Into the Weeds, the Earth, into the Clouds, up in the, Skies
The Birds are, Chirping Again
Life is Here
Wait a Moment, You Too Will, Depart from this, Lawn Too
This is on death, coping with the death of a loved one, and, you have the memories of you and your adult counterpart in play on that patch of green, and, the person is no longer around, and you missed her so, and start wondering when you will, see her, once again.
How after you’d gone through all the motions of what needed to get done, the procedures, the traditions, the customs that are assigned with death, you can finally, quiet yourself down, and start, grieving for your loved ones’, deaths…translated…
“Dad’s heart stopped at 13:38.”, the head nurse used as mild and gentle tone of voice as she could, to announce my father’s, death to us, I reacted, too calmly, beyond my own, expectations, only responded to her words, simply.
That moment still came, eventually. I’d gone by protocol, dialed a few phone numbers, but after that, the head nurse’s condolences to my loss, and all the sounds from outside, all got, shut out from my, ears. Those sounds were chopped up, and incomprehensible to me then, like the voices that were ordering their foods at the breakfast shop—in existence, but not, registering.
I still brought home breakfast as I’d always, done. Took a hot shower, sorted through the stubbles on my sideburns, dressed myself up in completely black. I just wanted to be clean as I saw him, one last, final, time. Because he’d always stated, that I looked my best, when I was, clean-shaven, and in clean, clothes.
It happened on the first day of, winter. The noontime sun was extraordinarily, hot, it’d entered into my eyes, from the side of my motorcycle helmet, I’d squinted my eyes, and watched the seconds counting down from the light. Waiting by the ditch, the scent of humidity, mixed into air, made the wait seemed, even longer.
My father died in his afternoon, nap.
People say, that before people die, there would be the terminal lucidity. Those few days, he was extremely, alert and, spirited, and would talk to himself from time to time, and remembered who I am in moments too, and started sharing the scattered conversations with me then. When he was tired, he’d curled up the corners of his lips, shut his eyes in, peace.
After a few days of going through the motions, dad’s situated inside a new coffin. With the yellow cloth, with the Buddhist verses written all over it covering over his, coffin. They’d told me, “you will only be given thirty minutes to say goodbye, then we will be closing his, casket.”
So, that final good bye in our lives, is also, timed.
I looked at him. His face which was too thin that it’d ached my heart to look upon, with the morticians help, had some color back on it, like returning him back to when he was still, very healthy and well. “Sleep, my father, I love, you.”, I’d told him lightly, at the same time, I’d, thought I wanted to feel some, heat from his, icy cold, hands.
During that period of time, there’s always that recurring scene in my dreams: in a dark, and cold space, with no boundaries as I reached outward. When I woke, there was this wetness on one corner of my, pillow, and there was that invisible tiny spot on the upper left of my heart that twitched, like something got stuck in it.
On the day of the funeral, my tears flooded out. All of my believed toughness, my calm, all, crumbled down. My strong reaction was even, detected by my son, he’d asked me with his eyes reddened, “didn’t you say you weren’t going to, cry? How come you can’t stop crying now?”, I really, don’t know. It’s just, that once the wound gets ripped back open, the sorrows poured out, like that old faucet in our old home that’s, gone rusty, and can’t get shut off completely, it just, dripped, dripped, dripped endlessly, and I can’t stop it.
Later, I found a stack of yellow documents inside my father’s desk drawers, they’re all receipts from the bills sent to, mom. That part of his, never-mentioned past, it was kept locked away, so deeply, inside his, desk drawers. So, he never really actually, let go of her. And so, I started wondering: what was his love toward her then? What is hate? Those years of what he’d not told and I didn’t dare to ask, what were, they? And all of these questions are now, forever, unanswered. before we place his ashes into the towers, the white smokes from the paper money offering slowly rose in the air, spread out, then vanished into the, warm winter, sunshine. On that day, the sun was so heated it’d not felt like winter, like there’s that, unfitting to the season kind of, brightness.
After this, every time there’s the sun, I’d gone out to the balcony to look up at the skies, the blue skies, with the fluffy white, clouds, they seemed to, lift some of the weightiness, away from me, and they’d also, taken away those, thoughts of missing him I couldn’t, vocally express. I’d slowly learned to let go, and find resolves with my own, self.
To my father’s persistence that’s, genuinely stubborn, to the love he never expressed verbally to me, and to this, story that I’d finally, told, to its, end.
