I am heavy I am heavy I am heavy
Today, I cried over a bowl of canned soup while watching Chicken Run on Netflix. It took me all the energy I had to open the can, pour it into my favorite mug, and shove it into the microwave.
Today a friend of mine cried on my shoulder and when she pulled away the amount of makeup smeared on her cheeks seemed impossible and not a bit endearing.
Grief is not romantic.
It is not beautiful.
Today was the two year anniversary of my oldest sister’s death. She died a mere six months after being diagnosed with a combination of stages two and four glioblastoma. A brain tumor.
Glioblastoma is not poetic.
Not much rhymes with tumor.
I have tried to write this blog post six times.
This is not a poem. I just can’t make paragraphs right now.
If I try to edit this post I will never put it up.
I have this really vivid memory of the car ride home from Baltimore after dad’s first surgery. I distinctly remember pulling into the big fancy entrance at FSU and going around to the back of Pullen Hall to drop dad off so he could grab some things from his office. I can see quite clearly the green of the trees and I remember feeling kinda weird cause he was sitting in the passenger seat instead of driving. I was sitting behind mom on the driver’s side and I kept looking at the big thick flap of skin stapled together behind his left ear. And I remember that it had white peach fuzz that had started to grow on it over the couple of weeks he spent in recovery. I had the nearly irresistible urge to touch it.
Mom and Blair and I came to DC to meet Tara and Charles when he brought her home from the hospital after her one and only surgery and they had let her keep all her long, blonde hair, but they hadn’t bothered to help her brush it or clean any of the blood out of it. The staples ran like a headband across the top of her head and mom used a thick-toothed translucent plastic comb to get the gunk out of her hair so it could be washed. One of her eyes was stuck shut and her mouth drooped a bit at the corner, but she was talking the best she could and seemed cheerful but exhausted. We sat in the living room for hours in the bright sunlight while mom combed her hair and we all drank blueberry smoothies with peanut butter.
My dad died on the last day of seventh grade. He lived for nine months after being diagnosed with stage four glioblastoma.
I was twelve. My little sister was eight.
I don’t talk to my family on four specific days out of the year.
I let myself be sad on four specific days out of the year.
I tried to write this blog post seven times.
I tried to write this blog post for my first post but it was not my day to grieve yet.
Tomorrow I will wake up and tuck everything neatly back into the box labeled October 13, 2012.
Tomorrow I will make myself be okay.
I will unpack it again on December 1st.
(happy birthday)
I will unpack it again on June 10th.
(it will be seven years)
I will unpack it again on July 31st.
(happy birthday)
It is heavy It is heavy It is heavy
Nobody ever taught me how to grieve and I am heavy.
I am so so heavy.
I am sincerely apologetic for your loss. I know how it feels to have someone you love so much taken away This post was touching and beautiful. I lost my grandmother when I was 8, and decided my first tattoo would be dedicated to her. For my 19th birthday, I had the words “Unbreakable” engraved over a pink ribbon in support of breast cancer awareness.
I don’t think there are any specific rules on how to grieve, except from what your parents or loved ones teach you. In that sense, no one taught me how to grieve either and that lost lesson led me down dark paths. But I have learned that grieving is about allowing yourself to feel the pain, but still its important to allow yourself to feel happiness too,
This is so, incredibly moving. Thank you for finding the strength to write it. I cannot find the words to express what I am feeling. You’re right, there is nothing beautiful about death or grief. I’m not sure there is a right way to grieve – only what feels right to you. If that means unpacking the boxes on only those days, then that is the case.
“Grief is not romantic. It is not beautiful.” This post moved me to tears. And it makes me think about my mom and her grief.
My mom was sexually abused by her father in her childhood and when he died her mother became a stone, hostile and frightening. My mom always tells me that her father never once told her he loved her. She says it so often and each time, there is still nothing I can do about it. When one parent dies, you become the other parent’s spouse. What can you do.
My mom had three miscarriages before she had me. During the third miscarriage she took long walks and she cried and cried and cried. My dad told her she needed to see a therapist. She did. But to this day she tells me that therapy never worked for her. She never found the right therapist.
Somewhere between miscarriages or therapists or maybe even before all of that, my mom was diagnosed with depression. It didn’t take its full form until after my father died. I’ve always told myself that my mom just has bad luck. One day while my dad was sick, my mom, running on literally no sleep (because of the stress of my dad being diagnosed with cancer, my mom would not be able to sleep for three days at a time), went to the pharmacy to get his medication, and on the way back she was stopped by an unmarked police car that turned out to be a man impersonating a cop. He gave her grief. She tells me about it all the time, as if I’ve never heard the story before.
This all fueled what would become her anger problem. My dad’s illness and death, her mother-in-law telling her that she “didn’t do a good job of taking care of him” and having to raise a child on her own…this all weighed on her. And it still does.
My mom would get angry. The kind of angry that yells and screams and slams dishes and anything within arms’ reach. The kind of angry that yells and raves and cusses one minute and then breaks down in tears the next. I remember sitting resolutely still in fear when she would get that way because sometimes trying to talk to her made it worse, and sometimes not talking to her also made it worse. I was stuck. Completely frozen. She would yell and cry and then I would hug her and tell her that the world hadn’t been fair to her and I would cry. She would scream and I would scream just to try and get her to stop. I wanted to take away her pain so badly, but it seemed there was never anything I could do.
My mom is on medicine now, antidepressants keep her “normal” and she takes pills to sleep at night.
I keep thinking that her anger comes from what her father did to her. She told me about what he did to her after the yelling ended. But we didn’t talk about it after that. And we still don’t. I didn’t want to ask…I mean, how could I? How can I? It’s so personal and I wouldn’t dare touch that topic unless she initiated it. I want to help her. Going to a counselor wasn’t normal in the 60s, it meant you were mentally ill. She had no support. No one to talk to about it with. All of her hurt seems to be balled up inside of her, in a knot that I can’t possibly hope to de-tangle. I still want to take away her pain, and there still seems to be nothing I can do.
My mom is an intelligent woman. She knows what grief is and she knows she is still experiencing it. And it’s true, you never stop grieving. You continue on with your life, but you are forever changed, and you carry it with you.
I think that’s where my idealism comes from. I want so desperately to fix things that in my head I know can never be fixed. I want things to be perfect because they’re just never perfect. Some days it feels like things aren’t even good.
“Grief is not romantic. It is not beautiful.”
That was beautifully written, and I am very sorry for your loss. Maybe you have never been taught how to grieve, but you have found a lovely way to do it. Your strength is comforting.