Grief
“Grief is the rope burns left behind, when that which is held is pulled beyond our grasp.”
I’ve been dealing with grief in one form or another for a long time. It has been twelve years and there’s still a huge gaping hole in my heart. I don’t think I will ever get over Kim’s death. Maybe we’re supposed to “move on,” but not “get over” the loss of people we love deeply, but I only know that for me, it has been complicated, as complicated as my relationship with my husband was in life.
In the beginning, my grief was just that, grief. The kind that’s been with us humans and some species of animals like elephants, gorillas, and companion animals forever — the kind that everyone deals with in their own way even when a death is sudden and very sad.
Like most people who have reached their middle adulthood, I’d known grief before. A beloved grandmother, a favorite aunt and uncle, and my father when I was twenty-six years old. And even though my father’s death was unexpected and very hard, like most people I grieved not thinking much about how I went about it and “moved on” with my life. However, with my husband‘s sudden death it was different. His death knocked me off my feet. One minute blue skies. The next I felt as if I’d been struck by lightening. With my hair singed and standing on end and my clothes in ribbons, it was as if a great force had ripped through my heart — and my mind.
It was only months later that I realized there was something amiss and only because my friend Nancy whispered quietly but firmly in my ear that the best thing I could do for myself and my daughter was to get myself some help. She pressed a piece of paper with Ian's name and phone number written on it into the palm of my hand and insisted that I call him.
By this time I was caught in a whirlpool, a maelstrom, an overpowering downdraft that I couldn’t escape. I was being sucked into a void, a void that most days looked very appealing only I kept circling the drain because my daughter needed me.
I called Ian the next day.