Grief — Part 2
Though I don’t wish to turn you off with an endless outpouring of grief, I need to write this to continue my processing. I am still a main part in Bleak House, and in social situations I feel there is a wall of glass between me and everyone else. This wall is glass, because it is transparent in its division of me from the happy and whilst thick, it’s incredibly weak and capable of shattering in a moment, me along with it. Small talk is out the window, I just can’t make it and I have no appetite for it. Why am I venturing out if I feel this way? I have too, life does go on and I have 2 small children I need to keep entertained and whom I don’t want to drag down the plug hole with me.
And there is an element of respite, in continuing to put one foot in front of another, but beyond being present, I don’t have much else to give or contribute. It is really great when I am around strangers who know nothing, then I don’t have to deal with their questions or mismatched expectation of who I was and who I now am. And yes there is a difference, losing a parent has a ‘before’ and now ‘after’ element to it. It is an experience you can’t recover from, a line in the sand. Whilst you may and probably will achieve peace, the loss won’t disappear. I can’t compare my loss to that of anyone else’s because, as I have newly discovered, it is so personal and unique. What I do now know though, is that there is always a need to tread ever so gently because the wound is so deep.
What is both curious and not, is that despite our less than perfect relationship and my highly developed self-awareness (which I’ve spent years working on — so I am not being glib), this really, really hurts…primitively so. I tried to get rid of our relationship so many times over, the reality of it was incredibly painful for most part; though we found peace in the end. My Father didn’t really get me, he loved me deeply but he didn’t understand me and we couldn’t have the kind of conversations either one of us would have preferred, if we were different people; he had those with my husband and I had them with everyone else!
And shortly after I found out he was dead, all I wanted to do was get rid of my husband, another man who struggles to understand me. My reaction, well I’ve got rid of one difficult man so let’s get rid of the other?! Once again, trying to edit discomfort from my Life….I, fortuitously before I destroyed my precious family, can now appreciate my soul chose to place these two similar men in fundamental roles in my life for my spiritual growth….Luckily I can assimilate quickly, or else can you imagine?! Grief is no white washer!
My Father wasn’t very present in a physical sense, as I said previously, I went off to boarding school aged 8 and we only once lived together since. This was for several brief months in Argentina, when I was 24/25, and he already had his second family by then. Even before then, in my early years he worked a long commute away in London and travelled away a lot for work or was consumed by work when we were abroad. I don’t have a 1,000 memories of together times, I only ever owned a very small piece of him and he was definitely not a poster boy for a doting devoted Dad. We were a bit more Bennetton and a lot less Bisto!
So this tremendous grief is surprising on one level, I had been prepared, but on another I know this is my inner child mourning all those lost moments of never was. This element of my grief response, has the irrationality only a child is capable of. That doesn’t mean I should chastise it, bury it or deny it. Instead, it’s the opposite, I must honour it’s needs and thus allow it to grow up. Otherwise, I run the very real risk of it festering bitterly within me, slowly poisoning all my tomorrows with its unmet needs. Unfortunately, these are the parts of ourselves which come out when we’re at our most vulnerable and they can be quite cruel and vicious to innocents, like your own children. This is one way, the sins of the fathers revisit upon their children aka vicious circles.
One a more mature level, I miss my little bit of him, which was largely conveyed online — how very modern of us! This man was my Father, 1 of 2 of my main chakra roots, a key player in my tribe, my progenitor. All my attempts to cut off my love for him failed, it was and is intrinsic within me, not pragmatic but entirely emotional. He shared my deep love for my children, what he couldn’t give me, he gave to them — he was a devoted grandfather. I mourn on behalf of them, as young children they cannot really understand the loss of this unconditional love from their lives. My grief kicks around inside me, winding me and beating me up, a living thing. So right now, my core is deeply bruised and my heart is a heavy thundercloud. As I’ve said before, his silence is deafening.
I thank every one of you that has reached out, electronically or physically. I do not wish to convey that your condolences aren’t deeply appreciated. I feel joyless, and quite empty despite being besieged by emotion. I just need time, so please bear with me….and don’t stop talking to me or including me, I will return….richer, deeper and darker….death marks!
Originally published at celticwitchmama.com on December 9, 2018.
