It's Gonna Suck.

“I can’t tell you exactly what your journey is going to look like, everyone’s is different, but I’m not going to lie to you, it’s going to hurt and it’s going to suck….a lot.”

 “For how long?”

 “As long as it takes.”

It’s the same nearly every time, meeting with people who have suffered the loss of a loved one, especially if it is their first one, they want to know what to expect.  When I meet a person that first time, I may know a brief history of their loss but literally everyone’s reaction is different, but whether it’s the ones who sit there shell shocked as if they’ve been through a war and stare blankly at me almost as if they can’t remember why they’ve come or the angry ones whose sadness and hurt is so overwhelming that they revert to anger because it hurts a whole less than the sadness in their heart or even the ones who sit there, crying into tissue after tissue apologizing because they can’t stop crying it’s always the same version of a question.  What next?  I don’t have any concrete answers for anyone, I can’t make the pain go away, I can’t stop their hurt and while it may sound weird, I don’t want to.  This is their journey and those feelings – even the painful ones – and to take that away for them means that they miss out on something they need to experience.  It took me a few years (okay closer to a decade) to realize you can’t fix people and it’s really arrogant to think that I can or should even try.  What I can do is assure them that whatever they are feeling or experiencing is normal FOR THEM – you’d be surprised at how many people are concerned about grieving “correctly,” whatever the heck that is.  I can sit and be present with them as they tell their story, not flinching from the pain but holding it and honouring it and giving them a space to let it out.  I do that for clients, yes because I get paid but also because I love the work, it is my passion and I think that there are a lot of people wandering this earth hurting because they never got a chance to grieve and it doesn’t have to be like that – not for them and not for me either.

For the last 2 weeks I’ve found myself wandering into rooms not remembering why I went there, feeling fuzzy mentally and numb most of the time depressed at others, wanting to be alone, not wanting to eat and unable to sleep and it’s only now that I realize that I’m grieving.  I guess I have the excuse that I’ve been healing physically and dealing with pain but underneath that focus on healing there was that little lump in my throat that I could never quite swallow down.  Those moments when a few stray tears would fall.  I don’t know if I’ve been trying to be a tough guy so I don’t have to deal with the enormity of the pain, but if I am then that’s okay, I give myself permission to.  Our brains have this safety switch that makes us numb out when something traumatic happen – it knows when we can’t completely absorb the enormity of something so it shuts itself down and then releases information out in little drips, in pieces we can handle without completely losing our shit.  (Sorry to get all technical there on you).  I had my surgery on May 10^th and I have to say that the last few weeks have just been a blur.  I’ve went for walks with the dog, played cards with my Mom, helped Dad around the farm but it’s almost as if I’ve been standing on the outside watching myself do these things.  I nap a lot and even though the pain in my body has subsided I feel exhausted all the time. 

My parents left for the cottage this afternoon and after I ate dinner I bundled up and went for a walk, my iPod on shuffle.  I don’t think I quite made that first field before the tears started pouring down my face.  My brain finally released that information that has been there all along.  I am never going to have my own biological baby.  I am never going feel my child growing in my belly.  I am never going to hold them in my arms and rock them to sleep.  I won’t be able to kiss the top of their little head and feel their breath on my neck.  When I was in high school I didn’t have much of a social life, I worked at the local grocery store after school on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday night until 9 pm and all day Saturday.  After work at the grocery store (except Wednesdays) I would go to my babysitting gig and they would drive me home usually at around 2 am.  They had a little girl who was around 3, cutest little curly haired blonde angel named Tricia and a baby who was around 3 months old named Michael.  I loved those kids.  Tricia and I would play until it was time for her to go to bed and then I’d stay up with the baby, rocking him to sleep in my arms.  I never wanted to put him down, I would just rub his back, kiss the top of his fuzzy little head….and trace my finger on his cheek - his skin, it was so soft.  Life then was horrible.  I was so unhappy and sad at school and home, but those moments with those kids and especially with the baby it just felt so right.  I was so good with kids, they never made fun of me – and they wanted to spend time with me.  They didn’t care what I looked like, that I never had a boyfriend, that I didn’t fit in….they just accepted me.  In all the unhappiness and chaos of my life at that time this was my calm center of the storm, my safe place.  At those times I would dream of having my own children when I got older, because surely life wouldn’t suck then, right?  In college I did two placements with children and babies and they all loved me, I had the knack to make babies stop crying – and at the one community center I had a baby in each arm most times.  When I first started as a foster parent I had babies, toddlers, older kids and I was good with them, even when at times I felt way over my head.  Then came the teenagers… and the challenges they brought with them – and one lifelong friendship.   I guess what keeps coming back to me is the words of my Gramma Bernice said to me when I was in my early twenties: “I want to meet your babies.”   Well, that’s not going to happen.  And it hurts and it sucks, just like I said it would. 

It’s funny, in school we learn how to add numbers together, how to read, to learn about chemicals and plants, about distance lands and wars and the acts of our ancestors.  These are all important things, and while we may never have practical need of some of these things (I’m looking at you Calculus when I say this) they make us more interesting as human beings and hopefully somewhere along the line we learn something that will have meaning later in life but no one taught us how to grieve or what to do with emotions that seem pretty overwhelming at times - that seems like a pretty important part in being a human. 

So what happens next?

Next is listening to my body, my heart and my mind.  Sleeping when I’m tired.  Eating when I’m hungry.  Crying until it feels like my heart is shattered in little pieces.  Walking with my bee eating boy, because he makes me happy.  Walking every inch of this property, slowing down to remember to breathe, smelling the cedar trees and feeling the damp earth beneath my feet, my safe place to cry, to yell, to scream out loud at the fucking unfairness of this all...or to just to have time alone to figure out how I feel, to find some peace in the silence.  I know I've been isolating myself, it feels like just being around people is so draining and I can't handle it, but don't worry Amie, I won't forget to crawl out of the rabbit hole...I just need time.  On June 18th I get my results, I will know then whether I have to have chemo or radiation or if removing my uterus has contained the cancer - and I'm scared what those results will be.  Every little twinge, pain anything I think it's cancer.  And I think that's probably pretty damned normal too - well normal for me. And when this is all over I will figure out a new dream and try to be brave enough to fight for it.  But that will come in time, for now I need to listen to my heart that is aching for a good cry.  This one does it to me every time.