Losing our parents, that’s never easy, because we were raised by them, and, losing them feels like we’d lost, everything that we know to be, familiar, and it takes a long, long, long time, for us to, move on, to get over the love that’s no longer here on earth, because our parents had been, taken from, us by, death.
Helping the children grieve through the loss of a beloved, pet, this is a very important experience to the younger generations that the adults can give to them…translated…
Compared to Hurrying to Get the Children Out of the Grief from the Losses, it’s More Important that We Help the Children Learn to Grieve for the Losses of Our Pets
The deaths of pets, are usually the very first time that the children come across “loss”, and it usually come without any warnings. If a child, in this process of losing, had been well accompanied by the adults, and allowed to grieve fully, then, it wouldn’t just be a lesson in coping with her/his emotions, but also, it helps the child to learn slowly, that life ends, but love stays, intact.
I had my very first dog in my first year of middle school, I named it “Honey”, it was a white Maltese.
He only stayed at my home for five short days.
Shortly after he’d come, he’d started showing signs of health issues, we’d taken him to the vet a couple of times. By the fifth day, as I was at school, it was taken to the vet, and never came, back.
as our pets grew older…photo from online
That very weekend, as I rushed home from cram school, I’d asked my parents, “when do we go see Honey?”
“The vet said he had cramps when he was in the veterinary clinic, he died already.”
At age thirteen, I’d cried a whole of three days straight.
Then I’d told myself, I want to be a veterinarian when I grow, up.
Do Not Keep Your Children Out of Losing Your Pets
Looking back to that part of my experiences, I’d slowly come to understand, what pained me at the time, wasn’t just that I’d lost my dog, but how that loss came so, suddenly. I didn’t even have the time to comprehend what had happened, nor time to prepare myself, not gotten the chance to say goodbye to him.
As I’d begun working in the hospice for animals as an adult, I kept seeing how the adults, in order to protect their young from the experiences of loss, they’d kept the children away, not allowing them to go with their pets through their final passages of, life. But to the children, what’s hard wasn’t the “understanding” of death, but before the children realized what was happening, everything already, ended.
As the children are, passive in only knowing the end results, what they’d experienced, wasn’t just the loss, but, there’s that sort of a sudden snap breakage. And therefore, compared to “how to tell” the children, the more important is to allow your young to be present in the process. If your pets are still alive, then, take your children to experience the pets death, in the means, the ways that the children can, handle, for instance, explaining to them, what is to be done, to have them share the responsibilities of caring for the pets, or allowing them to stay by their pets’ sides. Then, the loss wouldn’t come to a dead halt, but a process that the children can pass through completely.
Most of the children don’t instinctively fear death, they’d learned from the adults’ responses toward death: this is something horrible, or natural. Death is too abstract a concept for children to understand, this is different from adults. If we use “they’re asleep now”, or “they left already”, “they’d graduated out of life”, the children may use their own knowledge of experiences, and connect it with what they understood what those terms mean, and this will more than likely cause them to have confusions, which will cause them to develop anxieties and/or fears.
letting the children know that it’s okay to feel sadness and loss when the pets die…photo from online
Using the simple but straightforward explanation, for instance, “he’s dead”, it may help the children better understanding. At the same time, you need to let your children know, that death means that the pets won’t come back again.
Do be clear in telling your children, “it’s not your fault that our pets got ill or died”, because they are more prone to connect the cause and effects on their own, from which, the unnecessary guilty will stem out. So, don’t confuse death or socialization or behaviors for them, like “because you were bad, that’s why he got sick”, this may work for the temporary outlet of the emotions, but it may cause the children to feel, “because I’m bad, that’s why the pets died”, a sort of an understanding of the, self.
Allowing Your Young to Participate Through the Whole Process of Your Pets Dying, & Accompany Your Children Through the Entire Experiences of Grief, of Loss
Some children may need to cry a very long time, some gets distracted by play and quickly get over the deaths of the pets, and may remember the deaths of their pets in a few days’ time. It’s not that they didn’t care, but because they’re using their own ways to, grieve. Some children would ask repeatedly, “where did s/he go?”, “When is s/he coming back?”, it doesn’t mean that they don’t understand death yet, but they are using their own ways, to slowly work through this loss step by step.
When the child is upset, we can try to just stay with them, and empathize with our young, “you miss her/him, don’t you? It’s okay if you cry.”
