Thursday,
May 5, 2005
6:30 a.m.
Yesterday
was a day in which I literally shut down mentally. It
was a day in which I simply didn’t have anything to
say about anything. Fatigue was my companion.
Attending
a group grief counseling session yesterday afternoon didn’t
help. Three other people attended and I am not someone
to share my feelings with others in a group.
Everyone in the room is grieving and each person has to
deal with individual pain in an individual way. I do
understand, however, that some people need group
counseling. I may hold off on individual counseling
as well for a little while. I am not in the mood to talk
about this experience at this time. One emotion seems to
be overlapping another. It is called reality.
I
really miss Linda.
It is now in the 5th week and yet sometimes it
seems like yesterday since she died. Life has changed in
a way I never would have expected. I no longer have
someone to share my day with and everything about a
so-called routine is different.
The
memorial garden is coming along well. I planted
marigolds by the front steps as well as on the other
side of the sidewalk, but no garden in the world will
replace Linda.
I
do feel as if I can’t really tell anyone how I truly
feel. I don’t like the advice some people are giving.
People try to help, but they end up misreading what I
mean when I put my thoughts into words. All it takes is
a comment here and there and they all add up to a lot of
advisers who simply don’t know what this is really
like. I get disgusted quite frankly with people giving
advise on a subject that so many simply need to stay
silent on when considering how each person grieving has
to get through this individually. No matter how much
death takes place around us, people simply know so
little about the subject.
How
can I describe in words to anyone how it feels to lose
Linda? Grief is simply not comprehended by those
observing the grief stricken and not experiencing it.
It’s
a world in which people are so busy and yet don’t even
know it. There is no room for anyone grieving in an
insane world like this because so many people are
occupied with so many distractions. The grief stricken
are left behind. Advice, however, is as readily
available from others as anything can be and yet there
is so little understanding of the biggest enemy in the
world.
How
many people are getting up this morning and facing the
loss of a loved one? Not in a way that they have
basically healed from such a tragedy, but simply facing
a loss in the first, third or fifteenth week? The
attitude is far different than someone who faced a
loss 10 years ago or longer.
I
notice a total difference in people who contact me and
are experiencing a loss or know they are about to. You
simply have the life knocked out of you. No amount of
spiritual comfort will do the trick. Grief is grief in
all of its glory and you are more vulnerable than at any
other time in your life.
Perhaps
I am reaching my limit on people who so freely give
advice. The person reading my thoughts in printed form does
not truly understand what the relationship between Linda
and I really was. Individuals are so-called
advisers without degrees and so many people today are
totally out of touch with how devastating it is for
someone who hurts to the bottom of their toes over the
loss of a loved one.
It’s
as if people are afraid to allow you to feel despair.
It’s as if you are in an abyss and can’t get out and
so people are using a figurative shovel and trying to
dig you out. Little do they realize how they would react
if they were in my position. When not experiencing
grief, as a result of death, so many people don’t
realize how ill-prepared they are when it finally
happens to them, but when it comes to someone else, they
come across with one answer after another.
I
do believe this is going to be a new phase that I will
be dealing with for some time. This isn’t unusual
by the individual experiencing grief, and yet people who
have never experienced it, can't even begin to understand
how deep so many emotions can go.
