Derailed
I find myself derailed by the slightest thing these days… apparently, it’s part of grief. Of “complicated grief,” that is. No, I can’t just have the garden variety “wear black for mourning then get on with life” grief. I have to get the complicated form… which is a lot like driving a car with a bad fuel gauge. Whatever brand of grief it is, sometimes, you just run out of energy/gas/life force, and you have to sit on the side of the road for a few minutes or an hour. Sometimes, a whole afternoon.
There was a song in church this morning… one that my dad really loved. “Come O Come Emmanuel.” I’d never sung it before all the way through. (Unitarians sometimes indulge ourselves in Christmasy songs, even sacred ones, as part of our holiday celebration and openness toward world religion.) On the second verse, where “death’s dark shadow” is mentioned in the most positive way possible — because how can the birth of Jesus NOT be all positive and happy and filled with hope for everyone, you know? — I got completely choked up and ended up with tears on my face in the middle of a damn closing hymn at church.
Awesome.
It was two years ago today that I travelled 1,000 miles to my father’s bedside, after he had been intubated for the first time (of two). We’d made that decision “just to see” if he could be stabilized, if the fluid build-up in his lungs was a temporary aberration, if it could be corrected by meds. I got to him on Dec. 7, and somewhat cheerfully tried to remind him that “today is the day that will live in infamy.” I knew he would be able to anchor himself in this world that way.
I was asking a lot of him, but he fought. He made it a whole nother six weeks or so — through medical interventions, through the holidays, through my son’s birthday, through the rehab and home again. It was valiant and amazing, and in the end, he fought his way through death’s dark shadows… no, he fought his way INTO death’s dark shadows and beyond to whatever is there.
So today, though sunny and ripe with possibilities and inspiration, was a day for me to sit on the side of the road and wait for roadside assistance to show up and replenish the tank.
It’s bedtime now, and I’m still waiting.
(But the writing. It helps.)
Personally, I think all grief is complicated. And when one is grieving it is important to take those side-of-the-road days when you need them. Here’s hoping roadside assistance showed up.
My thoughts are with you.
This iis a lovely post. and I understand your grief completely, and how after many years ( for you not so long) a word, a smell, a song can bring back that person, and the t love,and sometimes the grief. it comes softly, and is bittersweet.
Here is your roadside help: it does get better.
And how funny, there is not UU in Baja, but I was just talking with my daughter about how some UUs change the words to Christmas Carols. I sing them with joy and reverence and consider them fantasies the same as singing about Santa.
And several times today I have also said ” a day that will live in infamy.:
It is also the birthday of a friend here in Baja, and my younger sister.
Feliz Navidad.
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