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| Mom - Richland Presbyterian Church - 1975 |
Hi Mom, Since I started the blog two days after your death, I will hit entry 365 tomorrow. Today is one day past, so for the first time, my days ago count will go over a year - 366.
My Memorial Therapy activities were fun and mollifying, but maybe I needed a spirit quest as I am feeling diffused and unfocused still.
One person who I care for and respect told me that there is no manual for grief. But there are books, and everyone has experience with grief and so many have advice. I checked out two books from the library on grief last year, and I have not even opened them yet. But I keep renewing them because as a WMU prof, I can. I do not think I will find what I need in those books. For me, there is no manual.
There may be no manual for grief, but there are beliefs that SOME people have about it. One is supposed to "move on"; one is supposed to "let go"; one is supposed to "get over it."
It's odd that people would advise moving on because moving on is unavoidable. There are minutes and hours and days and weeks. There have been 365 days between your last breath, Mom, and now. Today is day 366, and when it is over, as it will be soon, because it's not really 10:10 a.m., then another day will have passed and I will have moved through it.
And yet, when people say "move on" what they seem to mean is "let go," to give up the grief.
I don't think this is realistic. People who say they have "let it go" have likely (note my qualification) repressed it. They have convinced themselves that they are all right. They have rationalized.
One of the most true statements I have ever heard was uttered in the film The Big Chill in which a character, Michael (Jeff Goldblum) said: "rationalizations are more important than sex." One character, Sam (Tom Berenger) scoffed, "Oh, come on, nothing is more important than sex." And Michael countered, "oh really, have you ever gone a week without a rationalization?"
And so it goes.
People make rationalizations. "I am done grieving." People say they are over it, but they are not. People tell other people to "get over it" but that's not possible. What does it mean to "get over it"? Does this mean the loss vanishes? The pain goes away? I stop missing you, Mom?
Preposterous.
Never gonna happen.
I am not sure I even "buy" the hippy dippy new agey folks who claim to have "accepted the loss" and have "made peace with it."
Not that I can assert that categorically that all of them are full of shit, but I smell a certain odor of the fecal about such statements. It's more rationalizing. It's more of the brave face to show the world. It's more of seeming to be all right right when you are not.
Truth? Losing someone we love hurts like fucking Hell. It's awful. It sucks. It's a lodestone in the soul. It threatens to suck us down and down and down. And we can give in to that downward spiral or we can say, I am going to live and do my best to live and be happy and love life and celebrate my lost loved one and try as much as possible to get on with my life.
But if people are honest with themselves -- and many of my friends have been honest because many of my friends do not have their heads stuck deep in a fucking hole in the ground (wow, there's some anger again) -- that they are often struggling. It ain't easy. It's a bitch. But try to stop time? Not happening. If you don't swim, you will sink, drown, and die. That's just reality.
My friend Walt Curley, whom I have never met but feel strongly close to, was struggling last fall with the four year anniversary of his mother's death. He had not "gotten over it" yet. Though he's moving on. He had some beautiful words for me that I shared back in this blog entry: Hey Mom #88. Walt is real. It's not like he's in some shell not living life. He lives, but he monitors his grief. He accepts that the grief is there, even though he knows his Mom has crossed over as I relate in Hey Mom #88.
This blog helps me because it helps me think about my grief and grieving and loss in general because another great truth is that there is more loss coming. I know I am going to lose more loved ones. I don't have all the answers. I am not even sure if I have all the questions, but I have a process. Sometimes I am not writing about grief at all. I am just sharing life and the living, things I like, things I want to write about, some of which I may not like.
AND... though I originally though I might just do a year of blogging, 365 entries, like I did with T-shirts, it feels artificial to stop tomorrow. I am going to keep going because it's what we do. I will let the frequency subsides as it naturally subsides.
Today is just music. Today is dedicated to favorite songs that help express the grief and try to work through it. I have posted some songs that help with grief before, some of the specific songs. I have not duplicated. I have shared some songs with the Musical Mondays but mostly through my seven songs feature (inspired by Glenn Codere).
If I was ambitious, I would post twelve songs, Mom, one for each month since you died. But I am not that ambitious.
Here's the singing set from the other day's loud stereo romp.
The first song is one that is new to me, but I like it, so I share. But it's a good singing song.
A GIRL CALLED EDDY "Tears All Over Town"
PETER GABRIEL - "SOLSBURY HILL" from the Growing Up tour (live)
Pink Floyd "Time" from Dark Side of the Moon
from Royal Albert Hall live 2006
"HANDS UP TO THE CEILING" -Tracey Thorn
ROXY MUSIC - "PRARIE ROSE" from COUNTRY LIFE
DAVID BOWIE - "MOONAGE DAYDREAM"
Live in Germany 1996 -televised on "Rockpalast" German TV
Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.
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- Days ago = 366 days ago
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1607.05 - 10:10
NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.
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