Typically, I compartmentalize things very well; even grief. Especially grief. But, not this time. This time, it’s seeping through the cracks and filling all the pockets of my brain. It has consumed my every thought and has successfully thwarted my many attempts to be physically productive. The void her death has left is larger than I imagined it could have been. It’s a dark and painful void, yet I continue to wander around it; ask it questions, and wait for answers. My logical mind knows that these answers will never be found, yet I reach back into the void and continue to seek them. During the day, I carefully wander the void, looking at memories and asking questions. While I sleep, when I actually sleep, I am overcome by it and my nightmares swallow me whole.
How could she have done this? How could she not know what would happen to the world if she left it? What could we have done to save her?
Since she left, I have felt completely out of my body, like I am living in someone else’s nightmare, watching the torment. As each day passed, I denied that it was MY family that had been thrust into this hell. In the days after her death, I couldn’t collect my thoughts and I was weakened beyond anything I recognized as myself. Again, I wasn’t me…I’ve never been that weak. I remember certain moments that confirmed my weakness and supported my mind’s defense mechanism that was telling me this wasn’t my life.
The day after I found out, a friend told me to go running. I did as I was told. What else could I do? I didn’t know how to function in this other world.
The night before I flew down to say “goodbye,” I stood there in my closet, holding up two dresses. Which one was I supposed to wear? I couldn’t pick one because I couldn’t believe I would be wearing it to her funeral.
When I first saw her, all I could do was hold her hand, fix her hair, and try to make sense of everything. It still wasn’t real.
When they lowered her casket, I was sure the reality would come crashing down on me. She was gone. We buried her. I watched. Still in my mind, I couldn’t believe it.
When I watched the video of the eulogy I gave, I was overwhelmed. Both the truth of the situation and the out of body sensation I had been experiencing collided. I was watching myself speak, and seeing the anguish I felt. I’d never actually seen myself experience such a catastrophe. But there I was, standing just above her casket, begging 400 teenagers not to forget her, and not to give up on themselves. This aftermath, this agony, was mine. The collision that occurred during those moments shattered the protection my mind had created. All that’s left is devastation.
I need to remember how to compartmentalize. I need to tuck her away into the secret part of my heart, and only visit it when I can smile at the memory of her face, and at the fact that she is, apparently, no longer suffering.
The reality is settling in more and more these days, and, just as I begin to accept it, my sorrow turns to rage.
