Against the Swiftly Shifting Tide

And suddenly it breaks. Shatters really. A month goes by and you look around and take stock and realize you haven’t stopped running since it happened. The magnitude of the loss strikes like lightning out of a blue sky and everything changes in an instant. It’s that moment when you’re confidently swimming along just fine and then suddenly notice you’re getting tired and won’t be able to make it to the shore.

That’s when you drown.

Grief is like a finger print—it’s unique to each of us, and there is no way to know how it will be for you until you are there and dealing with it. In Hollywood blockbusters, we see a picture of grief which is all wailing or silence, anger or sorrow, acting out or sobbing. We see the tortured man suffering inwardly as he tries to contain his feelings, maybe taking his emotions out on something or someone in a bout of rage. We see the tearful woman breaking down in her kitchen in a private moment. Sometimes, when filmmakers are feeling particularly daring, we might see those gender roles reversed.

 But how come we never see the people who blame themselves for the death, who convince themselves that they amount to “murderers” for not caring for a loved one properly, despite all the reassurances of the doctors and nurses that they had done everything right? Or the people who develop somatic symptoms matching those of the person who died, and have panic attacks because they come to believe, however irrationally, that they must be dying too? Or the people who have nightmares about their other family members dying, and then become insomniacs for weeks on end because they fear their own dreams? Or the people who keep having flashbacks to the moment of death, reliving the suffering of their loved one over and over? Or those of us who experience all of the above?

My chest is tight and I haven’t slept in ages. I’m tired, but lying down just brings torrents of…stuff …washing over me. Stuff that makes me get up and pace even though my legs ache from pacing: irrational fears, flashbacks, pain in my throat, obsessive worrying over what are ultimately small stupid things, a hollow stomach that doesn’t feel full even when I’m over full.  What do I do for that? Call my father? I did. Not enough. Beg a friend to come be with me for a bit? I did. Not enough. Pray? I did. Not enough. So I've turned to my last resort: I dug out the health care card so I can make a doctor’s appointment on Monday. I have a phobia of doctors—of medical care in general, really—and it takes a lot to push me to that point.

But I’m there.

 I want this to stop and I no longer care how I accomplish that. I read the little glossy pamphlet about grief, the one they send you in the mail the week after your loved one dies, and it says clearly that this is the point where you go get help—when the grief overwhelms you and life grinds to a halt and you feel desperate. This is when you talk to a professional. This is when you stop trying to face it alone, because not everyone can just “tough it out”.

Because when I look back, I’ve been swimming toward that distant shore for a long time. I’ve been swimming since I first got the call about her cancer diagnosis, since I first knew there was a limit to the days we had together, and since I first started to worry about how many were left. But it wasn’t just her. When I start to recall the last six years, I realize that, though her cancer dominated my life, my life wasn’t a cake walk anyway:

I left a job to make sure I had a job, took a hellish job to avoid having no job, and then lost it anyway. I moved back in with my parents and worked for minimum wage for a year despite the four year degree (with a 3.94 GPA) and three years of job experience. I’ve moved five times in those six years (not counting helping my parents move to Minneapolis), had three different employers and five different teaching positions. I’ve dealt with medical problems, financial problems, psychological problems, and spiritual problems.

Not that good things haven’t come of all that. Not that I haven’t reaped the rewards of perseverance in the face of adversity. Not that I haven’t had successes and shining moments and good times. I don’t regret any of it. I don’t wish it hadn’t happened. I’ve accepted that whirlwind of personal chaos as necessary and weathered every storm knowing that in the end it would be worth it…but, it’s still okay to be tired after all of that.

I want ground under my feet again. I want sunny skies, for at least a little while. I don’t need an end to all troubles, just a break from them. And it’s okay to admit that I need help to get there, that I can’t swim that last mile…