Slowly dawning on me

It is slowly dawning on me – very slowly – that Lev will never be coming back. I am starting to understand that this is permanent. I will not be going back in time, I will not be crossing over to a different multiverse, I will not be waking up from a nightmare. And somehow this realization is a good thing. I prefer genuine sadness over bullshit happiness. I want to understand and accept what has happened, so I can begin the long and slow healing process, even though I know that true inner peace is an elusive and likely unobtainable goal.

Cognitive Dissonance

Sometimes when I am working, there will be a long meeting or conversation, in which nothing of true import is being discussed. If it goes on long enough, I start to get an anxious feeling -- it starts low and slowly works its way up. At some point, I just need to stop and go walk or cry or meditate or play music. I am starting to figure out what is going on. During much of the day, I am in "unconscious denial" that Lev is no longer a part of my world. I have the same house, same job, same wife, same life. It all looks so similar that I can almost forget that anything has changed. But of course everything has changed. And sometimes these conflicting views of reality collide, which causes a vague and rising anxiety to manifest itself. 

The temporary cure is to stop what I am doing and acknowledge what has happened to me. Sometimes it is like getting hit by a freight train when the truth washes over and through me.

In the long term, the path to inner peace is to deeply integrate the fact that Lev is dead into all facets of my existence. But that kind of reconciliation seems unreachable right now. I will continue to strive for it.

It just gets harder...

:(

March 9, 2011 Eight months

I am reminded again of the phrase,

there is nothing so whole as a broken heart

(written by a rabbi a long time ago)

I feel most complete, most whole, when I am able to just be with my thoughts, my loss. Whether it is cooking, cleaning, showering, walking, mounting pictures in a scrap book, doing yoga, or petting the dog, I like being able to be in the moment with my sadness instead of being forced to move on and push it aside to do my work.

I took the day off today to be with myself, and so far I am glad I did.
I made a Spanish omelet, lentil soup, flax muffins, played ukelele with Tony, read from a book on dark emotions, and am about ready to take a shower.

It is eight months today that I have been missing Lev, and while at six in the morning it seemed silly to cram grief into a day off, now at ten o'clock it seems wise.

The passage I read that made me cry this morning was of a grown cat, spending two weeks looking in every corner of the house looking for its mother, who it saw die. After being sure it could not be found, it curled up and sulked, not eating much for a couple more weeks.

I also remember reading about a man who for months would walk for hours every night "looking" for his son, walking past the store where he was shot while robbing it.

I alternate between looking for Lev to walk down the stairs, wanting to curl up in a ball and mourn, wanting to walk without stopping, and just going on with things as they were before, trying to suck any fulfillment out of life that I can, still hoping in some way that we could return to our old normal if we just go on.

I think I'll go for a walk.

Rebecca

When another child you not know dies.

March 5, 2011
Saturday

I had a really good week at school, followed by crying myself to sleep on Thursday. I tend to obsess on one idea for a while, and get sad about it, before moving on to another sad thought.
Seeing a friend of Lev's who had grown taller, seeing Lev's shoes, etc. This week, it is the fact that Jaal doesn't have a brother. I've cried about it on and off for a few days now.
Sometimes I think that I can't understand Lev's death in its entirety, so I absorb little parts again and again.
Jaal doesn't have a brother, why? Is it really true? What does it mean? What will it mean for him later? When in your life do you need your brother? Does it make Lev's life more or less meaningful? How is having a brother who dies different than being an only child. What is the purpose of life, of family? How can we feel so empty?
I may ask myself these questions, but it's mainly just sadness. I feel like I had given Jaal this wonderful gift of Lev, and now that has been taken away from us all.

So, I have been sad, as usual, but still had a nice time dancing at Tony's gig, hanging with friends on Friday night.
I awaken to a call from a teacher at my school who is calling to say that her eighteen year old step-son was killed by a car last night. She did not know who else to call, after being up all night.
As if I am some sort of expert now. I know all the things that you can say that don't help. Yet, I am left with nothing to say that might help. We cried on the phone together and I told her and her husband about the local grief group for parents who lost a child. I know that there is nothing I can do.

I bought a yellow rose for the boy who died. I look at the rose and feel sorry for myself and for them.

It smells faintly of a rose, as Lev's shirts smell faintly of him and old laundry.

Rebecca

Stuff I didn't post

March 3, 2011
Thursday

I curled up in Lev's room with his quilt. I stared at his hats, thinking that he won't wear them.
I often still sit downstairs, looking at the stairs, wishing Lev would walk down them again.
Wishing and waiting.

Maybe moving would be good.

My life has fundamentally changed, but much of it looks the same.

I feel disconnected.

I am bitter.
I am sad.
I am confused.

People think I am doing well.
They want me to be okay.
I am a good actress, perhaps, but I am lost.

Feb. 28
The intensity of the sadness goes up and down in waves. I feel myself sinking into a low part, and I have learned to value it. It is when I am most in touch with my emotions, when I understand that I need to stop waiting for some miracle, relief, or distraction.
I appreciate the deep grief, as it is when I feel most whole. Interesting that by physically sensing the hole left by Lev, I feel complete.

I watched a movie, Time Traveler's Wife, that I suppose was a bad choice, since it led me into a hour long bawling fit that scared Linga and Snowy. What got to me was that when the person died, since we was a time traveler, he had, before he died, gone into the future and met up with his wife and daughter some years in the future, so they could see him again, in their world. They had the joy of seeing him again, in real life, after he died, and giving him a hug. I so desperately want to see Lev again and give him one more hug. The truth, the true understanding that I won't see him again hit me with a clarity I am still walking with. My head is filled with pressure, with the physical symptom of the knowledge of the enormity of our loss. I know that I will lose this feeling for a while and go about our daily lives, but I feel closer to Lev when I have it.