By Patsy Kelly
“Stories … can open gateways into our interior landscape, can reveal the meaning in our lives enfolded in the details and unfolded in their telling.”
~Oriah Mountain Dreamer
“My story ended the day my loved one died. We had a beautiful story, with a beginning, a crescendo, and then an unexpected and premature crash. I was not prepared; I hadn’t planned on the surprise ending. I knew who I was ‘before you’ and ‘with you.’ But there is no story I can pull together ‘after you.’ To be truthful, I don’t even want a story with that title. It is repugnant to me; and I have resisted it ever since your leave-taking.”
What comes after the death of a loved one? What life is there that is worth living when we have lost so much? It can be hard, impossible, for us to acknowledge that such a life exists. Early in grief we live in a state of half life, our hearts shrouded and broken and our minds in a fog. We go through the motions, we pretend that we’re OK; we reassure those around us that they needn’t worry about us. The problem is, we aren’t really moving, we aren’t really finding the new life.
It is as if we are driving a car, and we have pulled the car over and put it in park. We sit with the car still running, but we are going nowhere. We could sit there until the fuel runs out. The view might be fine, but it doesn’t change. It is lonely and too silent. We finally pull back onto the road, but without a destination or plan, back to wandering.
Our past stories, as fractured as they are now, remain with us. We don’t want to give them up; we want to remember our loved ones. We want to cherish the stories that include them. But eventually we realize that our story is not over. We are still walking, perhaps aimlessly, but it is still movement. We are thinking, feeling, seeing signs of spring, hearing the birds. Our story continues, whether we wish it or not.
The threads of this new life are waiting to be woven into our continuing story. We are still allowed to discover new things, even though our expectations are probably set low. We still feel, still experience emotions. How do we continue the story when our loved one is no longer part of it? Slowly. Painfully.
Most importantly, we find trusted others who will listen with open hearts to our stories, both past and present. We weave the words we share into the new story that we are living now.
Our new story—to be continued …
For information about Grief Group Jax, send an email to griefgroup.jax@gmail.com.