Sometimes, when death came too suddenly, we as adults were too, unprepared, let alone, inviting our children to grieve with us. Under those situations, what we can do, is to take care of ourselves first—because we may also be in shock and grieving in the moment.
Then, after it happened, we take our children along, to slowly, complete this, finality of, life.
If it is allowed, we should allow the kids to hold the pets, pat it, say their goodbye to the pets.
For children, they can use art, or cards; for the adolescents, sorting through the photos, or participate, and to get them to be a part of the ritualistic after the pets’ deaths, all of these will help them express and experience their grief fully.
This isn’t just for the sake of memorializing, but also, helping the children grieve and to settle their connections with their pets. Compared to rushing the kids out of their sorrows, the more important may be to help them walk through this loss well.
We may not know what we’re supposed to say, nor would we handle everything “correctly”.
But maybe, compared to handling it perfectly, it’s more important for us to be right there with our children, to experience this loss together.
When the grief is allowed, seen and, acknowledged. It will not be experienced alone, but a shared experience.
And so, this is how, we should NOT shelter our children from losses, instead we should GUIDE them to experience these, losses, especially when the kids are the “primary owners” of these pets (b/c they asked us to buy or to adopt them???), and if you tried to keep your kids from experiencing these passages of life, because you think they’re too young to live through all of that, then you’d be, depriving them of the experience of life AND death, and that will lead to them being, maladapted to death, and chances are, by keeping them from experience death, they will be unable to handle it when what they love die in the futures, and that will make them even more, maladaptive. So, do NOT think, that you’re, saving your children from the griefs, they NEED to learn to grieve, in order to become, emotionally, mature!
How she’d worked so hard, raised a son, who became successful in what he does for work, and, she’d lost him to, cancer, because he couldn’t stop his stress-smoking habits! How fate deal this woman a bad hand, and now, she, grieves…translated…
Every autumn, when the news reports reminded how the maple leaves are red like the flames, I’d always, remembered an, old, friend. Her familiar, radiant smiles, I also can’t, erase how distraught, how frail she’d looked the last time I saw, her, with tears streaming down her cheek, the sorrows of a, mother’s.
This single mother who had been divorced, has only one, wish: for her own son to find, happiness, that was what drove her to work her hands to the, bones.
She is very glad, that her son is very understanding, very kind, hard working, studious; she’d been, especially proud of how his professor recommended him to go to Japan to work, after he’d earned his, master’s degree, or maybe, it’s, safe to say, that this young lad who’s achieving all he can, working hard, climbing his own ladder to, success, was what all parents, can ask, for.
It’s just, that the only regret the mother had was, this young man, in his first year of high school, was introduced to smoking by his best friend, and hadn’t stopped smoking since. As she’d consoled with him gently repeatedly, to taking him to the clinics to find a way to get him to quit smoking…………she’d tried everything, and everything had, failed. She’d stayed firm, in this, battle with the stubborn habit, and ultimately, she’d, ended up, losing the, fight.
what she’d made the wishes for her son, on…photo from online
And then, that year, as the maples turned red, my friend went to Japan to visit her son, he was at the most stressful time in working on his thesis then, she saw him with cigarettes in hand, smoking one right after another and another, and another due to the pressures from completing his thesis, because she’d heard that the wishing stones of Fushimi Inari Taisha is efficacious, despite how she didn’t speak a word of, Japanese, she’d gone to the shrine, made three wishes for her son:
First, for him to earn his doctoral degree.
Have a blissful married life with a happy family.
And finally, for him to quit smoking successfully.
His son eventually fulfilled the mother’s first two, wishes, found himself a woman to marry, and had twins, after he successfully earned his degree and found himself a high-paying job. Everything was set.
But, right at age thirty-nine, when his twins turned five, his wife is pregnant again, with his future aglow, too bright, he was on the way to a higher position in work, the son started showing symptoms of coughing, wheezing, short of breath, and started coughing up blood, and ultimately he went in for an oncology exams, and it was, lung cancer, in the terminal stage, it can’t be treated!
Shock, sorrows, chaos………hit this, originally blissful household, like a huge tidal wave, swallowed everything, drowned everything, in.
In less than a year’s time, all the happiness, the blessings, the serenity of the family, hope too, all was, destroyed. It’d left my friend, completely, ruined, other than not knowing how to deal with this, it also made us, all of her friends, not known how to, console with her, how to, help ease her, pains.
