Being done with grieving – it is not forgetting, but a place of peace.

In July of 2008, the man I had referred to as my “other half”, killed himself.  I’ve written about this in past blogs here.  Mike and I were no longer together when he killed himself.  We had been writing to each other just the week prior, about seeing each other again.  When Mike killed himself, I changed.  I learned things I could not have learned any other way.  I had no idea what grieving was before he did this.  I believe that sharing these stories will help us heal and that is why I am writing today. What follows is something I wrote last year, about a year after Mike’s death, coincidentally.  I came across this on my computer today and I think it’s very important part of this story to share

As it happens, it’s a year later:

I’ve finished, I am done. I’ve finished grieving.  I have found myself; I have heard myself saying this more than once.  And I know it can sound abrupt, but I want to be honest about how this all feels.

Bare with me, perhaps I should preface, as a sort of protection…being “done” doesn’t mean Mike is forgotten or unloved by me or didn’t mean anything to me.  What it means to me is I’ve stopped beating myself up about this.  I’ve let go of my unhealthy attachment to him.  I’ve let go of all the expectations I had for us.  I’ve stopped imagining he will show up.  I’ve stopped trying to figure out what I could have done.  I’ve stopped imagining ending up with him, as I thought we were supposed to.

Most importantly, I’ve stopped believing I’ve lost my other half and have come to this beautiful place where I believe that we complete ourselves and that romantic notion that somebody else completes us/is our other half can actually harm us.  Believing we are incomplete without somebody else does ourselves a huge disservice and leads to codependence and attachment and expectations and pain. Since I was 15 years old, I believed Mike and I were supposed end up together and the affect that has had on my life is an unhealthy one. I spent a long time feeling that I was waiting for my other half to come back, for us to finish.  That left me in a place where it was hard to feel whole, for a long time.  And when mike died it left me lost and wondering what it all had ever meant and how was I supposed to go on without him.

Sharing your life with somebody else should be a beautiful addition to you life; a bonus.  Not something that is imperative to your existing happily.  Not a necessity for survival.

I’ve stopped believing he and I were supposed to be together.  He’s not here, so, apparently not.  I’ve stopped believing that the dogs (jack and tommy) are mike’s dogs.  They are my dogs now.  I’ve stopped attaching them to him.  I used to get very upset if I thought about re-homing them; I would feel like I was leaving mike all over again and/ or like I was letting him down and failing.  Yes, they were his.  They aren’t anymore.  They are my dogs and this is my life, as I’m living it.  I had been feeling like I was taking care of somebody else’s dogs and there was always a sad connection that I felt towards them.  That sad connection had disappeared, that interim feeling I was having with them, “should I keep them shouldn’t I?” and all the emotion that I was attaching to that are gone.

I feel that I can love completely, without feeling like a part of me is missing, is with him and unavailable for loving somebody else completely.  I have learned to let go in a way that I did not know existed.  I have tried to project to this point over the past year and I had no idea this is where I would be.  (and it is just a coincidence that this all comes about a year later.  I came to all of this about 2 months ago).  I tried to imagine what I would feel like, moving on.  Every time I tried I just got upset and felt like I was abandoning Mike again (did I ever abandon him?  Those were the tortures I was putting myself through).   Then, finally one day as I was driving to work, I felt this wave of awareness come over me.  A wave of wholeness.  A wave of feeling better than I had ever felt.  Yes, ever.  I had been enjoying my job in a way that was new, and wonderful.  I was more present than I felt I had ever been.  I realized that the feeling was a feeling of wholeness.  I felt amazing.  I felt strong, I felt complete and ok with me being me and wholly responsible for being me and all I do.  I felt happy.  I felt free.  I felt like I had done a good thing.  And I waited, after realizing all that, to cry.  I waited to feel bad, because I had realized that I had let go of mike.  I had let go of that attachment.  I didn’t cry.  It felt right and good.  It felt like he understood and that it was good and he was happy for me.  It was as if I’d been set free of living a life with a blanket of sadness over me.

I already feel it, my need to defend the idea with beauty.  I want to assure anybody who is not here yet, that this does not mean I am not still sad that Mike committed suicide, or that I am simply “over it”.  I believe I have come through it, I have accepted what has happened and have found a way to live through it.  It feels like I’ve been given some sort of grace.  I have come out of the fog and the torture.  It is something hard to describe, but it is good in all the right ways, good in a way that allows me to live, learning from every moment, loving him and thanking him for all he gave me.

And I want to be sure to tell you that this didn’t just come to me.  I really believe that I worked hard at this.  I really believe that the way through grief and mourning is to face it.  It is to look at it and admit what is happening.  I feel like I picked up every piece of me and looked at it and asked why.  I believe that I allowed myself all the feelings I had. I allowed myself to break down and cry on the floor helplessly.  I believe we have to get that out even if we don’t know why it’s come over us at this moment.  Often, it’s through the crying that we gain our breath again, that we gain a little information.  We are letting some of the pain out, and it needs to get out of us.

Admit that you are in a fog.

Admit that sometimes it feels like you’ve just been punched in the gut.

Admit that sometimes you just find yourself standing somewhere not knowing how to step in any direction.

Admit it all to yourself.

Admit that it hurts you entirely.

Admit that you feel lost and confused.

Admit that you have no idea what to do now or in the future.

And ask yourself why.  Ask yourself why you feel all these feelings, and be honest, even when it may hurt and you may be embarrassed.  If you’re not honest with yourself it will be harder to get through this.  And don’t feel bad that you are trying to get through this.  Remember that getting through grief and mourning does not mean you are trying to forget what happened or that you are trying to forget the person you have lost.  It is figuring out how to live.

I could not have imagined this point.  And I hope you can get here.  It is a place of peace not of forgetting.

Love

Kory

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