That cosh is self wielded. We batter ourselves with ‘if only…’, and ‘I should have.. ‘. Focusing on what we wish had or hadn’t happened, what we think we did wrong or didn’t do at all! That, too, is sending feelings into a void, a place where there is no answer. There is no answer because what has happened, has happened. A death can’t be undone. The circumstances are that the loss is now to be lived with. Whether that death was through disease, a tragic accident, or even that their life was taken by another’s hand, the truth is that our loved one is no longer here in physical form. That hurts, and pain that deep needs to be felt. I have seen my husband struggle with feelings. That anger, at others and himself. That despair of depression at having his purpose of being a dad to Gavin taken from him. Especially once the sorting of Gavins funeral and estate, an immediate purposefulness, was completed. Those final things that could be done for Gavins earthly presence. In the grieving there are those moments of forgetting that they aren’t physically here anymore. Wanting to show them something or talk about some thing that interests us and hope would interest them too. For me it was sat on a break in my car and seeing a man walking to the shop and I fleetingly thought, ‘what’s Gavin doing here today!!’ Those moments catch us unawares. Can make us feel silly for making that mistake. They can be painful reminders of our loss, yet they can be a catalyst for letting more emotion move through us. The more movement there is of emotion, the easier it becomes to feel and release.
My choice to embrace each emotion as it arises was to fully feel and be sad or angry. Its liberating to give ones self permission to feel fully. To show the others in our lives that it’s OK to feel what ever we feel in each moment. That emotion isn’t to be caged up or denied to spare the feelings of others. By giving permission to ourselves we actually give permission to others to feel too. There’s a holding of space to allow expression. That’s what funerals and wakes are for. A coming together to mourn and celebrate the one who has transitioned to a new phase of being. No longer a physical presence but a spirit held in heart. Remembrances of the love they gave, the wisdom shared or simply the joy they spread whether they knew it or not. It was 3 weeks til we could have a service for Gavin. It was 3 weeks til we were able to have a service for Daves mum last year. A suspension of grief that awaits the humanised ritual of farewell. A ritual that we have come to expect as a permission to grieve perhaps.
HelenzArt-life-musings 