I love this, and had never thought about it in this way. It’s scary that we only learn what we are exposed to. I feel like I need to learn a lot more. Different cultures I think will help me with this. I know living in NY made me a little different and see things differently.
“Mary”
Patty Griffin
This March marked the eighteenth year that my childhood best friend spent without his father. That’s enough time for another child to have come into this world and legally become an adult, yet I don’t know if his grief – our grief – ever progressed past infancy. My best friend’s father was buried by depression, and his memory has been stunted by secrecy.
We did a good job staying busy for the first year. We even went to Disney World to replace the painful anniversary with laughter. Perhaps we stayed too busy, but staying busy felt like the right thing to do.
Twelve years later, I kept my feet moving when grief’s messenger came to my door. My friend Diana spent that Wednesday night in the hospital when she was supposed to be with us at church. In a way, I left the church that night looking for Diana, and I never found her — the second person in my life I knew and loved and lost. Again, I thought if I kept on working and stayed busy, then maybe it would distract me past the allowable time of sadness.
“While the angels are singin’ his praises in a blaze of glory, Mary stays behind and starts cleaning up the place.”
It is at once amazing and pitiful the lengths humans will go to in order to avoid accepting tragedies. If you’re like me, then staying busy is the stitching that holds the mourning fabric together. I’ll run or drive or punch or rearrange or whatever just as long as I can just …
keep.
moving.
I have to stay busy because I know there’s always work to be done, I know love stories are ripped apart by disease, I know I’m not the first to have to say goodbye to someone too soon, that surely my heartache won’t make a footnote on any history book. If I know this, then I can’t let myself dwell on my own misfortune, on all the things and people I’ve lost. And yet.
I think that as a society, we’ve done a pretty poor job of teaching each other the beauty of falling apart into someone else’s arms. We are often taught by faith and film and fiction that “holding it together” makes us strong. We are told that our strength is measured in the time it takes for us to bounce back.
“You’re covered in roses, you’re covered in ashes, you’re covered in rain … You’re covered in treetops, you’re covered in birds who can sing a million songs without any words.”
In order to be covered, you must first be motionless. You must stay still. In Judaism there is a practice called “sitting Shiva” that takes place when a loved one leaves this life. Shiva simply means seven. It’s the practice of being still for a week and allowing others to care for you, when your neighbors and family meet your needs as the reality of tragedy sets in.
Rather than staying still, I spent my time making up clever scripts about how I was doing fine and about how others needed my strength. I sang songs I didn’t believe because I saw it as my duty to help others cope. All the while, I needed to hear someone, something, sing to me.
There’s no selfishness in that statement — just facts assembled through years of hindsight.
I needed to be carried. I needed to be held up. My joints needed to collapse under the weight of my heart so I could prove to that deeper part of me that there is beauty in friendships. That family, be it gifted or chosen, is a blessing. That time heals, but only when it’s given the opportunity.
My favorite thing about this song is that it’s sung by an outsider. An observer who neither preaches nor pries. The narrator is waiting for Mary to speak first, as a Shiva visitor does. We’d all do well to have a song like this resonate in our lives; a song sung by others about our own hearts. We’d all do well having a trustworthy biographer (read: friend) to help us sort through our various aftermaths. We’d all do well to allow others to clean up on our behalf instead of trying to do it all ourselves.
Chad
Jason Mraz at the moment. Where has he been all my life? and why has it taken me until now to fully appreciate him? SOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD.
This is SO like my diary at the moment. I wish I kept a real diary to look back at. However, maybe not. Just reading back some of the posts, make me a bit cringey at how angry I have appeared to be in the last couple of months. Again, I believe the things with my Nana/Uni stress have taken a toll, I just hadn’t realised how much it had changed me until I think about it. It’s weird that you don’t realise these things and how much you change into a person that isn’t you until you’re out of it.
I’m glad. I’m back to being a more tollerant person, and happy person. 13 days until my dissertation is due in <3. I love that this degree will help me help people, but I just want it to be over now. I’m too close to the end that it’s too exciting and taking too long to finish! I wanna get working, get helping, get living!
Also, loved the last episode of one tree hill (and gutted that it has finished), but I liked what Nathan repeated something along the lines of “One day you’re planning the rest of your life and what you will someday be. The next minute it is that someday and that someday was yesterday, and will be tomorrow”
Life is a fast moving train. I just have to keep up with it and hope not to get sucked under.
As the guy to Sam would say “I got this”.
I like these things that I remember. It makes me smile. “bugger off”, “we have a secret”, the funny faces…loads…even down to nivea moisturiser.
Imagine there is a bank account that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course? Each of us has such a bank. It’s name is TIME. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to a good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no over draft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours. There is no drawing against “tomorrow.” You must live in the present on today’s deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success! The clock is running!! Make the most of today.
To realise the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade.
To realise the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.
To realise the value of ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.
To realise the value of ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
To realise the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who just missed a train.
To realise the value of ONE SECOND, ask someone who just avoided an accident.
To realise the value of ONE MILLISECOND, ask the person who won a silver medal at the Olympics.
Treasure every moment that you have! And treasure it more because you shared it with someone special, special enough to spend your time with. And remember time waits for no one.
Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why its called the present.
I feel like I have moaned a lot in the recent posts.
I’m normally such a happy person!
3rd year is getting on top of me, and i’m still hurting/greiving. So my motivation and patience is very short and my moods are up and down, hense my moaning on here (as no friends can see it - I post the happy stuff on facebook, too many people on there that I wouldn’t want to know such stuff).
