So, right now, in Massachusetts, we are experiencing remnants and pieces of Hurricane Henri. Its just getting started, and we are set to have high winds and torrential downpours today and into Monday. If we get it as strong as they are saying we will, it will be the first storm categorized as a hurricane in New England in 30 years. Im sitting here with my husband Nick, he is making us breakfast, and Im writing this post. It looks like doomsday outside our window, but we are safe and we have food and drink and basic needs, and we have each other and you all know that when I say ‘THAT’S ALL THAT MATTERS’, how much I know that and mean that and am grateful for that. And I know that a good portion of the people reading this right now do NOT have what I have today, and are not in the place emotionally or mentally to even go there in their brain and heart. I really know this, and I empathize one billion percent. It has taken me a decade to get here, and its still hard. I think it will always be hard. But I’m extremely thankful.
And its more than that.
The thing about FINALLY being out of that place where EVERYTHING hurts all.of.the.time.24/7 and you just want to die and stop being in pain – is that it stays with you. That feeling. That hopelessness. That darkness that sits over you like a cloud. The memory of it stays with you. And so whenever I meet someone who is newly widowed or even in the first few years of this new reality, my instinct is to reach out and help them. I want so badly to pull them OUT of that darkness and that pain. I dont want them to have to go through that , because it is hell on earth. It is hell on earth and nobody knows how long that intense pain will last. Its just there, until it isnt. And then , at some point, it gets a bit less, and then you find yourself laughing more and living more, and it still hurts like hell sometimes – but you start to shift to a place where the living portion is more than the hurting portion. I wish like hell that I could grab each widowed person who is in that dark place, and fast-forward them out of there.
But I can’t. And you can’t either.
You can’t drink it away or eat it away. You can’t try and numb it away by pretending it doesnt exist. You cant work five thousand extra hours at your job so that maybe you wont notice how much pain you are in. You cant out-run the grief, or hide from it, or over-medicate it, or any of those things. It will eventually come back and demand attention. Grief needs to be felt and processed and lived through, in order to get to that place where you carry the person you lost to death with you however you want, while creating and building a life that you want. That is what needs to happen.
So what does all this have to do with hurricanes and stormy weather?
Today, as I sit here safe and happy and with complicated emotions, I am brought back to the first two huge storms / hurricanes in the NYC/NJ area, where I was then living, after Don’s death. Hurricane Irene happened just 2 months after his death. I was in our apartment. I was alone. My family was here in Massachusetts. I woke up that morning to leaking water dripping on my face. I didnt have a lot of money. I was grieving and not prepared for a storm. I didnt feel safe. I felt totally alone. Friends called and checked on me, but everyone lived too far away to come BE with me. What it boils down to is, during something like that, it is the people you live with that you go through it with. And I was alone, because my person was dead. There was a lot of crying and feeling very depressed and hopeless. It was pretty awful.
The next one was Hurricane Sandy. Absolute devastation in the NYC/NJ area. Again, it was awful. But this time, I had moved out of our NJ apartment and was now living in Queens, NY, with a roommate. I still felt alone, because I didnt have my husband, but I felt a bit safer because my roommate was there with me to go through it. This time, I wanted to help, so a few days after the storm hit, I participated with a bunch of others as volunteers to help feed and clothe people at Rockaway Beach, one of the hardest hit places in NY. My grief had shifted to a place where I could do that. I met people who were also in pain, and whose lives had been turned upside down and changed forever in an instant. People who had lost everything, in a very different way than I had. It was hard. It was eye-opening. It helped.
And now, a decade later, I am sitting here eating breakfast with my husband, and just five years ago or seven years ago, if you would have told me I would end up marrying again, I would have laughed in your face. Hard. Yet here I am.
So I want to speak directly to those of you who are sitting in that dark place today, just trying to get through this moment, and unable to see or feel anything other than the hurt you are facing every single second without your person here on earth.
Know this:
Life is going to suck for awhile. I dont know how long. There will be days, and maybe today is one of them, where you feel like you cant even get out of bed, or you dont much feel like living. There will be other days where you somehow get through it, but you cringe at the idea of having to do it all again tomorrow.
Also, you will not always be where you are today. You will not always feel this shitty. Life will not suck forever. There will be a shift in your grieving, and in your living. You will start to live more than just exist. I dont know when, or how, but you will. If you can keep crawling through all the extreme suck, things will get better. It will never be okay or “better” that your person is dead. But YOU will be okay. You will get through this, and there wont be a finish line to any of it, but more of an ongoing path filled with rocks and sand and ocean and blazing sun and pouring rain and lightning that will electrocute your heart. And through it all, you will find yourself again, eventually. It wont be the self that you knew or the self that you used to be, but it will be a new version who is forever changed by loss.
This new person will have the powers of feeling extreme joy and intense sadness all in the same second, and will be eternally altered by the love, life, and death of their beautiful person.
Keep going. Keep breathing. When you need to rest, do that. Feel all of the things, and if this is your first big storm without them today, give yourself a huge round of applause. However you are surviving so far, you are doing great. Just trust me.