Grief is heavy. It weighs you down. Physically. Intellectually. Emotionally. Socially. Everything, I mean E V E R Y T H I N G, is harder.
Grief drains you of your energy causing physical exhaustion. Your muscles are weakened and heavy. Routine things like laundry or vacuuming sometimes feels like hiking a mountain.
Grieving exhausts your mind causing you to be forgetful. Your short term memory is terrible. Forget about focusing on anything. Even the most mundane tasks become impossible to tackle.
The toll that grief takes on you emotionally is immeasurable. My ability to multi-task is not what it used to be. The amount of stress, rather work related or personal, has been significantly reduced. Chaos at home and work is a lethal combination for me. Sometimes I feel so fragile to the point that the smallest upheavals will break me. I cry more than I ever have in my life. There are days that my eyes want to spill out tears ALL. DAY. LONG. There are days that they do just that.
The social impact. In January it will have been five years since my dad died. About six months later I pretty much lost my marbles for a few months. I worked in an extremely stressful environment that school year. I kept telling myself that if I could make it to the last day of school I would be okay. Well.. that was so not the case. In fact, it was the complete opposite. Little did I know that I had been hanging on by a thread. The last day of school came and that thread snapped. The roller coaster I had been on the last 13 months came crashing down on me. I was exhausted in ways I didn’t think possible. I took everything off the walls in my house. I started getting rid of things.. furniture.. stuff.. clothes. Everything was overstimulating. The TV, music, kids playing outside, the neighbors dog. It got so bad that I couldn’t even drive in peak hours. I couldn’t go to a store unless it was early in the morning or late at night. I couldn’t do crowds. I couldn’t go out with friends or with Jeff. Through it all I had my rock. My constant source of strength. He may not have known what to say always but he showed me through actions that he was trying to understand. He offered to stop at the store on his way home from work. To drive me places. He never complained when I would have myself so worked up that I was physically ill. When I would lay in bed for hours with a headache from anxiety. He would hold me at night. When he knew that I wasn’t going to be able to pull myself out of this deep depression. This mental break down. He gently encouraged me to do something. He was worried. It was then that I realized I needed professional help. I got a therapist. Best decision I could have made for myself.
Fast forward almost three years. I was feeling so much stronger in all areas.. I decided to go back to school.. (I had dropped my classes when my bonus mama and I brought my dad home on hospice. I thought I could handle taking all on line classes for that quarter since I was back and forth from Washington to Oregon. Silly me.. what was a thinking??) Not quite half way through fall quarter my life once again was turned completely upside down. On October 28, 2016, my husband went into cardiac arrest in his sleep. I didn’t know in that moment that my life would be forever changed. The next six days would turn out to be the longest days of my life. On November 3, 2016, we took Jeff off of life support. From that moment on our lives would never be the same.
It took some time for me to realize that everything I went through when my dad died was in preparation for this. Had I not lost my marbles then and sought out therapy, I truly believe that I would not have been strong enough to deal with those first few months after Jeff died. I stopped questioning where my strength came from or still comes from now. For months and months I would talk to Jeff every night and ask for him to give me strength to take on the next day. I begged God for strength and courage to handle everything that needed to be done. I was exhausted in ways I never knew possible.
After family had gone back home I went to Oregon to stay with my bonus mama for a week. I desperately deeded to be in my dad’s house. It’s out in the country. It’s peaceful and quiet. He and Terri lived a calm life. Drama free. I needed that. I needed to quiet my mind. To sleep. I don’t know what I would have done without Terri’s love and support. Her guidance. Her knowledge.
I reflect on many of the things we shared and talked about that week and since then. But the one thing I will never forget is her telling me that I needed to be selfish for the first time in my life. It was vital that I take care of me. That I rest and set boundaries for myself. To not be afraid to tell people to go home or it’s not a good time. And that I would be more exhausted than I could ever imagine. In all ways possible. She told me that losing Jeff was soul shattering but I wasn’t broken.
Boy, she was not exaggerating. I had never, ever been more exhausted in my life. I had never felt so heavy. So weighed down. So defeated. So much of that first year is a blur. It’s self preservation that your mind doesn’t allow you to remember all of the pain. Every holiday, birthday, family dinner, get together.. and so on.. is a blur. The second year has been so much harder. I’m no longer numb. I feel it all. Grief is heavy. It effects every aspect of your being. It weighs you down and weakens you. It hollows you out and leaves you empty. It leaves you drained… Physically. Intellectually. Emotionally. Socially.
She makes everything a little lighter. My little princess has know idea yet as to how she saved me. How she gave me a reason to get out of bed those first few months when it would have been so much easier to stay there. How our daily FaceTime chats lit up my days. One day, when she’s old enough to understand, I will share with her my story. Until then I will just keep sucking up all the love and joy she brings to our family.
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