Incomplete

   I'm starting my blog a little early today. I have been heavyhearted all day over 2 words from a friend “Mom passed”

Damn! I hate to hear this…It ripped through my chest and hit my stomach like a ton of bricks!! The first thought in my head was “Fucking Grief!”  

All day today I have been thinking about heartache and grief. It happens every time I see a friend lose someone close to them. You see, I consider myself to be an expert in grief, an acquired expert at that. I have buried a husband and a father. These experiences have given me two very different types of grief, but they both hurt just the same.

I remember sitting on a couch on the top floor of the Wells Fargo building in Bryan, Texas. My past weeks have been spent on this couch talking to a therapist who heard about my misfortune and volunteered his services. At first I didn’t understand the importance of his offer, but weeks later the impact of grief would set in and I would long for his insight, his guidance, and his unbiased ear. After several sessions, and many tears, I remember screaming at him “I just want things to be back to normal again! Tell me how to get back to the way I was before all this shit happened to me?!?”

I will never forget his response, he leaned forward in a matter of fact composure and said “Oh Erin, Please don’t think that your life will ever be the same, EVER again.” I left that day feeling hopeless, powerless, and pissed off at the world…fucking grief!!!

Being the somewhat of a control freak that I am I went home and read everything I could get my hands on about the process of grief. “There are 6 phases of grief: shock, denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.” However these phases are not guaranteed in any order, and can and will overlap.   Also, 5 years later I can rightly say although the phases seem to dissipate, they will sneak up on your ass at any given moment…. Driving down the road and a song comes on, BAM! Tears!! I see someone post FML on Facebook, and I will go off on a rant about how fucking hard their life is because their BF walked out on them (Anger), Give me a break, Fuck you!!

Anyway, back to my research, it got me nowhere! Grief is a bitch of a process that has no pattern, no cure, no bounds and seemingly no end. For a few years my life was a roller-coaster, and I’m still on that ride. However, the twist and turns don’t bother me as much. See, I am a firm believer that time heals NO wounds, we simply learn to live with the pain. We also forget how much happier we were in life before the death of a loved one. We simply grow accustomed to the pain and move on with our lives.

And this is one of the many ways grief has changed me….I hear of a passing and my heart breaks for the pain of the loss. I know what they will go through. I know of the insanity of people hugging you, the amount of food that will never be consumed, the words spoken that will never be remembered and the one million offers of “If there is anything I can do, please let me know!” I know the helpless feelings, the regrets, the sleepless nights, and when you do sleep, you dream of them; only to wake up and have to realize that they are gone, AGAIN. Oh, how I wish I could take the pain of it all for them, but alas it’s a part of life, A HARD PART OF LIFE!

I guess it all comes down to the realty that there isn’t a damn thing anyone can do to make this better., and for me that is a big deal.. I’m a helper! I’m a fixer, I want no one to hurt likes I have, I long to make people happy in hopes of preventing such pain….but it’s hopeless! All must suffer in life and in the end the reality of it all is that it’s necessary to grow, BUT it’s the pain involved in the growth that hurts me….I simply can take it!!  I guess the only thing to do is pray, pray for the loss, pray for the pain, pray for “healing,” and pray for grace.

 I’m not really sure how to end this blog, so I will leave it like grief leaves all of us…up in the air and never complete.

"It requires more courage to suffer than to die." - Napoleon Bonaparte