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Giving in to Grief

Grief has a long shelf life. It lurks at the back of the mental pantry, pungent and putrid, flavoring everything around it. Years after a deep loss, it retains its potency and—at expected and unexpected moments—seeps out of its container in a toxic spill.

I’ve learned to accept the grief I carry as part of who I am. I do not make a habit of wallowing in it, but when it leaks into my daily life, I’m forced to bring it to light and air it out before I can force it back into confinement.

October is, for me, the month when the barrel of grief is tapped. Anna’s birthday is an expected catalyst. Every October, I cycle through the beautiful, terrible memories of birthing and burying my baby.

My teen-aged daughter and I are at each other’s throats in the weeks leading up to October 10th, bristling at real and imagined offenses and jabbing at each other in verbal sparring matches. Our tongues take leave of our brains in what can only be termed a temporary period of insanity.

My eating habits take a nosedive into junk carbs. Pizza, chips, cookies, frozen custard, and chocolate are standard fair, washed down with salted caramel mochas, pumpkin spice lattes, and the occasional hard cider. The sugar rush is neither healthy nor optimal for my waistline, but it offers short-term comfort on a roller coaster ride of emotion.

I blow off scheduled workouts, too tired to push myself any further than is absolutely necessary. I crawl into bed before nine, craving the quiet warmth and solitude that only sleep can provide. I stop reading, save for the daily news, and struggle to keep my mind focused on the present moment.

I cry in the car on the way to work. I double-check the math with a calculator when I pay bills and still wind up making costly errors. I’m perpetually distracted, straddling a bridge across the life I used to know, the reality I expected, and the one I actually ended up with.

My method for enduring the disquieting month of October is simply to honor the gnawing impulses of grief. I listen to the voice within that shrieks, “Stop! Be still!” and withdraw from the world at large. I hunker down at home and tend my sorrow.

I don’t commit to anything beyond essential events like grocery shopping and family time. I take the time to sit with my memories. I let sorrow steamroll over me and relax into the pull of dark emotion, no matter how painful it is in the moment.

Grief is a lot like joy—intense in its power and fleeting in its duration. It passes, though not always as quickly as we’d like.

It is this truth that I cling to in October; that the piercing agony of grief will pass. And eventually it always does. 
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