To this day, I still remembered, how my friend suddenly had twenty years added onto her, she’d started, ranting, holding on to the urn with her own son’s ashes:
“If he didn’t fall ill with cancer, if he…if…he………”
And, I’d never seen this friend, since.
Don’t know where she’d gone, or, how she is now?
And, as I’d, thought of how every younger generation who’d died like this young lad had, with the parents, and children and wife, it’d brought me to, tears every single time.
The world is constantly changing, too fast too, there’s no way of knowing what tomorrow will, bring! To have a full life seemed to be, that, impossible wish to, fulfill!
And so, this, is how life can be gone in a, split second, granted, this son’s smoking habits, had a lot to do with him dying of lung cancer so young, and, maybe, if he’d quit, if he’d stopped smoking, then, things could’ve turned out, differently, but there’s no second chances, nor, do-overs in our, lives.
Moving on with life, after losing someone who’s, a significant other to us, the days, they dragged, on, but it’s still, going, on, until fate’s done with us, too…translated…
Do You Know, that You’d, Endowed Me with a, Gift?
I Can Precisely Predict, Who
I Shall Never Meet up Again
In This, Lifetime——————
No Need to Intentionally Lose Touch
Everything Will Happen, as It’s, Supposed, to
In the Current Day, the Internet Age
Losing Contact is Nothing More than, a Lie
The Truth is Not Wanting to Get Back in Touch—Since You’d Left
those who were, survived…left in grief, over their loved ones who’d been, lost…photo from online
I’d Often, Run Toward the High Places of the Open Spaces
Casting My Sight Toward the Ends of the Skies, Imagined that I Could Actually See You
On that Whitened, Horizon—but Of Course
I Know, that I Can’t
I Knew Well, that I Got My Final Look of You on that, Day—
And Ever Since, I’d Been, Gifted with This, Talent
To Have the Light from the Fates, Shine Down on My, Desolate, Nights
A Moment that Came, I’d Even, Come to Understand, that Since You’d Left
This is the Start of the First Day of the Rest of My, Life
The Days Won’t be Long
But I Still Have to, Live Out all the Days of Joys, of Sorrows I’m, Allotted
So, this is, how it is, being the one, left behind, in the world, when we lose our significant other in our lives (i.e. a spouse, a life partner), it’s never easy, but, we are still, here (on earth), and we must, try our best, to get on with the rest of our lives, knowing, that fate has plans for us, that we’re still here, because there are still what we need to finish, but hadn’t, yet…
No need to grieve, because she had no regrets, she’d done everything she should, to help her husband live in the best way possible before he passed…and there’s nothing wrong with not grieving, “properly” (with the TEARS, the SCREAMS, the pulling our hairs out in pain!)…after all, we all grieve in our own ways, in our own, times…translated…
The article written by Chung on November 14th, “The Year After I Lost My Wife”, it’d reminded me of my friend, Ku.
Ku is the wife of a physician, her better half, Dr. Chen had been married before her, all of his children are grown. Ku didn’t have children of her own, her marriage seemed, simple, enough, but Dr. Chen’s children had been prejudiced against her since the start, they’d believed, that she’d looked after him so well, all of the sake of his properties and assets; even though they don’t live together, the children still mocked her in all of the family gatherings, while her husband, toward all of the mistreatments she’d suffered, only told her lightly after the get-togethers: “You’re more mature, don’t keep the scores with the younger, generations, if you can, use humor against their disrespect toward, you.” Then, he’d started lecturing about how the greats, the world renowned would handle her situation, forgetting, that Ku is, a mere, mortal woman.
In recent years, Dr. Chen became demented, and had to close down the clinic he owned, while Ku, who’d become his primary caretaker, with an awkward position in his, family, her hard work to appease to her stepchildren, and they see her as a gold digger, along with the hardships from taking care of Dr. Chen in his, dementia, it’d made her, suffered hard.
At the start of this year, Dr. Chen passed away. On the return home from reciting the Buddhist blessings, Ku thought about how she would no longer need to entangle herself with Chen’s children, she’d no longer needed to care for him hand and foot……………she’d gone to a restaurant, treated herself out to a grand meal, then, checked into a high-end hotel for the night; she’d not cried, instead, she’d slept, better than before. She’d told, “I’d done everything I should for him, and now, the burdens are completely, lifted from me, do I not deserve a break? I’m only doing, something that a lot of women want to do, but don’t have the guts to, or that they don’t feel right doing.”
