Posts tagged ‘grieving’

Have you ever hear that lovely old sexist observation that one can tell how well a woman takes care of herself by her feet? I’ve heard it said in both polite and vulgar language, and although it is a patriarchal construct, so are we, hard as we may resist.

I’ve always loved my feet. They are pretty. Nicely formed with high arches- an accident of nature that I’ve always been inordinately proud of, as if I could take credit for it myself. Maybe because of that old sexist belief, maybe simply because I love my feet, I’ve always taken care of them. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not tiny, petite, so-called “aristocratic” feet. I wear a size 8-1/2 shoe, and if I have my druthers I wear no shoes at all. For all that I’m a nature kinda gal, a true earth mama type, I’m damn near prissy about my feet. I love pedicures, and have been in the past accustomed to treating myself to them on a fairly regular basis. The occasional pedicure however, cannot keep up with the abuse this earth mama puts her feet through, let alone meet her standards in footiquette.

So normally I spend no small amount of time in the bath with the pedi-wand, and pumice stone and after bath with the various implements of foot care.

“And what”, you might ask, “does this have to do with anything, Thornie??” To which I respond that in my usual, rambling stream-of consciousness way, I am coming to the point. The point being that over a week ago, somewhen just before I seem to have hit an emotional bottom when I faced the fact that I had lost any real desire for continued existence outside of the need to be here for my daughter; some unremembered when a bit before that I noticed that my pumice stone, the bright purple one- my absolute favorite stone ever with the charming though unoriginal name of “Mr. Pumice” inscribed upon its surface, (and if that isn’t more evidence of sexism, what is??)- I noted that it was not in its usual niche in the tub.

The importance of the mystery of the whereabouts of the stone was not lost on me, although I can’t say that it mattered much to me at the time. It appeared that I had stopped caring for my feet some time ago. I have no idea exactly when after our Bishop died, only know without a doubt that it was indeed after his death.

I don’t think I gave it even a passing thought in the next several days, but then I’m sure I didn’t bathe during that time. My feet are not the only thing I have been neglecting, although knowing well the importance of bathing even when depressed I have managed to do that every few days. I’m sure this was an effort to delude myself as well as my partner as to the true state of my mind, but there it is.

Process.

Friday I bathed and considered the stone… my feet… gave a mental shoulder shrug and did nothing.

Sunday in the shower I again considered my feet, wondered about the whereabouts of my stone and dismissed the thought of tending to my feet in the shower as opposed to the bath, but decided it was an important thing for me to do. A small and simple, perhaps pointless but maybe not; sort of thing to do as part of my attempt to drag myself from this despair.

This morning I sought, found and used my happy purple stone. Then I tended to my feet with the implements of after-bath care. Finally I polished my toenails. A semi transparent lime green with glitter. As much as I love green in the springtime, I don’t really care for the color.

But I’m glad I did it.

When my husband, Jerry, my “soulmale” and love of my life (one of 2… I can’t seem to choose between- and why should I? I have decided that when one dies, I am allowed 2 “Loves of My Life), died in 1998 I grieved.

Of course this loss is so different. Nonetheless the mind continues to seek familiarity. (An effort, perhaps to find some experiential hint on how to proceed).

Well, I could write a book on my grief, my “breakdown” 14 months later, my process and my eventual and ultimate healing, but that’s not the point that is vexing me today. My thoughts keep circling back to what feels like an important part of my current struggle in grieving this loss, the loss of not only my beautiful grandson, Bishop; but the loss of my daughter’s (and perhaps somehow my own??) innocence and heart.

What has occurred to me over and over of late is that there seems to be no place for these losses within my personal identity that fits.

This is so difficult to articulate.

Somehow, over time after my Jerry died, “widow” became not a title or mere description, but a part of my identity.

I was a widow.

It seemed somehow to state clearly who I was and there was some odd comfort and implied strength in that for me. It became part of my identity that I grew to accept and ultimately embrace. I don’t know; perhaps it was all tied up with getting my business off the ground at the time- survival. Perhaps the designation between “widow” and “single woman” was important. I don’t know exactly why it was so; it simply was.

And in some way I think that embracing that as part of who I was at the time, and for the next many ensuing years, was part of my healing process. Somehow it gave me a very clear context within which to place the huge event in my life that was the loss of that beautiful man who meant so much to me. And strange as it may seem, somehow it was a positive thing.

Oh, I’m fumbling and bumbling to express this.

The thing is, there is no context within which to place the loss of my grandbaby and the grief for my daughter. I’m feeling/thinking (one or the other or both- these processes are inextricably enmeshed) that there is simply nothing in these losses to embrace in a positive and affirming way for my identity.

Oh, I’m sure people will mouth (or write) inanities the likes of “you’re so strong, you’ve been through so much, that’s something to embrace”, but that’s not how it feels, and that’s not enough.

Before our Bishop died, I had become pretty disillusioned with the world, politics, human beings in general after all my political activism and blogging and outrage. The stoning of that man and woman somehow seemed to be the final straw for me. It broke my heart and rather than inspire cynicism in me it invoked a sort of despair. I felt defeated. I took a hiatus from blogging to try to find a place in me from which to care, without despairing.

Bear with me.

Our Bishop’s senseless and inexplicable death (SIDS is in no way an explanation) has evoked a hopelessness and despair in me that I can’t seem to kick. It has brought home to me, on a personal level, the chaos and senselessness of a world and existence in which people are stoned to death, murdered for a few dollars, bombed at the whim of one government, starved and gassed at the whim of another, and where babies die for no apparent reason.

An existence in which it had already grown so difficult for me to see “God” (as a very generic term). Perhaps the better term here would simply be “meaning”.

“Existentialist”, “Athiest”- these are not terms that I’m willing to embrace as my identity. “Defeated”, “despairing” are not either.

I can’t seem to find a way to integrate this loss, this experience, these feelings, this grief into my personal identity.

I think that’s a problem.

Chaos reigns and I despair, lost in the void. I need to find my heart, but it seems to be MIA.

*4:03 PM editorial comment:
Writing this and then reading it here in black and white I note that it both falls far short of articulating my feelings and expresses them perfectly. Yet one more paradox of my existence. I should also note that it’s exceedingly difficult to face these feelings this way; outwardly, instead of continuing to be wantonly assaulted with them inwardly (privately). And although this; writing/blogging, is one of several courses of action I’ve decided upon in hope of some movement from this place, it feels pointless. Nonetheless I shall continue.

Jagged and torn remnants of horn
bleed at my fingertips
a welcome pain.

Something real?
No-
present and now and physical.

Instead of erroneous, floating, dissociative
grief
and thoughts of
dying (escape).

I have lain in this darkness too long.

I have been beyond caring- but not,
only powerless and defeated and full of
despair.

Lost in this darkness
darker than my soul’s darkest night.
Darker
Blacker
Deeper
than the void itself.

I have known my heart to harden and then
to shatter
and crystalize into piercing shards.

Never before have I known it to wither
and shrivel and fade to mere
wisps of
memory.

To feel the hollow emptiness echo in me…
and to dream of diving headfirst into that void
where once a heart beat-
to surrender to the nothing.

That grace is not given me.

So I begin this dreadful climb
all unwilling
and welcome the pain and blood as hand by hand
I reach and claw and pull
myself
up.

There must be Light, somewhere.