Sudden Death

I have experienced many different types of grief. I have been witness to the most beautiful death experiences and also the most shocking & painful. I have experienced sweet sadness & gratitude of an expected death. And on the other end of the spectrum - the shock and disbelief of a sudden death. A body & brain in shock, an inability to comprehend, a mind full of utter disbelief, no way to process any of the information entering my brain. I have experienced physical symptoms- my legs giving way (something I had previously thought was a gross Hollywood style over-exaggeration) inability to sleep, time being warped in a painfully slow way, numbness, physical pain, literal Heart-Ache…the list goes on - you get the picture. Sudden death, in my experience has been the most painful. All of the associated trauma, the guilt, the endless ‘What if’s’, the constant ‘Why’s’.

Yes, it DOES get easier over time. Yes, the fog clears, the pain isn’t so painful. For me, the question of ‘why’ is an ever present companion, and the longing for the person… but mostly, after 17 years, gratitude is the overwhelming experience.

As Meg says, “LET LOVE CARRY YOU”

Refugee in Grief is a wonderful grief resource. Here, Megan describes her experience with sudden death:

“When sudden death erupts into your life, your whole way of understanding the world is rocked. Previous interests – even things you loved – can seem futile.

You aren’t the person you were before. This experience of love that you’re living has knocked you off course. When you gain your footing again – and that takes the time it takes – you’re going to be facing a different direction. You’ll have to find out how you fit here now, who you are in this new place.

Another thing to remember is that grief is intense: it’s physical and emotional and spiritual and all sorts of other things. It takes a lot of energy to grieve. For many people, year two is worse than the first: your systems begin to come back online, your gaze is just slightly lifted from your feet. The world has changed. You have changed. You are still changing. The world hasn’t righted itself, and you are just aware enough to know it.

You’re aware enough to know you aren’t where you want to be, and still broken-hearted enough to not be able to do anything about it.

That you want something different for yourself, even as you have no energy to find something different – that is the beautiful place. That’s the place to lean on.

If there is any glimmer of interest, any spark of light or fascination, capture it. Lean into it. Lean towards it. Hurl yourself to face in that direction, even if that’s the only motion you can make. Face what is good. Face what is love. Want that for yourself.

Get greedy for those moments when you drop into your core, when you feel – not “right,” but righted. 

It doesn’t matter what you might “do” with any of those fleeting sparks of interest. You don’t need to find your direction, your path, through the rest of this life. You only need to take notice of what draws you, right now, and follow it. As best you can. One tiny little glimmer at a time.

And sometimes, there are no sparks. The world is empty and boring and full of things that make you cry. 

You want it to be different. It isn’t different. That’s annoying.

You can’t fake interest. You can’t just tell yourself to buck up and get on with it, throwing yourself into things that are empty and dry. It won’t work. At the same time, you don’t want to be this way.

You don’t want to cry. You don’t want tears leaking out at every possible moment, making you splotchy and weepy and red. At the same time, there’s not a damn thing you can do about that.

Being angry at your own broken-heart is such a tricky thing.

It turns into this giant, escalating storm: tears. Then angry at tears. Then angry at yourself for being angry, for being unable to come to yourself with love. Angry that this is what you’ve got now: a reason to have tears, and anger about tears, instead of the life you were living. You had a good life. Now you don’t. More tears. More angry at self for having tears. And on and on and on and on it goes.

Can you just notice it? I mean – catch yourself? A thousand times a minute if you have to? Can you recognize when you are heaping on the judgment and anger and frustration at who you are and what this is?

What this is is a broken heart inside a deeply changed human, still alive in a world that doesn’t make any sense.

The path here is to honor that, somehow. To allow it, to let it be okay that everything sucks and there is no point. To somehow stop apologizing for having a sensitized heart.

It isn’t easy. None of this is easy. 

And you are here, still, now.

You deserve a life that is honest and true, even – or especially – when what is true is pain. When what is true is the blank space: the places that haven’t filled in.

The road here, the ‘what do to’ here, is to want love for yourself, even when you have no idea what that looks like. Even when you have no energy to explore it, even if you knew what it was.

I don’t know if it’s possible; I don’t know if it will help.

But heave yourself in that direction. Turn yourself back towards love. Moment by broken-hearted, weepy, disinterested moment.

As often as you can.

Let love carry you.”