Since the passing of Dr. Chen, I’d found that Ku became a better version of her own, self, she’d remodeled her home to the way she likes it, learned the Zentangle, I-Ching, and she’d begun, bringing that old dog that’d been kept in the yards, into the house, to make up for the years of him, having to, sleep outside—because Dr. Chen is allergic to dog hair, and when his children comes home, they’d feared that the dog would injure their, young children. Later, Ku mocked, “those of you with young children in your homes, don’t have dogs, it is bad for the, dogs!”
There were those who knew them that criticized that Ku never loved Dr. Chen, otherwise, how come she isn’t, grieving over his, death? She’d asked in return: does she need to hold tight to his photograph and cry like hell everyday for her love to, show? Living her life well, so Dr. Chen wouldn’t have to worry about her anymore, is that not, love too?
I’m supportive of Ku’s beliefs, when the people we love are still alive, we do all we can, loving them wholeheartedly, and when they’re gone, we don’t melt down, no regrets, grateful to the deceased, for their company of us, then, with those who survived, leaving the rest of their lives well, the dead and the living, both at peace with each other, that, is the true and healthy form of, the expressions of, love.
And so, because this woman whose husband died, did all she could, to ensure he was well cared for, that’s why she didn’t cry, and, she refused to allow the outside opinions of how she experience the grief from losing her husband to get to her, and that takes, a ton of, strengths from within, and now, she’s begin that new chapter in her life, without him, living her life, enriched.
On grief counseling, how we need to work through the issues ourselves FIRST, before we can be of use to anyone,, else…off of the Front Page Sections, translated…
The medical professional of hospice care and physician, Hsieh points out, that grief, is like “solitude” that is trending in discussion in the community these past few years, something that’s not viewed as an important subject, that’s become, every day. Grief is a common experience of humans, that can’t get resolved by the medical care systems, but, cared for and carried by the community supportive networks.
She believes, everybody should get to know grief, learn how to socialize with someone who’s been through grief. This doesn’t require any training in grief counseling, but can be reinforced through empathy and understanding loss.
To become a good grief companion, we need to get to know our own griefs first, become tentative of our responses in the day-to-day encounters of loss, understand how we handle grief, to set up one’s own “grief care systems”, some of us need to be left alone, others need listeners, some may need the companionship of pets, for some, being around nature helps, first, know our selves, then we will be able to, detect the status of, others.
Following, the acceptance of grief wholly is vital, when the individual keeps on repeating the same things, cussing out the deceased, or hide for three days without contact, you need to help the person grieving feel, that everything s/he is doing is, accepted, and shouldn’t use “it’s for your own good” in attempt to get the person to stop the specific behaviors.
Lin, as a nurse in hospice care, because of her high empathetic skills, she often feels the grief of the family members, she’d stated clearly, that as a professional terminal care nurse, knowing one’s own grief is the hardest and first step.
She’d set up two “grief care modes” for herself, first, finding someone she felt safe with to disclose, second, reading books on related subject to help herself find comfort in her own grief. She believes, that everybody handles grief differently, that other than improving in self-care from knowing how one grieves, when one day, you need someone else’s companionships, you can tell the person what it is that you need from them.
And so, this is still on knowing our own selves in our own griefs first, before we can do anything about it, working through the processes, healing ourselves up. We must first, know our own, tendencies, of what triggers our griefs, something we aren’t aware of, that reminded us of the person we’d lost or whatever, and once we can pinpoint these triggers, we will get better and grieving for the losses more, and slowly, we heal from what we’d, lost.
From an outsider’s perspectives, how he could, take a more objective perspective in interpreting how his friend lost her, mother…translated…
My friend told me, that her centurion mother had died, and the news came without any warning beforehand, it’d, shocked me.
A couple of years back because of the pandemic, I’d not had the opportunity to visit my best friend’s mother personally, but using the video chats, still saw her very agile, laughing loud. She could still recognize me then, and can, call out my name without anyone hinting her, and could tell the events of goings on of the days, although she’s very slimmed down, with a hunched back she’s still, very physically, agile and healthy then, her mind was still sharp, rarely used her health insurance card. It’s truly rare that an elderly is like her, and I’d felt that time had opened up the brand new opportunities for this elder in her life.
