veeana

My mom was doing great though; her passing was not expected and it hurt more than anything I’ve ever been through in this life. We’d chatted on the phone the night before she died. She’d fully recovered from her stroke that she had earlier that same year. She was driving and living independently once again. And she was planning on coming over for my son’s birthday on New Year’s Eve. She died in her sleep 2 days after Christmas.

I have felt empty and lost for so long, but I think I am finally finding my way back to myself. I shut down and shut a lot of people out for a long time while I was grieving. I am sorry for that; but I guess I just did not know how to cope with a huge and sudden loss like that.

I don’t know if I agree with that adage “whatever kills you makes you stronger.” I do feel stronger in some ways. And not quite so strong in others. But I felt like a stranger to myself for a very long time. Like I didn’t know how to feel or even what to feel. Almost like I was outside of my body. Watching myself just laying in bed for days. Laying on the couch and crying. Or not crying. Eventually I guess I ran out of tears.

This is a story about living and dying, but mostly living while dying.  A story about life never stopping, not even a brief pause, for anything at all.  A story about grief that doesn’t change anything and also changes everything at once.  A story about grieving yourself, grieving a life you would have lived, grieving for a piece of you that never existed.  Grieving for a piece of yourself you never wanted to begin with.  A story about how, because life keeps moving no matter what you do, sometimes things happen at the least convenient times and sometimes, ten things are happening, all at once.

Remus knows this story well, this is far from the first time he’s lived through pain mixed with joy and streaked through with grief.  Things never happen one at a time and Remus knows this well.  Which is why Remus really wishes for life to just pause already when he gets off the phone with James’ doctor, who had called him from the hospital wanting to speak one on one to tell him that this was it, there was nothing more to do, the cancer had officially progressed too far, and James was going to die. 

Read the rest on Ao3 here

GRIEF AND LOVE

You don’t expect it.

Everyone prepares you for all the “firsts.” Your first birthday without them. Their first birthday that they ought to still be here for. The first holiday season. So many “firsts” that you are as prepared as possible for.

It still hurts. And it’s still painful.

But then comes the second year grief. They’ve been gone for a while. Your life has grown bigger around the flood of tears they left behind. And now?

Now, you no longer have the initial shock that acts as a cushion to shield you. All you have left is the grief itself, the emptiness. The aching tiredness. All the love stored up in your heart that has nowhere to go. All you have in that second year is just the pain.

And you feel badly talking about it. Because you’re far enough removed from the loss itself that sometimes people look at you funny, sometimes the most insensitive ones will say, “Haven’t you moved on?”

And instead of crying out, “No, no, I have not and I cannot! I will never move on!” you simply force yourself to smile, and either leave or change the subject.

Because how do you move on from such a loss? How do you “get over” the death of someone who was so very, very important to you?

I’ll give you a hint: you don’t. You never get over it and you never move on. But life does. And that’s okay.