This is the first installment of my Interview With Grief. I just want to let you, the reader, know what to expect or not expect here. I am not offering advice. I am not suggesting or telling anyone that is experiencing their own grief how to get through it or live their life.
My Grief is mine and only mine. Your’s will be completely different in how you feel, how long you have been living with Grief and your actions and reactions to life during this time. And if this does help in some way, that is a good thing.
Who knows, it may help people who have never had to meet Grief so close and personal to understand how it can be. Maybe then they will share a little compassion with those they know that may be in the early days, or years out like me. Grief is never gone…just grows quiet as time passes.
So that being said, my Interview With Grief idea woke me up at 2:30am and pushed me forward in the middle of the night to get this started. I really don’t know where it will go or what will happen here but I felt it was something I was meant to do. Shall we begin?
B: I don’t really want to say ‘Welcome’ as this was not a conversation I wanted to have with you but it is what it is. Grief, you have been my constant companion for 9 years now. Tomorrow is the Death Day for my husband Ole. Don’t you think you have lived with me long enough?
Grief: HAHAHA…I get the ‘welcome’ part. I don’t think I have ever been welcomed into anyone’s home to tell the truth. But as for our living arrangements, like you say…it is what it is! We have become joined at the…not the hip as is most often inferred but at the heart. We are not only roommates Brenda but we are soulfully joined till your eyes close one final time and then I will let you go.
B: That is just cruel! I feel I have cried enough tears and felt you rip my heart to shreds enough for the past 9 years that now it is time to let me go. You have such a grip on me, and you slide in at the most unexpected times. I can talk about Ole with no sign of you and then BAM! There you are and my heart hurts and my voice wavers and my eyes become moist and those sneaky, quiet tears overflow onto my cheeks.
Grief: But you must admit that this is much better than it was when your sobs would steal your breath and the tears would burn your skin. Don’t you agree?
B: Yes and no. When we were first introduced, it was easier to understand for me and for the people around me. They knew what you were doing to me and it was easier to understand my pain at that time because it was fresh and gushing so much love that I still wanted to give to Ole. But now, 9 years in, it can be a bit of a shock.
Grief: I understand. I wish I could say more but I can’t. I’m sorry.
B: Oh now you are the compassionate one??? Give me a break. Your presence in my life has been anything but compassionate. You tore away the man I loved more than life and left me empty. I had no ideas, ideals, beliefs…you left me totally empty and void of life. But the problem was I WAS still alive and it was torture. Compassionate my ass.
Grief: First, it was my good buddy Death that tore Ole from you. I am always the one left to pick up the pieces after he has swooped in and taken a life. Death comes in so quickly and is gone with the beat of their heart. Then I get the blame! It is not fair.
B: NOT FAIR! I am not ready to talk about what is fair and what isn’t fair, with you.
Grief: I understand. But I ask for you to understand that if I hadn’t been there in the darkest days for you, holding you, allowing you to scream and cry as you needed to, where do you think you would be today. I doubt sitting here writing this interview. Because of me living with you these past years, you have found your new way, your new life…
B: I liked my old life! I wanted to grow old with Ole.
Grief: True…but here you are with your ‘new life’ anyway. It can’t be any different because he will never come back. That life is over and you have found a way to put one foot in front of the other for the past 9 years to bring you to today. I am so proud of you. And I will let you know I am always there for you…with my compassion…to always support you.
B: I am not sure I like where this interview is going so I think we will stop for today…the pre-Death day…and we will continue another day.
Interview With Grief 