I read somewhere that in Celtic tradition grieving lasts a year and a day because you have to get through the first birthday, holiday, season without someone.
Even though Dad died several months ago it wasn’t until his services at Arlington a few weeks ago that I felt like my year had begun.
My brother and I had decided that Dad’s services would be for immediate family and they were so calm and peaceful.
Perfect, and perfectly sad.
I am glad he is home with his Marines and when we flew out of DC over Arlington I could see his grave.
Back home I expected random memories and tears. I did not expect feeling so…antsy.
Unable to settle, doing things in bits and spurts; intensely or not at all.
Disjointed.
Sporadic.
Rough, and not just around the edges.
I understand the attraction of drinking oneself into sweet oblivion.
A distant half-cousin sent rude texts castigating me for not inviting him to the service and with that brief exchange all the parts of why I never quite trusted him tetrised themselves into place.
The nice-guy facade crashed to his feet and now I understand why his wife and daughters always seemed so…stifled.
He’s a jerk.
He does not get to talk to me that way. Deleted and blocked, without regrets.
Nothing like a death in the family to bring out peoples’ true colors.
People who know grief
I looked at a piece on Medium by an essayist who had lost her daughter. She wrote that poetry was the only reading she could manage after her death.
Sharp, clear, no-frills words were all she could tolerate after a lifetime of being an avid reader. Genres she had enjoyed before became trite in the face of her loss; fluff that had no place in her new world.
I would link her piece here but in my haphazard state I have misplaced it. Eventually I will find her again and share her work.
What is saving me now
Playing music has emerged as welcome respite and I am grateful that I have opportunities to make music with other people. Alone and yet not, feeling the tunes and being enveloped by the rhythms and words.
Art for art’s sake is a close second and watercolor in particular, without plan, is comforting.
We are still having windy cold weather but I get outside when possible; movement grounds me and fresh air is a saving grace. I find meditation and stillness too claustrophobic.
Lucky enough
It’s been an interesting few years and I am grateful to be where I am now. Loving makes grief inevitable, and I count myself fortunate to have had this relationship.
Eventually I think the edges of the hole in my heart will become less jagged.
We will see what a year and a day brings.
