Grief

I've written about grief before. Experiencing loss, death - well, it isn't new to me.

This time is different.

At the beginning of July, one of my cousins took his own life on the eve of his fiftieth birthday. Since then, I have been trying to come to terms with this incredible loss - the depths of which I feel like I can't put into words. I've turned again and again to my usual methods but I'm struggling.

I'm a talker. I'm a writer.

Usually words come easily to me.

There are no words for this.

I feel like I'm trying to capture air and give it form. Translating something like this into words I suppose is where great art is born. Too bad I'm not a great artist because I don't know how to bridge this gap.

But here I sit anyways, trying in the best way I know how, to give voice to this - to try and make sense of it. It's a void - an unsettling stillness, darkness, absence.

I once told my husband not to worry too much if I'm crying, but to worry when I'm not crying.

In the days following this bombshell, I didn't cry. I just walked around with a hollow pit in my stomach and a racing mind trying to make sense of it all.

Shock.

A gasp of air inhaled and then...freeze.

Please no.

It feels hard to breathe, the system is frozen. I am frozen. Disbelief. This can't be. What??How? Why? No....

Shallow breathing, mind both numb and racing, just follow along, skim the surface, do the things we should do during this time, act "normal". Shock makes me stupid.

Even now I feel stuck. Part of me says "you did cry once, that was probably all that you needed" and another part of me says "You. Are. Blocked."

Online funeral/celebration of life. Challenging in so many ways - technologically, emotionally. All methodical, organized, and orderly. Polishing the surface of a life of depth and complexity and intense humanity.

Calm. Measured. Flawlessly executed.

Clinical.

Perhaps this was all that was possible moving around in a daze. In the middle of a pandemic.

No snotty crying or gut wrenching sobs. No connection. No funny stories, sharing, hugs, laughter, tears. No drinking too much coffee out of big urns with plates of egg salad sandwiches and homemade squares. No ritual. No community. No catharsis. No comfort.

Still frozen.