What Color is Grief…
When you are too blind to see?
When you are caught in it, everything seems worse than it is. The bad is worse, the sad is more desperate and depressing, the broken seems beyond repair. The light at the end of the tunnel is just flickering most days, and others it is out entirely.
Everything is viewed through a glass darkly. Funny… I learned that poem from my sister Ritha, whose passing caused grief to tear through my soul, leaving an abyss of darkness and the sense that part of my life had ended with hers.
I’ve thought to myself, people think grief is black, but that’s just the darkness. Besides, black is the absence of color, so that can’t be it.
Grief is a compilation of bad decisions born of anger and depression. You make a bad decision, and then your attempt at repair is a worse decision.
Soon, you are unsure how all this happened, and you are bleeding money and sadness like the color of wet brown leather after you left it in the sun.
I’ve heard people talk about those who are grieving spending money, but what outsiders don’t understand is that we may be on shopping sprees, but it’s also likely we are in fix mode.
How did I get here?
How do I fix it?
What will it cost?
Here’s another decision to fix that one I made, but it turned out not to be the fix I thought, so I spend more to fix more.
And the cycle continues.
People who before the loss were confident decision-makers may be surprised to find out that is not them, at least not now, even with the simple things. There is a reason people are told not to make decisions while grieving.
It’s just food. Why is this so hard?
For someone like me, a person who has never struggled with indecisiveness, this is especially difficult. Simply the process of eating is trying, which too often leads to either no food, or a bowl of popcorn in your lap as a substitute for dinner.
Maybe it’s white then, like the popcorn?
Here are the conversations you have with yourself that are just spinning into the result of nothing:
Do I want to make dinner or order in?
What do I want?
Scroll scroll scroll through Uber Eats for 40 minutes.
There’s nothing there I want.
What do you mean $35 for an $18 meal?
WTF? Fine.
Sometimes you don’t care and the decision is too much, so you spend the extra money just so you don’t have to leave the house. Yes, I know this food is not worth $35, but the thought of entering the outside to drive one mile and pick it up is just too overwhelming. Take my money so I don’t have to go anywhere or see anyone.
Is this what it is then, an undefined color, like the food I ordered and couldn’t taste that was too much or not good enough and then turned the unknown shade of rot in the refrigerator?
Endorphins are the answer for everything, just ask the people who sell exercise
I should ride my Peloton, I would think.
I was committed to that before everything fell apart. It makes me feel better and there’s a class starting. Oh, look at the time. I’m busy right now (doing nothing).
I’ll ride tomorrow, I promise.
I’ll start a routine beginning Sunday. That’s a good day of the week to start things.
I’ll ride on Sunday with Christine; but the last time I did one of her rides I ended up sobbing so hard I couldn’t continue. Maybe I won’t take her ride.
Is grief pink then, like the color of her hair sometimes?
As a social worker I observe all of this and recognize the behavior. It’s depression, and it’s getting worse. I know, as the outsider, what I need to do. Exercise, eat right. Go outside the apartment. See a therapist. But as a patient, the client, I don’t want to. It’s hard and I just can’t.
Grief is something people can’t deal with unless they are the right trained professionals
“How are you?” they ask.
“I’m not coping well.” I have ups and downs… mostly downs. I cry every day… multiple times a day.
“I struggle to get out of bed.”
“I don’t want to talk to people, even on the phone. I am overwhelmed by sadness.”
“I finally, fully understand the phrase, “I am bereft.”
Silence. Sometimes I could hear their worry beneath that resounding nothingness.
Then they’d respond with an uncomfortable (but well-meaning), “I hope you get better soon. Feel better soon. I’m sorry.”
I don’t know what I expect them to say though. It’s a lot. So instead, it became this:
“How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Good.”
“Better.”
“I’m good, thank you for asking.”
“So glad to hear. I was worried.”
Yes, I wouldn’t want you to worry, I think to myself. It’s my job on this earth to take care of the many and make sure no one is worried about me.
Stick with the script, Liz.
Laugh here, Liz.
Smile expected here Liz.
My status is green. Aaaah, that’s it. It’s green like the form she made.
Don’t cry until you hang up Liz, no matter how much the sobs strain at your throat and the tears dam behind your eyes. Not yet. No one can know you aren’t strong anymore, that when she died the strong place she helped put together so many decades ago snapped like a twig during a sudden freeze and you can’t get your world righted again.
No one can hear you say your status is red like the color of fear buried in your heart with the thought that someone else you love will die.
What about when the Helpers aren’t or can’t? What then?
I saw an infographic once in the 1990s about a victim of domestic violence trying to tell everyone what was happening. She was standing inside a circle of people, and everyone had their backs to her, saying bullshit like:
“Yes, I understand.”
“I’m here.”
“What can I do?”
But the truth was, no one was listening, and she was all alone in that circle. The people were family members, friends, law enforcement, ministers — the usual suspects in that scenario. The “helpers.”
But there are no helpers when you are deep in it, either because they have already convinced themselves they are there for you or they don’t really want to be because they don’t know how.
Sometimes it’s those who just can’t because their struggles are similar, and their color is also blue like the color of her eyes, or the color of the small urns we chose for her.
Yes, that’s it. It’s blue.
…
If you are experiencing grief due to the loss of a loved one, I am deeply sorry for your loss and pain. If you want to reach out to someone, know that there are free hotlines available. Here are a couple of websites that list various helplines and hotlines specific to grief and loss.
