I Have Shame About My Grief

As I sit down to write this I am tempted to just put 1000 barfing emojis and call it a day. 

Tomorrow, October 5th, it will be six years since my mother died. Saturday, September 23rd marked sixteen years without my aunt. It turns out grief is a numbers game, dates and years suddenly anchors of a life you once had and reminders of all the days that lay before you where they will, in fact, not be returning. No matter how hard the little girl in you prays, they will not come back. So you are left with the numbers; this was her birthday, this is my birthday, I will be 46, 6 years, the date my dad died, the hours we were graced with each other’s presence here on earth, the number of phone calls, the fights, the vacations, the hand holding, the trips to the grocery store, the minutes waiting for her to get off the phone, the minutes waiting for her to turn on the car so I could open the window because it’s so hot in here and WTF are you doing anyway?!!, the date she called to say she was probably gonna die, the six weeks after that that came on me like a barreling train. And then there I was, 39 years old, 3 weeks away from 40, no mom. 

And here is the simple fact of it all, there has not been one day in the past six years that I have felt normal, not one. There have been many days where I have felt an expanding ease in the new normal. There have been light and sparkling doorways through which I can see glimpses of a new life, doors that I have been just a little too scared to walk through. There have been familiar roles that I have played, echos of a self that was familiar to me, but I knew, I always knew, that not even a breath from the surface lurked a knowing that she was gone, that the whole house of cards could come crumbling down. For years I would wake up in the middle of the night and remember that she had died, propelling me into a disorientation landslide and the world would just feel empty, blank. Empty felt like the worst fate of them all.

Maybe I should just go back to the emoji plan. I do, in fact, feel like barfing. 

I have shame about how much money I spent after my mother died. I thought I needed material possessions to fasten me to the earth. I was play acting the role of a life without her.

I have shame about my indecison. I was always so decisive, but it was only becuase I had her to push back against. I did not know how to make decisions in a world without boundaries.

I have shame that I have gained weight, like my body was trying to make space for her spirit to move in, here with me.

I have shame about how my Neo Cortex went straight offline and how suddenly so much of the world felt like a fog I could not quite see through.

I have shame that I meant to take a three month break from work that turned into three years.

I have shame that I had to tell everyone all the time that my parents had died, “well my mom just died, oh no, my dad died right before that, yeah suddenly, no I’m fine, I’m okay, how are you? That’a really nice blouse. Is it new?”

I have shame that I spent years afraid of falling down as I walked down the street, of dizziness at dinner parties, of my heart exploding, of airplanes, of people expecting me to be who I had always been, of moving forward in any way because if I knew anything at all, she was not forward.

 I have shame about making plans for my life and then feeling too frozen to create them.

I have shame about what I fantasized could save me from this new reality that still feels wholly unreal.

And the real truth of it, the really if I’m gonna be honest about it truth, is that I have shame that it hurt me at all, that it broke my heart into a billion little pieces and made my brain feel like a snow globe that someone had violently smashed against the kitchen floor. I have shame that I will never get over it. I have shame that when people over sixty talk about their parents dying, or that they lost one parent, I want to scream at them. I have shame that I feel so lost. And I am so so scared that I will never find my way out of this.

And here’s a little note on shame - this shame is just trying to protect me. This voice in my head that says Jesus Christ Jen GET OVER IT, she is trying to be my ally in a world that will not stop hurtling forward, despite the fact that I am desperate for it to stop. I just need a moment to catch my breath. I just need a moment to say, “No, Barbara I am not okay. I was just pretending so that you would feel okay.” I just need a minute, if you give me a minute I can catch up with reality. And also maybe, can we go backwards a little? Can I just have one more trip to the outlet mall, or one more hug, or one more time as a kid where we made garlands with popcorn and cranberries? But gravity says no, you cannot get off the beautiful ride. Gravity says, look the sun came up again today and oh my god the moon is here again and days go by and you count and here we are so many suns and moons later.

When I was a kid I absolutely LOVED The Dutchess County Fair, and I loved The Gravitron. I could not get enough of this space ship looking ride that locked you in and spun so fast that you were sealed to the black sticky pleather with other kids from the eighties, and then at some point it stopped and your feet would slide down to touch the floor, and the doors would open to the bright summer light and you would hold onto the doorway as you walked out, kinda dizzy, a little nauseous maybe, but maybe also ready for some funnel cake and a temporary tattoo. Maybe grief is just like this. Maybe one day you get to walk out dazed and kinda, almost ready for more life. 

And so, there’s one more teeny tiny little thing, in a whisper maybe; I have shame that I will be okay. No. I have shame that I can thrive again. I have shame that in some ways I have been set free. Maybe this feels like one of the ugliest truths I have ever written down. I have not just been too scared to walk through the doors of light and sparkle; I have felt too guilty to have a life while she could not. What happens with all that space that all that love took up? What happens if I allow myself to walk into the sparkle of what is yet to come?

My shame is a full B, but this is the exact kind of thing that she was trying to protect us from. It is her job after all to stand guard against all the feelings that I am afraid are going to destroy me and also destroy you. She is going into full damage control right now, just full I’m so sorry, she just had a moment, she was tired, exhaustion, didn’t eat enough, food poisoning probably, just the strangest thing - yeah, she’s doing great, just excellent.

And ya know what, I just may be.