On Grief

I’ve never known a grief like this. 
My father died suddenly in early January.
The grief, pain, and sadness are unlike anything I’ve experienced before.
The mere shock of the event was enough to send my system into a different state.

I was on the phone with my mom when it was confirmed that they were pronouncing my dad dead, the EMTs would make no more efforts to revive him. Strangely, in that moment I remember being acutely present to and aware of the shape of my mouth and how it felt. I can still recall the strange twist of my lips across my teeth as this gut wrenching “Noooooooo!!!!!” poured out of me.

Then it felt as if all I could do was wail and sob. My heart ached with an actual physical pain.

I was on vacation and felt farther than ever from my mom and brother.

Those first couple of days when I was away in Sedona, Arizona, being beautifully held by my husband and our two friends, we went outside as often as possible. It was as if nature was the only respite I could experience; the only place I could breathe. I also did a lot of screaming those first couple days – and thankfully the remote and energetically charged hills outside of Sedona are a great place to do that. I poured my grief out through screams, moans, and wailing. I know that helped my early on grief move through me more smoothly.

Although I forced myself to get outside nearly every single day and do some type of walk, it was a week before I did my own yoga practice. Walking in nature nurtured my soul; it was like a salve for a badly wounded heart. It was the only thing I could do that resembled some form of self-care. When I finally dragged my emotionally beleaguered body to my yoga mat it felt like a disaster. My whole body ached. I barely wanted to move, yet I kept going through the motions – one sun salutation after another. Somehow my body led the way, as if prepared for this moment by all the years of practice I had put in prior to this day.

During that first week after his death I could barely eat. I subsisted on chocolate covered ginger, which both soothed my aching belly and gave me some quick energy to get through each day. In weeks two through four after his passing I noticed that I barely had a taste for any food. I couldn’t finish a single cup of coffee before it tasted horrible to me. Same with wine. Two pleasures I enjoyed immensely before now revolted me. Even food, which I normally love, no longer did anything to excite my senses; I was eating merely for survival. There was no pleasure or joy in eating any more.

I also often had a horrible taste in my mouth, one that wasn’t even alleviated with toothpaste. Eating good food, something which used to give me such joy, now felt not only like a chore, but completely turned me off. I don’t know if this is actually attributed to the grief, but I do know I had never experienced anything else like it. It is still present for me several times a week – this lack of desire for food or the bad taste in my mouth no matter what I eat – even now, six plus weeks after his death.

After the first week of waking up crying every day and sobbing myself to sleep at night, I moved into a different phase, one that felt like each day was an immense effort to move through. For the next couple weeks I felt like I was dragging myself everywhere I went and all I wanted to do was stay in bed or sit on the couch. The sense of energetic and emotional heaviness felt like an elephant sitting on top of me. I could walk only because I had over four and half decades of practice of walking. My legs felt as thick as elephant legs, energetically.
From that place it became easier and easier to get up each day; however, there is still a sense of dreariness about my life. Somehow everything feels dimmer, less bright, sort of meh. Most days I feel as if I would never return to my former sparkly, shiny, happy self. My wise mind and true Self tell me differently, but their voices feel soft and distant. The heaviness, low energy, and flatness feel like they’re screaming at me; they are all too present. 

The other, slightly subtler feeling I notice now is a low-grade resistance to feeling joy. I can’t fully articulate it more than that nor can I fully explain why, but somehow there feels to be this sense that if I am happy then I’m no longer sad that my dad is gone, or perhaps no longer honoring him. Or maybe I just don’t yet trust that the joy will come back, and the idea of joy feels so foreign to me now. 

Lastly, since this happened, I have had apprehension, trepidation, or sometimes downright fear about doing something again, for the first time. Like the evening I got together with a group of girlfriends, (something I used to do regularly), for the first time since his passing, I was very nervous. I was afraid I would have an experience I wouldn’t be able to control, and this was scary. It had nothing to do with the beautiful women I was going to see – they are lovely and very emotionally supportive. The same thing happened the first time I went out of town, the first time I went dancing, the first time I met a new person, the first time I went to a public yoga class. On and on and on.

While I’m not sure how I will emerge from this acute grieving process, there are a few things I do know for sure. 

By both necessity and by practice I’ve become much, much better at receiving. While I thought I had strengthened my receiving muscles quite well over the past few years, they have developed a whole new tone as a result of this experience. From the mere act of needing others to cook for me in order to eat throughout the day, to receiving gifts of time, food, cleaning, and other support, I have leaned deeply into others through these past several weeks. 

Second, If I ever doubted before that I had a community of people who loved me, that doubt has been shattered, sent to the winds beyond. The outpouring of love and support in all forms has been truly amazing. People I hadn’t seen in more than a year came to the memorial service. Others offered to bring food to my husband since I was staying most nights with my mom in Tacoma and not at home. Other friends ran errands for our family or brought food to my mom’s house, almost daily in the beginning. Still others helped encourage me as I wrote my dad’s obituary and eulogy. Family members came in from outside the US and my dad’s students came from across the country. They held space for my sad and struggling family while we were in the depths of despair. I received so many phone calls, text messages, emails, letters and more – some continue to this day, checking in on me through this varied grief process. 

I could not have known before how much this was all needed or how much it would mean to me, but I know now what it means to feel held by a community of family and friends. It is SUCH a gift and such a show of love. I see now so clearly how love is an action word. Part of my grieving has been isolation – after the initial outpouring of connection and support started to slow and everyone started to get back to “normal life”, I found myself still not wanting to be as social as I used to. And yet I know I’m not supposed to “do this alone”. The receiving for me comes strongly still in the form of saying yes to friends who reach out for connection, reach out to talk or get together, and reach out when I’m not doing so.

Finally, I’ve dug deeply into the practice of self-kindness and self-love. I’ve found that in order to get through each day I have to be exquisitely kind and gentle with myself. The few times I have not been so kind or not accepted myself right where I was, I stumbled more deeply into despair, struggled in my most intimate relationships, and slipped into unhealthy behaviors. When I treat myself with love and compassion, I am able to see the bigger picture of life and how I’m a part of it, connected with everyone else on this planet. A spiritual being having a very human experience. That is a comforting feeling.