Alone Through A Door

 For the last thirty days, I've followed prompts offered by Megan Devine's "Write Your Grief" course. Megan, whose husband drowned in a river accident, has written the best book I've read on how to live with grief, "It's Okay That You're Not Okay." This post asks, "What is the story of the story you're in?"

The story I’m in is the one they don’t know. The heaviness in my shoulders as I walk alone through a door he used to hold open for me. The way my smile has disappeared behind lips I bite so they won’t quiver. The eyes he used to say are so sparkly still are, but now it’s my frequent tears that catch the light. 

People know there’s a story here, but they’re too polite—or afraid—to ask. “Ask!” I want to yell at them, “but don’t ask!” I also think. Such is the conflict of grief.

Because if I say the words that explain what’s going on behind all this suspicious body language, I’ll break down. I won’t be able to finish talking. There's new fear here. They might try to twist my words. Delete paragraphs and insert their own. “Your version isn’t valid,” I expect them to say. “You’re not telling it right. Or living it right. We are disillusioned by your details and probably won’t buy any of it when it’s finished. If we were living out your story, we’d tell it much differently. Clearly, you are unqualified and have misunderstood the characters as well as the plot.”

I suppose. Is it possible they don’t realize this is my reality? Do they get it—Rob was here, just last Christmas, decorating the tree alone while I unpacked boxes because he loved Christmas and I love order. And this year, this year he won’t be here to hang ornaments because HE DIED. Do they recognize that I am living in the fallout of a thousand shattered dreams, haunted by a million regrets, trying to find my footing in a foggy landscape?

No. No one knows what to say when you tell them your husband died and you must go on living even though all the rules have changed and no one gave you the rule book and even if they’ve experienced the same thing they didn’t live it out the same way and no one, no matter how much they loved Rob, too, knows How.This.Feels.To.Lose.Him. Not the way I do.

This is the loneliest story I have ever lived.

So, I write. I write about it, searching for a way back to the surface of this dark, cold sea into which I’ve fallen. I journal the hard, raw feelings. The painful, confusing thoughts. The gripping agony that steals my breath and keeps me up too late at night and ruins my makeup so I wonder why I bother with it every morning. I write about the ignorant things some people say when I do describe my reality and how I chastise myself afterwards for trusting them with the truth.

It’s a complicated mess in this world I must call my life, more a jigsaw puzzle most of the time than a story. There’s a story there, for sure. Somewhere. Maybe, if I keep clicking these keys and searching for words and imagining analogies, someday, somehow, even I will begin to see the story line and find hope in the way it comes together.

But, to tell you the truth, I’d hand it all over in a heartbeat to one of those qualified professionals in exchange for whatever narrative they’ve created for themselves. If I could. I just don’t think they’d go for it.

Critics are a dime a dozen. Storytellers must learn the hard way.

With thanks to Natalia Medd for allowing the use of the creative photo seen here. The original can be viewed by following this link: It's Time | Natalia Medd | Flickr