Monday, February 20 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Writing group:<\/p>\n
I want to write about grief.\u00a0 <\/span>Hard to get into. ask my grief to speak.<\/p>\n Grief, what do you have to say?<\/p>\n So deep and old.\u00a0 <\/span>So long ago.\u00a0 <\/span>Grief never allowed, never assuaged.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cI cried and cried and nobody came.<\/a>\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>This is a baby speaking, a baby left alone calling for help. and there was no answer.\u00a0 <\/span>Silence is painful.\u00a0 <\/span>Silence is scary.\u00a0 <\/span>What am I grieving for?\u00a0 <\/span>What I should have had and didn\u2019t get.\u00a0 <\/span>But how do I know what I should have had if I never get it?\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s not like when you have something and lose it.\u00a0 <\/span>You know what you\u2019ve lost.\u00a0 <\/span>There\u2019s a hole in your heart.\u00a0 <\/span>So it\u2019s possible to grieve.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s imperative to grieve, it\u2019s unhealthy to not grieve \u2014 but you need the help and support of other people.\u00a0 <\/span>When you were a child and cried you were sent to your room.\u00a0 <\/span>You learned that it was not OK to cry.\u00a0 <\/span>When you were a teenager, you were able to cry alone, when a romance went wrong.\u00a0 <\/span>One time you had a date with someone and he didn\u2019t show up.\u00a0 <\/span>You cried, and then you found yourself dancing.\u00a0 <\/span>I think you were actually angry \u2014 but as a woman you are not allowed to express anger \u2014 but the dancing expressed your feelings and you ended up happy.\u00a0 <\/span>Much later, you remembered that and thought that you should have built into your life as a technique you could use when you needed it.<\/p>\n But what are you grieving now<\/span>?\u00a0 <\/span>I’m grieving what\u2019s happening to the elephants, and the whales, and the dolphins. what\u2019s happening to the oceans filling with plastic and the animals killed by tangles of plastic.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m grieving all the black people killed by police, all the people who aren\u2019t being paid enough so they have to choose between food and medical expenses.\u00a0 <\/span>That\u2019s so wrong<\/span>.\u00a0 <\/span>I don\u2019t feel grief I feel anger, it\u2019s not OK that greedy rich people have set things up that way.\u00a0 <\/span>Then I start to feel hopeless and helpless.<\/p>\n Then I look at the last few months of my life.\u00a0 <\/span>Struggling with low thyroid, damage to my ribs, no energy, needing to exercise, struggling with a deadly combination of early trauma and the social distancing of COVID<\/a>.<\/p>\n And the whole thing about asking for help.\u00a0 <\/span>It is so hard<\/span>.\u00a0 <\/span>My parents made me wrong for asking for help, but even before that, my non-verbal cries for help were often unanswered.\u00a0 <\/span>It was right at the beginning I learned not to ask for anything.<\/p>\n NOTE: “What I should have had and didn’t get” is Francis Weller’s Fourth Gate of Grief<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Monday, February 20 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Writing group: I want to write about grief.\u00a0 Hard to get into. ask my grief to speak. Grief, what do you have to say? So deep and old.\u00a0 So long ago.\u00a0 Grief never allowed, never assuaged.\u00a0 … Continue reading