The big wave

 

Grief is like a big wave that takes you by surprise no matter how many times you see it coming or no matter how experienced a surfer you are. You get bowled over every time and it doesn’t diminish in intensity.

Every time. It hurts the same.

Meh, I’ve felt it before, it can’t be that bad. And yet it is.

And the complexity increases because every time you seem to grieve everyone you have grieved before all over again. And you share the grief for others as well. Those who you know are in as much pain as you are.

I know it is the cost of love. And I have agreed to pay it. In the mistaken belief that I will feel less because I have felt it before. Well, that is not how it works.

This time I am even grieving for the pain I will leave behind when I die.

 And the pain I’ll feel when the next one dies. And so on.

I wish I was a bit less complicated.

The truth is, however, that I have felt loved, and cared about, and understood. And that matters. That makes a huge difference.

And the pain is equal no matter who you lose, or how long your relationship was, or how long you knew the person or being. Loss is loss and no amount of intellectualisation seems to alter it in any way.

The wave keeps hitting you over and over  again. Sometimes when you are staring into space, sometimes when you wake in the night and can’t get back to sleep. Sometimes when someone asks if you are OK. Sometimes straight after you finish laughing at a joke.

Seemingly unrelated events spiral into pain and tears. Later replaced by routine and meals. And sometimes out of the blue the lump you swallow all day surfaces as soon as you are alone and you cry again, no end in sight. Wracking sobs that feel never-ending.

Still I regret nothing.

Still I will do it again. Still I will embark on future love that will ensure I will lose again. I am not alone, I am here and I am living,  feeling, enmeshed in the very fabric of being. And that is a good thing. That is powerful and welcome and emotion can never be a bad thing. No matter how ugly it feels at the time.

I also know from experience that it will ease, it will diminish. Every moment spent emptying that tank of pain is a moment less I have to spend feeling it. It extinguishes, and is replaced by soothing moments, experience, love and time.

It does make everything else harder and I am grateful for some time for contemplation, peace and recreation.