By Patsy Kelly
I am. I admit I am afraid. Since I have joined the club that none of us wants to belong to — the club called “Grievers Anonymous” — I have grown more afraid. Grievers is like AA, in that members respect one another’s privacy and anonymity. The problem, though, with grieving anonymously, is that others don’t know. We are alone, and being alone is scary.
The arrival of the New Year makes it harder. We grievers find ourselves more alone than ever. The New Year offers no thrill, nor hope, nor sense of renewal. It is a dull clanging of a bell against the tower of our ribs, reminding us we are alone.
How do we face this year alone? How do we navigate? How do we socialize? How do we identify ourselves? How do we pick up the pieces? How do we make decisions? How do we know which decisions are the ones that take priority? There’s a car to sell, deed to transfer, roof to repair, kids who want us to move closer or out of the home we’ve loved … you can fill in the blanks.
The familiar sights, comforts, sounds and any other of a host of past “givens,” are no longer given. Why? Because the one who shared those moments with us is gone. And that is the worst thing about the New Year — its factuality. The old is gone. The new year is upon us. The fact the new year so harshly ushers in with its dropping of the ball and noisemakers is this: he/she is really gone. They are not on a trip. They are not sick and about to return home for convalescence. They are gone. It’s final. Period.
Supreme courage is called for these cold days of January. While everyone stocks up for the next cold surge or blizzard, we shape ourselves back into upright, breathing, feeling, living beings. We could do something radical, like travel across the world. We could and we just might. The only thing is wherever we go, there we are. We are the ones we find. We are still there with the pain and loneliness.
Maybe something less radical is the thing. Maybe a walk now and then, in The Bowl or First Christian Church, in inclement weather. We might walk alongside someone who would share a cup of coffee. We might take a class, introduce ourselves to the neighbor who’s always waved. We might even join a grief group and begin to share the common experience of grief. In sharing, the grief remains, but it eases its grip.
For information about the Grief Group, send your email to griefgroup.jax@gmail.com.