Life eventually comes to, an, end, it’d been told, that since we were born, we are, marching toward, death. This is a fact, life is, a journey from life to, death, it’s just the lengthiness of our journeys being, different is all, the wideness being different for all. My friend’s father passed away when she was very young, her mother raised her children to adulthood, and had more than her shares of the ups and downs of life, but she’d held that heart of gratitude, cherished her blessings, never blamed her troubles on anyone or anything, and her optimism, her knowing her own fate had, reflected on her health too, she’d passed through a life of, rarely any, major, illnesses.
the death of her mother…photo from online
My friend who stayed single felt her mother worked hard her whole, life, so she’d filed for early retirement to be with her mother, to stay with her as her mother aged, her younger siblings left their mother in her care, and stopped showing the needed concerns to their aging mother. My friend felt some regrets, other than the fact she couldn’t change the minds of her siblings, she can only, use her abilities, to help make the times she’d spent with her mother filled with more joys. And yet, an unexpected cold, it’d sent her mother into the I.C.U., and in one short week, her mother, passed.
My friend couldn’t accept this, she’d planned the funeral based off of the traditions in her grief, hoped to use the ritualistic to express the thoughtfulness of how she’d loved her mother, but the other siblings, they either didn’t have the mind for the funerals, or just, don’t want to make the time, they couldn’t, comply with the scheduling of their mother’s funeral which my friend was planning, and this caused my friend the upsets, and believed that she was way more grief-struck over her mother’s death than the rest of her siblings were. The montage played on her mother’s funeral, it’d stayed at the scene where my friend asked her mother who old she was, “a hundred!”, her mother lifted her head, smiled and answered. As a bystander, I’d felt, that her mother’s life is, fulfilled, she’d walked through a whole century, without any major illnesses, her life is full, without any, regrets, and the loss is inevitable, but the grief is damaging to my friend’s health, and it’d, swallowed her judgment on things, if due to her mother’s death, she’d started interacting with her siblings badly, I’m sure, this wasn’t what her mother who’s now in heaven wanted for her, young.
Everybody has her/his own ways of grieving, and you can’t weigh in on the amount of grief that’s, experienced, besides, we can’t, quantify grief anyway. I hope, that time can heal my friend slowly, to get her out of the losses of her mother soon, feeling that her mother’s life is fulfilled, having lived until a hundred years of age, and remember the love, and honoring her mother’s legacy, this is, more meaningful form of, grieving for her mother’s, death.
This is, from an outsider’s perspectives, of seeing how someone had lost her mother, and the grief she’s experiencing, and this man can say this, because he is on the outside, not directly involved in losing his parent, because from the outside looking in, we always see things clearly, all the angles, but when you’re stuck on the inside, you can’t see anything but your own, grief, and these losses takes time to get over.
Because you need to work through ALL five stages of Kubler-Ross, in order to, “get better”, psychologically? How she’s only begun, slowly, recovering from the lost of her, husband, and she’s still not done with grief yet…off of the Front Page Sections, translated…
The famous man of culture, Wang died from myocardial infarction at the end of June when he drove his car out, it’d shocked the cultural forum as the readers too. Wang, his partner was the one who found him missing, and discovered him by the side of the road. She’d stayed closed to him on the passage, rubbed his hand, called him to come back home, he’d drooped his face, didn’t, respond. Wang, his partner told, “my heart ached so hard it’d shattered into, pieces then”.
Five years ago Wang who’s mild-tempered, careful, and thorough started dating the agile, outgoing, relying on instinct, Wang, he’d moved from Tainan, to the house underneath the Dulan Mountains, the two planted trees, raised their cats and dogs, created together, held conversations, shared their, lives together.
His partner, Wang who’d spent most of her life, drifting to and from places, feeling displaced, for the first time she’d felt at home with him, thought that they will last a long time together. But after that day, the happiness came to, a dead, halt.
Losing Her Partner, Wang, Wang Started with the Heart-Wrenching Pains, to Now, Having the Strengths to Cope, She’d Learned to Cohabit with Her Own, Grief
Losing the love of her life, grief doesn’t describe how she’d, felt, because it was a more, complicated, feeling.
