Glossing over grief

I really just let myself surrender this afternoon to having a little rest, I haven’t been sleeping past 4 am with all the ongoing drama trying to help this male contact of mine over 4 months.  Its really been all too much for me and I persevered now I see as I was feeling so lonely after Mum died and no family reached out to connect with  me much.   I found myself just crying so deeply an hour ago.  I had vision of Mum at the very end when her body was rigid and they had dosed her up on so many meds.  I could not stay by her bedside that last day because we had a very tender moment a night before where we just sat quietly in peace holding each other’s hands and telling each other how much we loved each other.  That said my relationship with Mum was problematic I was not always able to accept the love she had to offer me later in life, in a different way to when I was young and she just was too busy.  Anyway times I pulled away were on my mind this afternoon as I cried.  Its coming up to the first anniversary in early December and my father was diagnosed as terminally in the October so this time of year is always sad, even though that death was years ago.

But my thoughts went to how much anger and rage can often be covers for the deeper griefs we find hard to name or feel.   The grief can show up when others let us down in some way not realising and it was mentioned by Alain de Botton in his talk yesterday on relationships how often we don’t like or feel we should have to communicate about how we are truly feeling or what we need from a partner, we can just expect them to give it or understand (we might not truly know ourselves !!).  And then I thought of how difficult earlier losses and griefs can be to articulate.  I just watched the movie The Only Living Boy In New York today (spoiler alert) and its about a man who becomes an alcoholic and has given up his son and later draws close to him to come to know him but without telling him who he is.  The fact that he had turned to alcohol as a way of coping with his loss reminded me of how this is so often the case.  Do we really have compassion for those who chose the path of self medication in a culture that does not allow us permission to feel the full brunt of losses?   Do we really understand the personal heartbreak that they may be carrying?  Or do we judge?

The truth is unless we have lived someone’s life we have no idea of what they have endured and we can show similar lack of empathy for our own original wounds or losses it was something just addressed in wonderful post by fellow blogger Whipoorwill

https://owningitoutright.wordpress.com/2018/10/13/the-butcher/

so often we gloss over the true pain and mythologise things such as heroism.  I don’t know what the answer truly is.  For myself I am only just really beginning to see more clearly how over years I have run from my own grief, finding it difficult to relax at times and pushing away from situations that may trigger it or remind me.  But I do think the wounds to our soul need to be understood and tended, we don’t have to get stuck in them (though we might and that’s perfectly understandable and natural too… we are only human) but there is something about the soul in us that would like the full truth acknowledged and the body can remind us of this if we don’t take it into the grieving process with us.  We are souls in body, spirits in matter, we are born to be earthed not just to fly sky high all the time, although sometimes a flight of fancy or imagination affords us some relief and a chance to get a higher view or perspective on what we are and have truly suffered and endured in our lives.