Today has been a hard day--I received devastating news in the mail that I knew was coming; none-the-less it is very difficult being faced with the reality of moving. I no longer feel that it is the end of everything as I once felt. Kenny is gone, Jheremy lives very far away and in the upcoming months Vincent and I will be separated. Although my days of motherhood are not entirely over, living without any of my children will be quite a transition for me. I have been a mother for over 25 years and have lived with my children- now young adults- for more than half my life. I don't know where I am going or what I will do quite yet but I have no fear about it. It is what it is--the great sadness is that I have lived in this house longer than any other in my entire life and Vincent has lived here since he was 4 years old. He is most affected and now I will have to be his strength and support with the difficulty of leaving his childhood home.
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I read the third touchstone today. The topic is 'why' my grief is unique. It wasn't as helpfull as other chapters because I have spent plenty of time thinking about most of the 'whys'. Although there is one section I relate to a lot>the talking about it. No one talks about it>>other than me, I don't hear anyone I know talking about Kenny; what he did; what he was like;how they feel about him being dead or any other stories. I am the only person who talks about Kenny; how much he meant to me; how much I miss him; all the funny, silly, crazy or ridiculous things he did that made me laugh. It saddens my heart that it seems he is so easily forgotten.
I asked Vincent about that today. His response was genuine and thoughtful.For him its like 'pouring salt on a wound' and 'a touchy subject'. Which I think translates to he is still hurting deeply and maybe he is still processing how many ways the loss affects his life and how to go on with the changes. It's only a guess.
I feel as if I am the only person in my family who is actively mourning and trying to heal my heart. It isn't about moving forward and going on without him. Its about patching up the hole in my heart--not to the same state as it once was;however at least whole enough to feel like myself again and live with desire and intent. To find new dreams and follow them~to ignite my spirit as it once was so that I can live rather than merely exist in this world.
I have heard it said many, many times to move forward and go on living. In my mind moving forward is about forgetting, to continue on while pushing the loss and pain aside to make it possible to tend to the realities of life.To me that doesn't include healing. For me, healing is feeling the pain, letting it hit me directly through my heart and my entire being so I have to deal with it~healing is about me learning to live with the loss so I don't have to let go of Kenny at all. Instead I can hold onto and honor the beautiful person he is to me.I want to do more than just remember that he once was a person in my life. I want to have a future life in which I am able to smile, laugh, or shed a tear with only a bit of the grief and an entirety of gratitude that I was given the gift of having him in my life for 20 irreplaceable years.And with that ability live a full and meaningful life so I don't waste what is left of my time going through the motions without hope or happiness. I live for hope and happiness to become an integral part of my life again. I feel I am on my way to getting there.
Until tomorrow...
A quote from the beginning of Touchstone Three:
"The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love, and to be greater than our suffering."
- Ben Okri
The Wilderness of Suicide Grief; Finding Your Way
Element of the day (day 66)
#82) Pb- Lead -] metal
Discovered in Antiquity.
A soft ductile, blue-gray metal, very stable. Many uses: in storage batteries, cable coverings, bullets, as a sound absorber, a radiation shield for nuclear reactors and X-ray equipment, in fine crystal glass and flint glass, containers for corrosive liquids, alloys,such as solder and insecticides. All major radioactive decay series have lead isotopes as their end product.
Chiefly obtained from the mineral galena. Mined in Australia, the USA, Canada, China and Peru.
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