At first, Wang was in, disbelief, the man she was just holding conversations with in the morning, is dead in the, afternoon. At the location where he was found dead, at the ceremonies a week after his passing, even at his, funeral, she’d felt, in a daze, she’d often felt, that he was only gone to get the milk from the store, and will return later. Up until recently, she’d still, felt a bit, unreal, as she got up in the morn, she’d begun searching for him, it took her awhile, to remember, that Wang is, no longer, here. There was the anguish she’d felt, she felt angry at him, for not keeping his, promise, leaving her, behind, angry at herself, for not going with him on the, day.
Losing the Love of Her Life, Her Body & Mind Couldn’t Handle the Grief
What she’d felt more, was trauma. The first three months, she always felt dizzy, nauseated, couldn’t speak, and felt that the world was, spinning around her, that she’d lost control of her, body. She’d felt it, “I’m not completely, here”, there was a part of her that’s in so much grief, that the part left her, body.
She’d carried through her days, and, tried hard to fulfill the requirements of her workday, and, her body, her mind crashed, her good friend told her, “losing your love so abruptly, it’s life’s way of telling you to, stop everything, to invite you to, face this, major, loss. There’s nothing harder, more important, than this, death you’d felt the losses for.””
the stages, explained, video from YouTube, based off of the Kubler-Ross Model
Wang who always worked her hardest to reach the goals she set suddenly realized, that she had the options of “not fulfilling the pact that I’d agreed to fulfill”, she’d taken the reminder of her good friend, admitted that she couldn’t handle what had happened in her life, she’d stopped, making herself get better soon, and just, started living on a day-to-day basis, started the discussion of work with the publishers again, and, making the spare time, to mourn, to feel the loss, to deal with this major change that’s come to her, in, life.
At the same time, she’d, accepted herself in her own, sorrows, she’d told her self that didn’t want to return back, “that’s okay, you just, stay there as long as, you need”. It was odd, as she’d, accepted that part of her that didn’t want to, return, a little over a week later, she’d felt that “it” had, returned back. “Truth be told, before I accepted it completely, two weeks ago (the first half of October), I’d driven the car into a ditch, and called the tow.”
And now, Wang feels that “the whole of her” is inside. She’d felt, that she didn’t need to, displace a part of her self, to cope with the, loss, that she gained some strengths, to handle the grief better as a whole.
She still feels sad, but, it wasn’t like from the beginning, drowning her alive, the grief became a new part of her current, life, the way of life, and she didn’t need to heal it specially, just, allow herself to feel it, to coexist, with, it.
And, this is still, just the beginning experiences of this woman’s grief, from losing her, life partner, and, at least, she’s done with this part, for now, and, maybe, she will break down again, she just needs to, allow her self to experience the grief as it came to her, and, she will, eventually, heal up completely, and, be able to, find love again, maybe.
It’s never easy, losing that significant other in our lives, especially when we’d, relied on the person for emotional/psychological support for a long, long time. And, at the beginning from when we lose these individuals, we may feel the emotional meltdowns when we go to places we once used to go together, and, the sorrows attack, and we don’t need to ask why, but simply, allow ourselves, to grief.
And eventually, we will, go through our entire days, without thinking about that specific person, and, when we realized that hey, I didn’t think about whoever for an entire day, and I feel, okay now, finally.
Then, congrats, you’d, fully, GRIEVED. But until then EXPECT the mental meltdowns, to hit you, any time anywhere, because, you do NOT know what triggers these, grief responses, and there’s no way of singling out the stimuli, to avoid them either.
The scattered pieces of my, utopia, they’re lost, and won’t ever be, found, ‘cuz you’re, gone…
The scattered pieces of my, utopia, I thought I’d found heaven and love, and it actually, wasn’t. I didn’t know what I was, searching for, until it’d, HIT me in the face, and it’d, hurt!!!
what it was from, before…image from online, so ideally, beautiful…image from online
The scattered pieces of my, utopia, life’s, broken completely, everything’s, no longer, together, my world fell, apart. I’d forgotten how to smile, to laugh.
The scattered pieces of my, utopia, I’d forced myself, to pick up these, jagged, broken parts that seared through my flesh, making me bleed, to remember, how it was before, or how something so good ended up, hurting me so bad, I really couldn’t, tell.
I’d scattered these pieces of my, utopia, allowed the storms to wash it all away, the waves to swallow everything down, and I’d, left it, for good.
and, look at it now! Totaled!!! Illustration from online
My utopia no longer, existed, so why would I need to, hang on to it so tightly???
Mirroring the World 
You must be logged in to post a comment.