Grief. It’s a motherfucker.
A few days into this devastating grief I decided I need to write. I have so much grief and weight inside of me. It can’t stay here. A week in, this is my way of letting it out. This is what the space is for me. I’ll be honest, it’s dark. It's so ugly and it’s so heavy. It’s raw. I get it. I’m living with it. You do not have to be here. If you are, thank you. And if it is too heavy I understand why you would leave. I wouldn’t stay if I did not have to.
I don’t think there are lot of right things to say to someone in my position. Nothing fixes it. Nothing brings him back. Kind words are kind, but they don’t change it. I don’t even know if they help. No response is perhaps worse though. Nothing is right because nothing brings my love back. Someone murdered him while he was driving to get food. There are a lot of wrong words though. Today I went to the dentist, and I think she said all of them.
Sometimes I just think I’ll let people deal with me being sad (that feels like far too gentle of a word) and quiet. Hell, they don’t have to deal with being sad. What a gift. Sometimes I’m so tired of them staring at me like I have a foot coming out of my face that I just say “my future husband was shot and killed last week. That’s why I seem sad” It makes them uncomfortable. I couldn’t care less.
How lucky they are to just feel uncomfortable.
Today the dentist gave the typical shocked response. I get it. It’s shocking. And then said “it’ll be ok”
No. It won’t
You’re right, I’m sorry. But God has a plan.
Well this plan sucks.
You must be so strong to get through this.
No, I just don’t have a choice. Ending my life is not an option. It goes against my values and morals. It dishonors Sayed’s life. My only choice is through.
A couple of days ago someone told me it might be better for me to just share my grief with people who understand.
I told them “I am SO thankful that you do not know the grief of the love of your life being shot in the head and killed while he is getting food. I am so thankful you don’t know what it is like to go to the hospital thinking you’re bringing him home and being told he was shot and won’t make it. I’m so glad you don’t know what it is like to sit with your brain dead love, face unrecognizable, for 12 hours while his family flies in to say goodbye. What a gift you have been given. If you ever know that pain I will never tell you how to respond.”
I am surrounded by so many people loving me. I need them. I am so thankful they are here. I will not hurt myself. I will not hurt others. Everything else is available to me. And if it feels helpful, I will do it.
A week in here is what I know:
Nothing is right. I’m so thankful my friends and family have stopped asking “what do you want” or “what do I need”. As if I could possibly want or need anything right now besides Sayed. They say “of the options available, which can I do”?
I don’t know how to make decisions, and yet I make them all day. From the moment I wake up, until I go to bed my day is full of small choices. None of them are right, so I just choose the least wrong one. And then I choose the next least wrong one. I can’t possibly figure out what should happen that night. So I only decide what should happen in that moment. I do it all day long until I get to go to bed.
I was with my sister when she was on the phone with her boyfriend. She said she loved him as she got off and I started to sob. It broke my heart. I would be so angry if she had not said she loved him. It would have broke my heart.
I hate watching couples kiss each other goodbye or spend their mornings with each other. I would hate if they chose not to.
I can’t eat. It’s pointless. He should be eating with me. I have to eat. It has a point.
I don’t want to be touched. It only makes me wish it was his strong arms around me holding me while I grieve. I hate sitting alone not being touched. That feels too lonely.
I need several hours to mentally prepare for anything happening in my day. All I can do is sit on the couch all day. I need things to happen in my day. I cannot sit on the couch all day.
All day long I just need it to be bed time. I just need the day to pass so I’m one day closer. I get in bed and can’t sleep.
I’m using his toothbrush. A week ago I would not have even wanted him to watch me brush my teeth.
Self care doesn’t feel good or right. It just feels like something I do to make myself feel a little more human in the future when that is available to me.
I hate when people whisper or talk softly around me. As if I might shatter or break. As if I could possibly break into more pieces than I’m already in.
I know my grief is so heavy. It is so dark. I know that my loved ones stepping into it need breaks from it. I do too. I’m so thankful they get breaks from it. I hate that they get breaks from it.
A week ago I was happy. I was joyful. I was dreaming of a future with my love. A week ago I heard is laugh all the time, got texts from him, called him to say goodnight, snuggled with him, couldn’t wait to have coffee in the morning together.
I don’t remember what that person felt like and what it felt like to be in that space. How have I already forgotten? I had bad days then? What could possibly have been bad? What could possibly have made me sad? What could possibly have angered me?
And yet, I still know that people outside of this feel things too. And their sad days are valid. Their anger is allowed. But damn, what I wouldn’t give for my bad days to be because i’m arguing with Sayed, or hurt by something he said. I’d give anything to have something besides a memory of him.
It’s hard to allow myself to feel this weight when I’m used to life just being fun and amazing, and yet there is no possible option but that. I thought I knew grief before. I thought I knew pain. I don’t know if I’ll be in this heaviness forever. I have to believe I won’t even though that feels impossible right now. I know this grief will change me. It scares me to think of carrying it for a lifetime, but I refuse to let it destroy me. Sayed would never want that for me. Somehow, someway, there is a way through. I will honor him in that. I just hate that it has to be through.
“ Frodo: I can’t do this , Sam.
Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something. “
The Two Towers