I Grieve

And God is always present.  And so I don't even know whether these tears are sorrow or a kind of joy.  But the tears come and go throughout the day.


My day is a mixture of household tasks, distraction, talking to friends on the phone, visiting with people, and crying.  Now it appears that Alyse, Lisa, Rachel and I will get jewelry with a piece of his cremains in it.  Who knew that on reflection I would decide I wanted this?  But I do.  A reminder of my love that I have and possibly wear.  YES. That feels rightl

Facebook and email has been a source of comfort.  Kacey posted about her grief and included many pictures of Chuck.  I read it, the comments, I cried and felt connected.  I remember when my Dad died and the flags were at half mast in Southern Shores and how much less solitary the grief felt.  This is like that.

Jim and Holly came for lunch and I got to tell the story again about the last week.  They were with me a week before he died and none of us imagined he would leave so quickly.  I decided I wanted Jim to speak in the celebration of life and share the "good news." This gives me peace.

Later that afternoon I got a present from Sarah that had been sent before she knew of Chuck's death: a signed copy of Almost Everything; Notes on Hope by Anne Lamott.  I started reading it today and underlined these words:
"Love has bridged the high-rises of despair we were about to fall between.  Love has been a penlight in the blackest, bleakest night. Love has been a wild animal, a poulTice, a dinghy, a coat.  Love is why we have hope."

I went to dinner with John Lindamood and Sherie.  I missed Chuck so much because we were always a foursome.  Sherie gave me two books and journal.  The books she had bought before Chuck got so sick were these: Grieving Mindfully by Sameet M. Kumar and The Five Invitations: Discovering what death can teach us about Living Fully by Frank Ostaseski.  I feel like the grace of God continues in these gifts.  Here is some of what I underlined this morning:

"Awareness is allowing yourself to accept the pain of frief, thereby finding relief in not running away from your loss. 
 Grieving mindfully is the process of using our emotional vulnerability not to suffer greater distress, or to intensify your pain, but to redirect this pain toward your growth as a human being.  
Engaging in this process begins when you come in full contact with yourself and learn to ride the waves of grief.  Your thoughts, your feelings, your identity after loss all become vehicles for your own evolution."

I don't know whether I am grieving mindfully or not - but I know for sure I am grieving. I woke up early again thinking I was supposed to take care of Chuck and then remembering it is only me in the bed now.

As always, I write this as a record of my life.  I sit at the computer drinking coffee from the mug Reagan gave me for Christmas that says HOPE and thank God for all of it - the love, the friends, the words that are given to me, and most of all the time with Chuck.

Here is a wonderful poem Gail sent me yesterday.

AFTER READING ABOUT THE DEATH

It is the work of the living
to grieve the dead. It is our work
to wonder how else the story
could have gone. It is our work
to weep and worry, and it is
our work to heal. The clouds
hide the moon, hide the sun, sometimes
for days. We don’t believe
it will be forever. Some part of us
knows not only hope, but patience.
It is the work of the living
to love even deeper
in the face of death, to know ourselves
as flowers on the pathway,
easily crushed. The world crushes.
Some stems spring back,
some never rise again.
We know we must be resilient,
but resilience has wings
and sometimes flies away.
It is the work of the living
to, against all odds, grow wings.
It is our work to live—
and work it sometimes is.
It is our work to show up again
and again and again, genies
who refuse to go back in the bottle,
lovers who ever insist on love,
stems that feel sunlight and,
though we can’t yet move,
let it encourage our being.