I'm gonna walk through this.
If you know me from real-reality (as opposed to virtual reality, i.e. - this blog), then you may already know that my older brother died in September. I'm going to blog about it. In pieces. Somewhat slowly. Because I want to take my time.
I titled this post before I wrote it. The title captures, for me, how I feel about this time in my life as I'm learning what grief really means for me and how to go about dealing with it. I'm walking through it. Not running, not crawling, not sitting still. I feel like I'm moving at a measured pace - I guess this is what has always been meant by "taking it day by day."
"Walking through" in this case also means I feel cautious. When you lose something so huge and so precious as the whole life of someone you loved deeply, I don't see how it wouldn't lead you to proceed with caution for a while. Like suddenly each step needs to have weight tested out carefully before you're willing to place your foot down and trust it to hold you. Because, my God, just a second ago - just a week ago - just a couple of months ago - not that long ago - you stepped out and fell straight through the floor. That's what my brother's death felt like. That and a hundred other analogies for the hard-packed punch of pain, loss, shock, and more pain.
So caution develops overnight where once I may have boldly stepped, skipped, sauntered or even swaggered. I say "caution" and not "fear" because... well, partly because I don't want to feel fearful. But also because a sense of caution is borne of experience. Fear, however, is more often borne from uncertainty of the unknown - it's distressing. Fear accompanies threats both real and imagined; caution is an alertness to an actual hazardous situation. I've come to understand the hazardous-ness of my world in a new way, and in response to this new knowledge I am proceeding with caution.
With the death of my brother, I have lost very much. I have lost his presence, his future, his personhood and tangible existence. These cannot be quantified in any measurable amount. I have also lost some of my innocence. Some of the insulation bubbled around me absorbing the spikier, sharper edges of the world has broken open. I'm wounded by what broke through that wall.
It's hard not to think of my hurt and pain without relying on terms from the medical field. I feel like I'm: wounded, bleeding, traumatized, needing intensive care, etc. At the same time, I could also say I'm: in shock, dazed, sedated, bed-ridden. The only disconnect with my life and these descriptions is that no part of my malady is physical. The hurt is all in my heart instead.
Plunging toward the core of all of my experiences in grieving, I've come up with these things so far. I just hope for a couple of things. One: that someone might read this and be helped somehow in their experiences too. Maybe not even right now, maybe sometime later on in life. Certainly as one who is grieving I don't wish for anyone to go through horrific loss and pain. But death comes to our door uninvited. We can't change that, so we might as well help each other with the aftermath of its visits. And two: I hope to reassure folks and give them hope that tragedy can strike us and we can walk through it to find whatever is waiting on the other side. I'm hoping to keep writing about what I find as I walk.
posted by Whitney at 2:12 AM
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