So It's All Normal Isn't it? But What About GRIEF?

I'm one of the lucky ones.  I never looked ill.  My cancer never exhibited itself physically.  It wasn't until chemotherapy that I started to look tired and bedraggled   Then finally people could see that everything wasn't all right in my world.

It is the same with grief.  From an outside perspective  I  walk through every day as if it is a normal day.    What you don't know is the true measure of my day.

Let's start this with my night.

I barely sleep.

I awaken every forty-five minutes or so, not from some nightmare, or stress on my mind.  It is an intense sadness that settles in that awakens me.

I miss.

I wish.

I think of words unsaid and love lost.

I think of mummy and what  conversations we could have shared yesterday,

I cry.

I think of C.  I think of the sadness that was his death.  I miss him. I miss his massive spirit.  I wish more than anything I could turn back time.  Not just to a few months before his death, but years before.  Turn the clock back to when he was a little boy.  To where I can love him, hold him and cherish him.  Maybe if I had done that he would still be here.

Then my thoughts change again...remember this is the middle of the night.  The no-sleep times when your mind is completely exhausted.

I suddenly go to his moment of death and I get so angry.  This happens to me too much these days.  I get so angry that I couldn't stop what happened.  Why did I not know enough to prevent his death?  My conscious mind realizes how futile this is and yet I still fight this every day.

Flash, flash.....now I'm thinking of mum again.  Missing her, missing talking to her.  I miss those days we would watch HGTV together and dream about our favourite houses.

I wish I could show her my hair.  "Hey Mum, it's growing back.  Yes, it's grey, but look how cool, it's growing back".  I wish she could rub my head and rejoice in my healing.  However she cannot.  She has been stolen from me.

So here I am, the sun is beginning to rise.  I've barely slept a wink and another day is presenting itself on the horizon.

I'm not ready yet.  Slow down please.  Let me sleep a few more hours so I am not so.....

broken.  Missing Mum and missing my brother.

Let me get some peace and at least start the next day on a positive note.

Life is not like that.  We cannot request a reprieve.

C & I almost twenty years ago.

We must pick ourselves up.....

And as I do, I hit the shower, I cry, I cry away the grief and pain from the night and as the hot water washes away the tears I feel stronger, then I get out of the shower, turn the happy music on and begin my day......hold my head up high and be strong.  It is the only way I know how to do it and I think it works.

For me anyway.

Thanks to Wade for tolerating my loud bathroom music.  It has helped me get up and be human almost every day.

Love,
Michelle