January 12, 2012 – Grief is a Stalker

It’s 10:30 at night, and I need to write this before, or maybe so I can sleep tonight. Did you know… Grief is a stalker?  It always seems to know how  to hit at some of the most unexpected times, like it’s been stalking you all day, waiting for just the right time to pounce. This time it was as I was doing the simple task of folding my laundry and putting things in the drawers. I don’t know why that seems to be a trigger, and it seems kind of silly, that grief would hit while I’m folding my underwear. Maybe it was because I can still hear her little compliment.. “you do a good job, you fold your clothes so small.” And so standing there folding underwear, grief strikes. It’s the usual scenario. My eyes begin to fill with tears, and I think, “I don’t like this place I’m in.” “Why can’t it be the way it used to be?” “I want the old way back again.” And I know it never will be coming back. She will never be coming back. It seems so unfair. This isn’t something I asked for. Even though there are those times when the enemy whispers those accusing words like, “She would still be around if you had been better.” “It’s your fault because you didn’t treat her better.” I know they are lies, but the voice still echoes in my mind.

I can have a bunch of fairly good days, and then, like a stalker who is just out of sight, just out of range… it strikes, and there’s not a lot I can do about it, but shed the tears, taste the salty tears as they roll down my face and omto my lips, and let the waves of weeping roll over me. It’s something that cannot be described with words… it goes far deeper than words. And sometimes that is also part of the pain, because you know that no one else really knows. No one else really can understand, and so the loneliness of that just adds to the terrible emptiness that I feel as the tears drip off my chin. It is a little scary, how  utterly lonely one can feel sometimes.

After a few minutes… that seem much longer.., the waves subside, I can blow my nose, and dry my eyes, and finish putting away the clean clothes. Grief has gone back into hiding, and things settle back down again. And life goes on, And I live with the reality that the stalker is out there, somewhere in the shadows, waiting for another unexpected moment when it will pounce and attack, and I will be defenseless against it’s ravages. Maybe this is the place where you would expect me to write some nice perspective on this issue. But the fact is, I have no pious thing to say. It is what it is, and grief is a stalker, and attacks at the least expected moment, and I just have to deal with it. There’s nothing easy, or smooth about it. It is just plain ugly and nasty, and it will strike again, of this I am sure. There is not much more to say. Grief is not a friend, not an enemy, it just is… out there somewhere waiting for the next vulnerable moment to strike.  Not an obsession, just a reality. It will be back. I will deal the best I can, and move on… continue to worship, continue to try to move ahead, yet always aware that grief is a stalker.

… till next time…

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