This made me laugh entirely too much!
Source: http://www.quickmeme.com
No, I haven’t been on a killing spree (although my trainer asked me this morning if I’d been to Melbourne recently as he nodded to the news coverage of the recent double murder down that way) I don’t think I look like a killer!
I am of course!
But only when referring to that time when a writer must kill off a character in their work.
Sunday 17th of March 2013, saw me witness my first Saint Patrick’s Day without my grandfather. My beautiful grandfather passed away in November last year and it’s been a tough few months since we had to say our goodbyes. This day, a day usually for celebrating and getting rather inebriated, instead filled my mind with sorrow and fresh pain.
I’m not this cute when I cry…
Credit: http://flic.kr/p/8bDAS1
I’m sure you’ve all experienced this at one point in time. Often for me it is accompanied quite annoyingly with physical lethargy too, which makes me feel somewhat akin to a fat pumpkin.
Image credit: http://flic.kr/p/r6S9e
Yep, if I tried hard right now I’m sure I could get my face looking something like this. I do tend to put a goofy face on quite well! 🙂 Continue reading
I hate this crazy ‘I’m-not-in-control-of-myself’ feeling.
A perfect example: The other day when hubby and I were driving, the sweeping golden grasses in the farm paddocks near the road out past the winery and on the way to the shops made me cry… freaking craziness! I don’t even know why, it’s not like Grandad ever let his paddocks get like that, they were always well kept because he had cattle.
I dunno. It’s strange…
Sometimes I’m perfectly fine. I miss him, sure, but the pain and sadness is ok, it’s manageable, it’s not overwhelming. Other times it’s like being suffocated. Continue reading
I was thinking, while sitting down listening to the hubbub around me.
In the recent days I have not liked having time to sit and think; it brings about memories and thoughts of my grandad and they usually make me sad or start the tears again. This of course is not conducive in public. While I know everyone would understand my situation, they would politely look the other way while I wiped away the tears, I don’t really like the idea of wandering about with a snot covered face and liquid sadness dribbling down my face.
So, when I found myself thinking I nearly stopped myself and gave my brain something constructive to do, fold the washing, plan the christmas family dinner or decide what to buy for christmas presents… but even those thoughts tend to lead back to the area I don’t wish to dwell on. Instead, I paused and considered what I was trying to stop.
Do I hide my grief?
Why?
I find it easier to remember him and allow my tears to fall in the still, suffocating darkness of the night. Is it that this is the time I have allowed for my grief, is it that grief shies away from broad daylight, or that it’s socially unacceptable to cry and wail in public/while at work/doing the grocery shopping?
Am I unconsciously conforming to some rule?
I found in the first few days after his passing that I was on some sort of rollercoaster. The almost panic-like state as I would realise the tidal wave of grief was rearing its ugly head again. This, just before that incredibly fast and scary decent into the sorrow, before the pain would wash over me, dragging me however reluctantly into its depths before slowly, painfully drowning me. Then, the slow and plodding, laboured climb back out of the depths of sorrow and grief like the slow crawling the carts of the rollercoaster make as you climb that first great height.
Rinse and repeat… or so the shampoo bottle says. It so went with the rollercoaster ride of grief.
So, why then, in the last few days, have I been able to (consciously or unconsciously) push this vicious cycle out of my every day life – the life that gallops along without my grandad – and push it into the dark night-time, when I can grieve in private?
Is it just the simple, life must go on? It waits for nobody. If I don’t go along with it, I’ll be left behind?
I’m not sure.
I suppose grief is a very individual thing. Perhaps I don’t wish to share it with everyone? (Why then would I be blogging about it?!) I think perhaps, partially some of the personal nature of seeing someone grieve in public, right in front of you is too much for most people to handle. They don’t know what to do. I know I didn’t when others went through this. So perhaps, as I have been before I wish to spare people that uncomfortable unknowningness (is that a word?) of what to do (or not do) with a person who openly grieves in front of you.
Mmm… I might think more on this later, when it’s not so fresh, not so painful.
I thought I would drop in quickly (it’s been a few days since I last posted) and let you in on what I’ve been reading this week.
Pat Bertram is a published author of several books (I haven’t read any though! I will have to ammend that oversight), she is a prolific blogger here on WordPress and she is sharing her journey through the grief of losing her life mate/soul mate/partner.
What struck me initially, outside of her often gut-wrenchingly emotional posts, was the understanding she seems to have for the grief that still filters into her everyday life.
It’s heading to three years since her partner passed away, and as Pat has so openly shared, the pain and grief is still haunting her. It seems to find innumerous ways to seep through.
I’ve spent a fair bit of time over these last few days reading about Pat’s pregression through the early days, the pain, the suffering, the hurt and anger that at once seems so raw and all-consuming. To reading some of her more recent posts and how the grief has changed, morphed into something else. Something less gnarly, but equally as encompasing and pervading.
One of the many things I have taken away from my reading of Pat’s blog is that there is hope. We all grieve in different ways, it lingers with some. Some people hide it, put it in a box in the recesses of their mind or bury it along with the loved one they lost. Others, like Pat (and hopefully myself in the coming weeks and months and years) explore it, write about it, try to understand it and learn from it.
We will never forget. We will never be the same. We will never stop loving and missing them.
If you’re curious, have experienced your own losses, still dealing with grief or just want to offer your thoughts/kind words to Pat, please do check out her blog.
I think it will change you. I know it has changed me.
