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The Upside Down

Posted on: January 9, 2021 | Posted by: Bryan Martin

I have always had trouble when I’m told that there is no way out and no solution to things. Apparently, looking back at my writing, that fact holds true even in loss and grief. I didn’t realize at first but it explains my anger when I was hit with the regular “whys?” and the “what nows?” – No answers.

Through life we travel over and through a variety of terrains. I had hit an impasse and the only thing around was a hole in the ground. I looked to the left and right hoping to see a little white rabbit show me the way. Instead, life pushed me from behind and I fell. The shear fear from the death drop and sudden impact of losing Clayton knocked me unconscious. Months had passed and I woke up disoriented with no way to climb up these widowed walls. I felt trapped. So I stopped and asked myself a novel question:

“What if the reason it feels hard is because I am trying to turn around the down?”

I decided to stop sitting at the bottom looking back up with insatiable longing and began to dig down. At first, I thought I’d dig forever but that ditch eventually broke through to a gateway, an epiphany opening leading into consciousness caverns. I was met with a stale warm widowed wind and I realized what was happening. In “The Divine Comedy”, Dante’s journey is of a widowed man guided by a shade named Virgil as he descends through the levels of Hell in hopes to make it to his lost love in Heaven. My understanding of what was happening became clear as I stared into the darkness of the grief gorge. Like Dante, I was about to head through Inferno. Somewhere softly from the down, Virgil was calling to follow.

If you’ve never read Inferno, at the bottom Dante finds not fire but ice holding the most egregious of sinners – the traitors. Here Satan lays frozen and Dante is guided by Virgil to begin climbing down Satan’s chest through a hole in the ice. It is there at true center where Virgil reverses direction and begins to climb up Satan’s leg. Dante becomes disoriented being suspended in two truths. Virgil points out that from the center all ways can become a new ascendance. Like Dante, I had to travel down to the center of icy torment. There I discovered I had damned my own journey by punishing the past. I felt the universe had betrayed me and so froze my future.

As I sat holding creation in contempt, I realized I do not have the right to know the reasons behind my endless “whys”. Answers are not for me to demand. I can’t punish the Universe (and myself) by staying frozen demanding answers. To move forward I have to let go of the need to know. I can only choose my “what now”. So here I am thawing at the true center of loss and, just like Dante, my “upside-down” has become my new “right-side up”…

Categories: Widowed, Widowed & Unmarried, Widowed Without Children, Widowed and Healing, Widowed Milestones, Widowed Emotions, LGBTQ+ Widowed, Widowed by Illness

Bryan Martin

About Bryan Martin

In 2016 my life all started to fall into place. A new job as a Supervisor for animals at a small aquarium along the beautiful Florida gulf coast. It was a dream for Clayton and I to move to the beach, get settled and get married. In June of 2017 my father passed away after a long battle with opiods and alcohol. Four months later, Clayton was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with acute liver failure. Not having been able to truly mourn my father, I was faced with knowing that Clayton (Tin as my family calls him) would also be leaving me. I had dreams of marriage, vacations and a long life together. I watched all of those dreams fade away more and more each day as I cared for him until his final days. He passed away April 16, 2018 the day after my sister’s birthday.

Now I am through the fog of the first year and reality is setting in this second time around the sun. I’m very much alone in this sleepy beach town. I’m trying to just maintain balance with my new normal. I get depressed, angry, sad, jealous, confused and disoriented. Some days are better than others and I remind myself that it is normal. So many people think my life is back to normal and fulfilling because I work with dolphins and penguins but the magic left everything when Tin passed away. I have trouble feeling passion about most things that used to light my fire. I have feelings that oppose one another and it is exhausting. I want to feel happy for others but want to know why I can’t have what they have.

Along my journey, I have had tough days and some wonderful days but at the end of each day I still don't have the answer to my one question....Why?

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