Even before the funeral, I found myself in a room called Busyness. Here papers mounded high on a vast wooden desk: bills, wills, and certificates of death. Mundane yet mandatory. I picked up a bill, wrote the check, and licked the stamp. The satisfaction of a task measured and completed when everything else in life seemed out of control could not be overrated. As I shuffled papers, I lost my pain among them.
When the first bills were stamped "PAID" and stacked in neat rows, I looked for more to do. And then more. I needed the comfort of activity, discovering no respite in stillness. Anytime I stopped moving, grief pricked my heart.
The post-obituary life cooperated for a good long while. Eventually though, even busyness couldn’t dull my pain. It was time to visit another room.
1 comment:
As I ponder over my own grief processes, I can relate to being in Grief's Mansion room of busyness. In the days following my Mom's death, I spent hours upon hours making posterboard collages to display at the funeral. In the days following the funeral, I focused on drying all of the flowers that had been given in honor of my Mom. There were baskets, planters, and all sorts of varieties of flowers. I cranked up the music in the garage and spent hours hanging flowers upside down on all the rafters. After that, came life. I was soon engaged, planning a wedding, and married. It wasn't until I delivered my first child, that I "slowed down" and it was then that I realized that some of my grief had been delayed. It overwhelmed me, encompassed me. I wept and wept. I spent many days on the couch with my newborn in tears. After some time, my husband arrived home from work to find me in this state yet again. He lovingly said, "Honey, you can grieve, you can cry, you can feel whatever you need to feel, but you cannot do this anymore. You cannot sit on the couch and cry all day, every day. You have to live life." How hurtful that was, but how true. Do I still grieve? Yes. Do I still weep. Yes. Do I live life and LOVE it? Hell yes.
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