Moving through grief is similar to moving through deep, dark mud and muck.
Lifting your feet to take another step forward takes every bit of determination and strength.
Sometimes you look down and you can’t even see your feet, never mind lift them to take that step.
When you do lift them, they are covered with mud to the point of not being seen.
Nothing but a pit of mud surrounds you, as far as your eyes can see. The tears in your eyes fall into the mud beneath you and muddy it more.
You know you have to move but it’s exhausting to even contemplate. But you do anyways. Because you have to. Because you’re still here.
It all sounds pathetic even to my ears. Particularly to my ears in relation to myself. I hate being here. I’m doing every damn thing I can to keep moving so that I won’t always be here. And part of being able to have the energy to move one more step requires allowing myself to be right where I am, rather than using the energy in resisting or fighting where I am.
My husband was fond of saying just look right down and see where your feet are andbe there.
He didn’t mean to stay there and make no effort. He meant that it is necessary to allow yourself to be right where you are so that you will have the energy to move yourself forward.
But I hate this heaviness that is my constant companion. I hate that I have to remind myself to breathe. I hate all of this grief.
It’s exhausting in the most elemental way and it’s exhausting again when I have to lift first one foot and then the other from the clinging mud that surrounds me. One step. Another. Cadence count one after the other. The rhythm of death and grief and life.
Just get to the shore. Keep walking, I tell myself. There is firmer footing ahead, so I’ve been told.
I hope so. God, I miss him.
