“Your fight is just beginning. Sometimes no one will want to hear what you’re going through. You are going to have to learn to carry a great burden and most of your learning will be done alone. Don’t feel frightened when they leave you. I’m sure you will come through it all okay.”
— Ron Kovic, “Born on the Fourth of July”
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I sit in the front pew of the meditation chapel, taking in the Easter flowers — lilies, tulips, hyacinth — standing upright in front of the altar in glorious color.
Except for one.
Its blossom and tendrils are bowed over, drooping. That’s me right now. Unable to bear the weight of life.
While others may be experiencing resurrection joy, I’m not. I want to. I’m doing what I can, seeing a bereavement counselor in the wake of Joe’s death, squeezing in respites while still tending to a sick father who is dying.
But most days the sadness of all that suffocates me in sorrow.
Others don’t get it. I want them to. But life is like that. Unless you’ve experienced something, it’s abstract.
I’m aware, as I sit in the silence, something I’ve always known about myself. I am an empath. I feel life to the marrow.
I’m also aware that I don’t want to be a victim. That I want to move forward. But I find myself falling into the dreaded “compare and despair” mode at times, wondering why others seem to find some stability in life, some joy — and not me.
I find myself upset that I’m not handling all this better. I’m angry. My bereavement counselor asks me to be patient with myself and the process, to listen to my inner wisdom that always knows what’s best for me. But what is that?
I feel lost.
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I read a story about a man who went on a business trip to Istanbul, his first visit there. He got angry at himself for being lost. Until he had the realization that helped him overcome his anger.
“How can I be lost?” he asked himself. “I’ve never been here before.”
I have been living in a foreign country, trying to find my way. I’ve been lost in a world of feelings that I’m struggling to sort through and understand.
Days pass. The metronome of grief and loss. The drip, drip, drip of helping mom change dad’s urine-soaked diapers and sheets, spoon feed him until my back aches, the heart-stabbing watch of his inability to speak coherently or open his eyes. The sadness of not being able to call or see Joe to unburden my heart to him about all this.
The loss of the life I had with him.
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I read Facebook and decide it’s not helping. It only feeds my “compare and despair” mentality right now. I respect others’ experiences, but I’m in such a strange space that I struggle to relate to some posts and shares.
What are achievements anyway? I used to be the type who thought them important — the byline, the writing award, the next promotion. They can be.
For me, they aren’t. The greatest achievement I can muster now is to face another day and find the courage to love. Myself. Others. One foot in front of the other.
I hide much of this from the world at large, pretending to be brave, competent, functioning.
I’m finding it hard to pray.
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I sit in silence in the chapel and dig into the archives of my soul, remembering the times I did feel God with me. The times the Divine did console, open doors, even offered visible signs of love that uplifted me.
After Joe died, I sat in my car at a stop light at a four-lane intersection, sobbing in grief. I asked God where he was, why he took Joe. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a hummingbird flit across the tops of many cars then dance across my windshield, no one else’s, and dart away.
I had seen hummingbirds in gardens, planters and trees. But never in congested traffic.
I seem to be like the Israelites in the desert. Yahweh often sent signs of his love to his people. But they forgot. Quickly. So do I.
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People don’t like to read about sad things. Many times they want only happy. But life will give us both and for some of us — for whatever Divine plan is behind it all — we are being trained as warriors of the heart.
In the end, I am learning to love. Perhaps the hard way.
But I am indeed learning. Forgiveness, compassion, mercy, allowing others in. Learning to trust myself and God.
And learning to face and accept death. In all its guises.
I know that weeping may endure for a night and joy will come in the morning. That God is with me. That, yes, I’m sure I’ll come through it okay.
But that’s in my head for now, sifting down into my heart.
In the moment, life is asking I become a warrior who has the courage to feel all my heart needs to feel. And to fight for the belief that I will feel joy again, laughter, and bloom again in dazzling color.
And I will. In time. In time.