Grief Doesn’t Make Sense.
(Grief Therapy Part One — The Philosophical Part)
That’s what the hospice people tell me. And the therapists and counselors. And books and podcasts. And blog posts. And radio interviews.
Well, that’s not actually what they say.
It is what I want to hear. (Stay tuned: I’ll tell you what they do say after this rant.)
I’ll Tell You Why It Doesn’t Make Sense.
(I don’t usually talk Religion. Or “I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual.” I don’t usually divulge my personal faith beliefs.)
But, we’re talking about my mom here.
Before I knew this world, I knew her.
I began to discover my-self inside this-my physical body, inside hers.
Languorous and warm in her lush waters, I drank and swam in her-our life’s blood. I lulled in and out of whatever womb-an dreams the yet-born enjoy — dreaming perhaps of the phenomenal world to come or cherishing fresh memories soon to be put away.
I came into my human self to the rhythm of the beating of her heart.
That’s not religious or spiritual. That there’s chordate embryology.
I was born sucking my thumb.
I believe that my mom’s spirit, that animating force of Light and Love, that which kept “her” knit to her physical form — that same form that called me through from the Great Wherever I Was Before to this Grand Shitshow — I believe her spirit is, was, ever will be nearby, always, all ways.
One drop in the ocean of bliss and beauty from whence we came and to where we will return.
(Okay, that was a little granola. The yogis call it Saundaryalahari and you can Google it and spend lifetimes sussing it out for yourself. Seems like just another bunny trail to me.)
We are entangled — she and I.
I believe that it’s totally okay to (mis)apply my laylady’s understanding of quantum entanglement and say that my spirit will never be separate from my mother’s spirit. We are entangled. I suspect we have been for a long long time. Drops in that same ocean of beauty and bliss.
That’s Why Grieving Doesn’t Make Sense to Me.
And, by God, I am a sense-making creature. I wanna know why, dammit!
I wanna know how, when, what, who, how come, why not, why, just tell me.
It was worse as a child — no Google yet — because I was starting from scratch and filling in so many blanks.
I remember long car trips where Dad, the history buff, enjoyed explaining the Cold War, the Bay of Pigs, the key players on all sides.
Imagine an eight-year in pigtails, hanging over the front passenger-seats of a yellow VW Rabbit on the road again from western Michigan to central Indiana, asking in all seriousness, “But, why would Kruschev do that?”
Grieving doesn’t make sense because she’s immanently here.
She’s present to me. I feel her. I look like her, ffs. I see her in the mirror. I hear her voice in my head. (I don’t think in the crazy way.)
Sadly, I don’t see her in the far distance like Obi Wan Ben-Kenobi. I had entertained hopes. Alas.
I’m not separate from her — lay understanding of quantum physics aside — her DNA is in me. I have her mannerisms, I have her laugh, I gesture like her. When I was a teenager (all the way through my early-thirties, truth be told), I was embarrassed to be so much like her.
Not separate, in so many ways.
But apart.
Not far apart, just veiled. She’s on one side of the great veil and I’m over here on the side with the smog, steel, concrete, allergies. (It’s also the side with orgasms and chocolate and hugs, so… Everything’s a trade off, right?)
It’s the apart that I mourn. It’s that I can’t breach the veil and call her. Or hug her. Or enjoy hot sake with her and tell her stories I shouldn’t.
I guess it makes sense, after all. The grieving. The mourning.
But I don’t want it to. I don’t want to grieve. I’m tired of grieving. It’s exhausting. It hurts. It’s hard. It’s gloomy af. It’s affecting across so many levels, from physical appetite to energetic ennui. Don’t even ask how it affects a gal’s libido. Gah.
The yogis talk about the koshas, or layers, of this body-mind-spirit entity which is our very own ocean-drop. Grief sends crashing quaking tearing-asunder waves through all those layers.
The day my mom died, I tried a relaxation exercise that I know well.
I couldn’t find my heart center. Given the day(s) I’d just witnessed, that was disturbing to say the least. The felt sense of my heart was obliterated.
Like a gaping Hollywood special effects shot from a cornball shoot-em-up. Just a great big see-through hollow hole centered on my sternum.
Don’t worry, it was more Bugs Bunny meets Elmer Fudd than Saving Private Ryan. And, it’ll grow back.
I Promised to Tell You What “They” Say.
The experts, the ones who’ve walked this valley themselves, the ones who’ve studied it academically, sociologically, neurologically, personally.
In the end, we will all know grief.
Gospel choir leader John P. Kee says it better,
In this life, everybody shall have a valley experience.
Grief is the “valley experience.”
What he doesn’t say is that we won’t all win through and escape — not conquer — the valley. Some crawl out, like late finishers of the Iron-Man, broken, torn, and puking. Some go back and offer guide services. Dear boddhisatvas. Others perish in the valley.
The valley is littered with the lost and languished, the clingers-on and those who would profit from their despair, the merchants of escape, peddlers of temporary bliss, and ignorant pan-handlers at every turn barking for alms from the equally dispossessed and down-hearted.
This valley is not a rural idyll.
Traditionally, since mankind learned to raise food from seed, the valley is where communities grow and thrive, sheltered from the weather by surrounding mountains, nourished by the run-off waters.
Blessed and fecund, the people grew up happy and enjoy traditions like dancing around a Maypole. What could be more Little House on the Prairie? A freaking Maypole. How carefree and pastoral is that?
It is a scorched earth, Cormac McCarthy walk through hell.
The valley of the Gospel is the valley of grief, depression, and despair.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death.
Or Mordor, whichever is your holy book.
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
Prime Minister Churchill was onto something.
The Gospel Tradition would add — “Look for the lilies.”
There’s a lily, my Lord. Bright as the morning star. You can find it, too. Somebody found Peace in the valley. Bright as the morning star. You can find that, too. There’s Love in the valley. Bright as the morning star.
You’ve just got to keep going.
What They Say About Grief and the Valley of the
Grief is a process. Grief is a journey. It’s different for everybody. There is no right or wrong way to grieve.
So, I’m opening an Etsy shop to sell off my inheritance.
Sound legit?
And, yet, I’m sure I haven’t read it as a stage from Kübler-Ross, ya know?
Of course, I haven’t actually read Kübler-Ross, so for all I know, she anticipated an Etsy Shop sell-off of hand-me-downs, inherited antiques, and quasi-antiques that go by the popular styling of Mid-Century Modern and Vintage.
According to Etsy, the largest online marketplace of artisanal handmade craft goods and vintage items, an item is vintage if it’s over 30 years old.
Forty was once the new 30.
But 30 is the new vintage, bitches.
In the last post of this trio, I attempt whole-heartedly to explain to myself why I’m opening an Etsy Shop in a crowded market with products that are all but “worthless.” And how, I think, it’s kept me sane. I’m calling it Knick Knackery as Grief Therapy. It gets too wallowy by half, but my dad’s sister was dying as I wrote it, and it was raining cold drizzle. And, I’ve moved all of that into the middle post of this trio, so that you can skip the pity party.
This is the first of a three-part series.
