Grief is so unique and so recursive that I'm not sure I can explain my personal experience accurately, but I feel like it is important for me to reflect on this process, lest it sweep me away like an angry river. Since losing him, Matt has been just as much at the center of my world as he was before, but in such a different way. And at some point, I realized I was letting sadness swallow me and I made a promise to myself not to force anything that didn't feel right, to try and feel what I need to feel and process what I need to process. It is important for my healing - important for Daphne. I want her mom to be a whole person who is not defined by losing her love. Shaped by it, yes, irrevocably, but not defined by it.
I know when I've moved on to a new stage or phase or mood, only when I have a moment (hour, day, week) of regression. I fall off that platform and when I'm back down at the bottom, that is when I notice where I had been, what place I had reached. This week has been one big crash and the trigger is unknown. At this point, it could still be anything and sometimes the catalyst is something small that only I would connect to Matt instead of something obvious. What would have been my fourth wedding anniversary passed weeks ago with incredible sadness, but not the giant, slow, lingering pit of sorrow I had planned to battle for a whole week. I went to dinner at a bluff top winery and left for a trip the next day which were welcome distractions. But now I'm back home and the little things are hitting me harder than they had been before we got out of town. I hadn't realized all of that had let up a little bit until now.
It could be Daphne. She is talking about him. A lot. Today she asked me, "Where's my daddy? We gonna go find him at the restaurant?" She asks everyone where their dad is. Twice she has woken up from sleep and in her groggy babble, she has told me about him. A dream? Or is she seeing something reflected in me? I knew she would start to ask about him one day, but I'm not quite ready and I'm not quite sure what is triggering these questions now. The eery way she asks as she sits quietly makes me believe she thinks about him more than she might verbalize. The way she asks me if I need a hug from him when she is in trouble is unnerving at best - both because of her mention of the very thing I need when she is acting like a true toddler and because her level of skill in the art of manipulation terrifies me.
Maybe her questions have me slipping, but I just really think it's the ebb and flow happening. So far I've outlined these three stages of my personal grief and the only one I haven't revisited multiple times is the first one.
1. Utter shock and devastation on a level I cannot accurately describe. It was as if reality was suspended and language, visuals, sounds, smells, no longer made sense even though I knew they should. Speaking was difficult, tiresome. I alternately fought urges to stay in constant motion or sit catatonically on the couch. The exhaustion was so deep that sleeping eventually became possible, but waking was excruciating because I had to remember. Other people literally held me up - held up my body so I would not fall over. Apparently someone took care of Daphne. My clothes didn't fit after not eating for two weeks.
2. Continued shock and surprise over the facts. Sometimes I just can't believe it. A friend recently told me it still all seems surreal. That's true. Absolutely. But I've had to deal with the nuts and bolts of survival for the last nine and a half months so it feels pretty damn real a lot of the time. The nuts an bolts have been distraction enough to grant me brief reprieves from descending too far into my sadness. But then, brushing my teeth, driving to the grocery store, or visiting the coffee shop where we met, it will hit me all over again. Bam. Alone. Widow. He's not coming home tonight. How can this be true? I am still swiftly rocked by the idea that he's gone and that I can't hear about his day. Sometimes I have to hide or wait it out in my car. If I'm at work, I just go to the restroom. Everyone is kind enough to pretend not to notice.
3. Missing him. A month or two ago, I realized I was physically aching for his presence. Instead of shock, losing him is a horrific reality I am constantly aware of, but not surprised by. It isn't the sharp pang that stops breath momentarily, but instead a deep missing him so great I can barely stand it. My whole chest feels like it is caving in and it sticks with me for long periods of time without a break. At first I thought this was a better phase - not so sneaky, constant, a little more predictable. I was wrong. It is persistent, unquenchable and never-ending. In this stage, I've been predicting how he would feel about something, what he would say about this or that, picturing him there, thinking about how we'd be planning to expand our family, wondering how it would be if it hadn't happened this way or what we would look like as the old couple at the grocery store. Hating that old couple at the grocery store because I feel so cheated. Dangerous.
I've found myself mentioning him in small ways just to test the waters. I don't realize I'm doing it until it's out of my mouth and I see my friends and family brace themselves when they hear his name. Is it just a mention, or a floodgate bursting? That all depends who I'm talking to and where we are. Mentioning that he liked a certain food/tv show/song/city in conversation with a friend is just a shout out. Mentioning that we lost her dad to Daphne's new preschool teacher is a floodgate.
I wish I could say I understand it. Not understanding is something I don't handle well. At all. I don't need to be good at a task as long as I comprehend the logistics, but none of this is logical and I swim back and forth between stages two and three without conscious choice. For a person who likes to be in the know, needs to be in control of herself if nothing else, and has a difficult time with change, it is still a rough journey. The fact that my thoughts are coherent enough today to delineate my biggest grief stages is a step toward understanding that I'm beginning to believe is essential. I may not have answers to most of the questions my brain asks every day, but I can at least start by analyzing where I've been and how I'm changing. Maybe one day the crumbs will all fall into a pattern on the floor.
