The experience showed me something very valuable. I am not going crazy and I am normal. Because believe me, there were times before this group when I thought I was in serious need of behavioral health professionals. Crying at the drop of a hat, talking to him as if he was still here, smelling his clothes and keeping his things in the same place in our closet, seeing and believing the signs he sends me, and worst of all - the physical ache. The ache where it feels like your chest is ready to rip open, where you actually feel paralyzed and weak and your body deceives you. When you judge yourself and you feel like you can’t tell anyone what you’re feeling and how terribly it hurts because you don’t want to burden them. But from that very first night when I joined my fellow mourners, as I listened to them say out loud what I was holding inside, I felt relief.
But as much as I admire and respect every single person in that group, I feel that I’ve gotten what I’m going to get out of it for now. I’m trying to move forward and I fear that I’m spending too much time focusing on my sadness each week. I’ve always been an extremely positive person (at times much to my husband’s dismay) and someone who chooses to move forward in all situations. And for that very thing and to stay true to who I am, I need to let the group go.
That doesn’t mean I won’t have bad days or days when moving forward in my life feels like I’m swimming in quicksand. With that said, I’ll need the support of my family more than ever. I need to know that while they love and miss Al, that I’m important to them too.
Sometimes my grief swallows me whole and what saves me is knowing that my family is there to pull me from the mouth of that monster. I need the love and support of each and every one of them and am dependent on them to love me when I’m sad, mad, happy, goofy, blasé, pitiful, angry or joyful. They are my family after all. And isn’t that what family does?
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