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Welcome to the DebiLyn Smith blog site. If you like what you read here, check out her website at www.debilynsmith.com

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Waves of Grief Keep Crashing Overhead


The past has become a vortex sucking me downward until I am drowning in it. Memories keep playing in my mind, there are just so many. Fifty-one years of them. And the hardest part is that there won't be any more memories made. I am left with what there is and that will never be enough.
My grief for my brother has moved to a stage of anger. I am mad at the entire world, at my brother, at his wife, at the hospital, the doctors, the guy in the next bed that heard Dan had chest pains. I am mad at me for only leaving a message for him to call me back when I knew he was floundering.I wish I could put my fist through a wall. I wish I could physically hurt as much as my soul is hurting.

So I take it out on my husband. Everything he does is wrong. I snap at him for complaining about the computer, about his reaching for a bottle to console himself, for being overweight. None of it makes sense and I don't feel any better but I can't seem to stop myself. I'm like a lion with a spike in my side.
He doesn't say a word.
And to top it off there is a woman in my head still screaming her head off. She's like a constant siren, in so much pain that I can barely hear anything else. I am shaking constantly like I am freezing. I have a sweater and pants on even though it is over 20C outside. And I just can't seem to stop crying.

I understand death, how necessary it is in the circle of life. Nobody lasts forever and Dano was with us on borrowed time since his twenties. He lived life on the edge and we all know this is where you can end up. On a slab in a morgue days before we celebrate all fathers. I grieve double time for his children and for my Dad who is there trying to make sense of it all while I write this.

Our nephew's wife is expecting a child. She is five weeks pregnant and this gives me a ray of light inside all of this darkness. But it's not enough to cling to yet as the waves of  sorrow keep crashing on top of my head and under I go again.

Losing someone you love is so hard. It's at times like this that I have to believe that this is Hell. Right here on earth. That's why life isn't fair, isn't easy and isn't anything the way you think it should be.

I know I have to keep busy. I found some relief this morning when I went for a run. Feeling the air coming into my lungs, filling them, exhaling. I am alive and life is good. It was my mother's favourite saying and was on the t-shirts she wore in Palliative Care. Life is good. And it is for the living. And I will get over this and move on to the next stage of grief which is Bargaining. If I had only. I'm part way there.
Thankfully the stage after that will only be Depression before we get to Acceptance. It's going to be a while yet. That's the only thing I am sure about these days.

3 comments:

  1. I won't bother with platitudes, Debi, though I truly am sorry for your great loss. While you journey through your grief, know that there are many people who care and know that they understand that it's grief talking and not Debi. You'll be okay. I know you will. Brightest blessings.

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  2. I hate that we all have to suffer through this grief of death ... my thoughts are with you Debi. We just buried our 38 yr old sister in law to liver cancer on the 18th ... Before that Brian's 21 yr old son in January ... WTF! Life is sometime so unfair .... (((((huge hugs)))) .... Glenda

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  3. Deb - what a moving tribute to your brother... sounds like your family all have a wonderful sense of humour and humanity.
    http://www.columbiavalleypioneer.com/?p=2832

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