I’m such a happy person normally. I do appreciate my life, I have it SO good, and to say there are little things I would change is a blessing, as the things I would change are nothing major or important, just the usual (wish I had more money, was thinner, etc. etc.)
I reread the post about my Nana, and it hurt to do this, but I also learned that I had wrote ‘I felt alone’ which I had forgotten, and thinking about TWLOHA and how they help people feel not alone when in addiction/depression. It has made me realise, they do in fact help me. I am not in depression or addiction, yet I can still feel alone. Every person, happy or not, can feel alone. Mainly noone shares that they feel alone, so there is noone to stop them feeling this way, but TWLOHA you can just read posts, and feel comfort, without having to tell anyone if you don’t wish to. It’s a good support. I have an increased love for these guys today, more than usual. They help people feel less alone - everyone feels alone - they have the potential to help everyone. To me, that’s pretty cool.
Taking each uni day at a time, attempting to do work as much as possible. The library is my best friend and will get me through. Only 1 presentation, 3 assignments, 1 dissertation and 1 exam left.
In terms of the greiving, I have good days and bad days. The last few have been hard since Kayla is going through her Grandad finding out he has 2 months to live, trying to comfort her, but also reopening the scars every time we talk about it. It’s worth it though to give her support/help her. Also, I love having my Nanas jewellery now, wearing it makes me remember, and recieving it on my 21st gave me the feeling she was still giving me a present/there for it. I don’t ever go a day without remembering. Scared of the day if I ever do, and scared I’ll one day not be able to picture her face, be able to smell her house on presents from her or remember her voice. For now though, I can.
This quote I love springs to mind; “It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.”
..in time, i’ll be able to live with it and remember the good times without having to feel the saddness of loosing her every time I do.
For now though, I’m taking one day at a time. In May I’ll have got through the uni work and the stress from the work/dislike of the work will be gone, and who knows about the grief. :) but today, I am happy.
I will be one happy lass! I feel like a grandma saying this, but to me it actually just is NOISE. bad noise that my housemate decides to play all the time in the room below so I hear the bass/beat constantly. NAE COOL.
Yet it still feels like it hasn’t even happened, so I keep replaying the moment she died in my head, her taking her last breathe and hearing my mum confirm it after trying to revive her. Making it worse, maybe, but still making it not feel real. Seeing people is the only thing making me feel better, and yet I feel angry that the people I thought were closest to me don’t know this. Surely they should know I want them…NEED them. espeicially when one of them was the first person i rang minutes after i found out, and she recently expressed how she needed support and they kept going out. I have seen Lauren for the few hours on the day. and NO, i don’t expect to see them xmas eve, xmas, or boxing day, that would be selfish. but it feels like everyone will give you the “i’m sorry, i’m here if you need me’ but they aren’t there. they say it, and then carry on with their lives and do not plan, or offer to see you outside of already made plans, or unless you say it to them. Everyone just wants to be happy, especially over christmas and by talking or being a shoulder to cry on, it isn’t happy is it. and this may be irrational, and judging them too soon as it’s only been 4 days, but to me these 4 days feel like a lifetime. For a few of them, I would have been right round asking them to see them, and dropping my plans. and I kinda expected this, aas it was what I needed. Most of the time, i don’t want to talk about it, I just wanna talk about anything and forget it. They ask, how was your christmas, like it was going to be anything other than shit. actually told one person it was rubbish, but there were small good things, and she replied, aww im glad it was good. obvz either ignoring the bad, or not recognising the bad. and I feel like i’m the one being wrong, and blowing everything out of proportion. as it is not my husband or my parent or sibling that died. Grandparents are supposed to die when we are this age. but it might as well as have been my sibling, ‘cos i was closer to her than my brother. I just feel so alone. My friends don’t feel it, and have their own lives they are going about, and nothings changed for them. They want to be happy. and my family choose to ignore it, and not speak about Nana so that we don’t get upset. So it feels even less real, just going about life. but i see my Dad sat and I can tell he’s thinking about her. and then my mum is trying to keep busy but I hear her crying in the bedroom when she thinks noone can hear. Everyones trying to stay strong, and it’s making it worse. So I have noone to speak to it about, I have to get on with life. (Which I need to I know) but it feels like im betraying her too by not speaking about her, and it looks like i’m just forgetting about her so soon!
BLAH FUCKIN’ BLAH. I have to rant on here, ‘cos I know none of them will see this, and it’s chewing me up keeping it all in. gonna be crazy. and getting drunk tomorrow. praying it wont all come out!
Imagine there is a bank account that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course? Each of us has such a…
It’s new, exciting, and there’s an appreciation there that seems to be lost when you’ve known someone for a long time. It’s sad that appreciation for people isn’t shown enough when the relationships been there for a long time. I think everyone needs appreciation on a semi-regular basis so that they don’t feel that they are alone as noones that bothered (which is nearly never true). It’s important. I love being appreciated. I love my friends and family that show me this appreciation.
This band really soothe me. Hard to believe, but listening to proper heavier music can just make me like “aaahhhh”. I forget how much I love them, and I don’t like how their music is sometimes judged before it’s even listened to, just because of their music. it’s not even that heavy. It’s beaut and has been with me for the last 15 years of my life <3. corey taylors voice is beaut, which is shown off more in stone sour.
Also, I forgot to express how happy I am. Still remains have reformed and I only found this out recently. WHAAAAAAAAATSTHATABOUT!? lovelovelove. :)
