Right now I have a calmness in my heart that I have not had in a long while. It is layered with sadness, sort of like a layered cake or a casserole. That analogy just occurred to me by the way. It has its own flavor.
Emotions come in many flavors. Like Apple Cinnamon or Cinnamon Raisin are both variations on Cinnamon. Depending on your Self, one may be stronger than the other for you, or may even be intolerable. Think of walking into a bakery, or better yet a perfume department. You are not able to choose the smells that you smell, and some may make you sick. With a little work, though, you can work through the department and come out the other side and smell something you like a little better.
Let me digress a moment and say that I have mentioned before that I am “throwing the kitchen sink” at myself during this terrible experience. In case you missed those earlier posts, what I mean is that I am throwing my entire arsenal of tools at it just like a doctor would – things I have learned, techniques, elixers, therapy, etc. I do see the irony in this, because the doctors threw theirs at Erin and did not know how to cure her. They didn’t even know her illness. Perhaps I do not know mine either, if I dig down deep. Yes I’m grieving and sad, but there are other emotions born out of grief.
Some of those emotions I find shame in, which is yet another emotion. I guess my body did not like for me to admit that to all of you, because as I typed it, my lower back froze up in agonizing pain so badly that I had to just stay in the position I was in when it happened for a moment. I realize that in addition to shame and fear, I feel abandoned, and have at least some blame to go around. This is probably another article within itself so I will leave it at that and get back to my less than tasty grief.
Yesterday morning, I woke up with the most intense longing for Erin. If you have ever longed for someone who you could not access (like a mate who has left you), then you understand the feeling that I had in my heart. It dominated my entire day. I meant that – it DOMINATED my day. I did not cry for several hours, but what a depressing feeling I had. And there was panic. My heart area was being squeezed by that cold hand that grabs it when I feel this way. It was so awful that I did not write, I did not read, and I did not even brush my teeth. I just sat and watched hours and hours of Supernatural with Shaun. We played a little Diablo, too, but I had no joy. At one point something in the TV show reminded me of our trip back from Iowa, the leg back from Illinois, where we got take out from a Backyard Burger. We had ordered Erin a special hamburger but they sent it out with mustard in addition to the ketchup or something, and there was a huge argument about her eating it in the car. I don’t know why that stuck – maybe because we had to really get tough with her about eating her food because she was so picky. But that gave me a literal panic attack for probably an hour. Yesterday, the grief tasted Oppressive. That was the first word that came to mind and I cannot find a better description overall.
Today it is more sickly sweet. I threw some more tools at it yesterday in the form of creating a few Sigils (Google sigil if you don’t know what one is). I woke up feeling somewhat less oppressive, and while I have cried a bit this morning, I do have that calmness in my heart. It is DIFFERENT, anyway. And it’s sweet because I can think about her with a sort of half-smile and love, instead of those other feelings. So far, today, anyway.
From what I understand I will always grieve to some extent, as it’s not something that you “get over” or “cure.” It’s something you learn to live with. So the flavor will change to something that I am able to withstand, and while I will miss her, those other emotions will be cleared if I do my job on this end. I know this is a no brainer, but I am writing it to give hope to anyone else grieving. I waver between being afraid that I will lose my daughter forever if I stop, to wanting this pain to stop. I know in my logical mind I will not lose her, and so I have to choose to focus on mitigating the pain. You can too.
I have to go for now, but have more to say later today. I still would love for anyone to send me memories of Erin, and also would love some comments and dialogue if you have any.
