release the pressure and compassionate others in our lives to lend us a shoulder.  

But daily, you will see that I smile because I am engaged, I laugh if something is funny, I am truly present with the people I see throughout the day.  Because that is what life is and I am still alive.  What I have noticed though is that I can do all of those things and even though I grieve, each joyful or necessary action is truly authentic.  It is just that, since Ryan died, even while I do those daily things, I am also dying inside.  Missing him.  Wishing he was here on earth.  Wanting desperately to see him walk through that door again.  Sharply feeling his absence.  His gone-ness.  Even as I smile and engage with people, my heart still aches, reminding me with every beat the divide between heaven and earth.

I am different since Ryan died.  I am both here and not here.  I am smiling outside and crying inside, both together at the same time.  Both authentically me.  I am truly paying attention and hearing you, my precious friends, while simultaneously listening to my own inner emotions at the same time.  Both of these are real parts of my every day, one seen and one mostly unseen.  For those who have never felt intense, shocking, incapacitating grief, this may not make a lot of sense.  But I have become familiar with it.  I have become familiar with having one foot squarely here on earth and the other foot somewhere else, wanting desperately to be have it firmly planted in heaven.  

I feel like one person here with you all, functioning out in the world, but also someone else at the same time.  As I smile and laugh, I am not stuffing any of this grief stuff down.  I am just  living out loud - while a deep, intense sadness, a dying to this life, a heaven-focused mind, mills around inside.  And I guess I am "okay" with that reality for now.