Tonight's picture was taken in May of 2005. This was a typical sighting in our home.... Mattie LOVED trains. Actually Mattie loved all sorts of locomotion. I remember when I was teaching human development in graduate school, we would always debate in class whether children gravitated to certain toys and activities, based on nature versus nurtured. I learned first hand from Mattie, that nature ruled over nurture! Mattie taught me the art of playing with vehicles, building with blocks, Legos, and tinker toys. These were things I did not gravitate to as a child, but I rose to the occasion with Mattie. If it interested him, it interested me!
Quote of the day: Hearts can break. Yes, hearts can break. Sometimes I think it would be better if we died when they did, but we don't. ~ Stephen King
We have been dealing with torrential rains the past few days in Northern Virginia. Given my previous experiences with this house, rain triggers a fear response. Shortly after we first moved into this house in 2021, I heard Peter screaming for me at 2am. I jolted out of bed to find him in the basement. He was trying to hold back the ocean, as rain was coming in through the basement door and by the time I got there, it appeared that we had about on inch of water! Literally we worked for about four hours removing all the water, drying the entire floor, walls, and baseboards. We then had fans going all over and sprayed Lysol for days. Because we addressed the water as it was coming in, we lucked out. We did not get water damage or mold. After that fiasco, we replaced the basement doors, to make them more water tight. We also fixed the outside drain by the door.
Nonetheless, when it rains, it is vital to make sure that the drain is clear and not blocked by leaves or other debris that may collect around the drain. Thank goodness I had the where with all to check the drain yesterday! By the time I got downstairs, water was up to the bottom of the door frame. I quickly put on a rain coat and gloves and scooped up leaves and debris. I actually had to do it twice last night because of the deluge of rain. Now everything is far more daunting for me because I am facing everything alone. My parents maybe living with me, but they are incapable of solving problems and physically are unable to manage a solution. This alone puts an inordinate amount of stress on my daily existence.
I have been reading a book about ambiguous grief. Which is basically grief one experiences when a loved one is disengaged with you but is still alive. It is most definitely a different kind of grief, because your mind keeps rewinding, reviewing, and searching for explanations for this disengagement. Because the person you love is still alive, the griever lives with something that we usually associate with something positive, hope. The problem with hope is that it makes you circle around in bargaining, anger, and depression. Naturally there is NO hope for a griever whose loved one died. With death there is finality, there is no hope that this person is coming back to you. In any case, as I have been plugging away with this book, I was getting frustrated. Those of you who know me, know I do not do well with prescriptive information, how to's, and most definitely I do not relate to people telling me their story in hopes of pigeon holing me into their strategies for healing. In fact when I sense this is coming, I tune out. This book had me practically at this point, until I read today's chapter.
She was able to put into words several of my feelings, one of which is "it's one pain to lose the future you thought you had in front of you, but it is another pain entirely to lose the past you thought you had lived." As I always say, I lost my past, I lost my future, and my present is horrific. So what's the point!? Most of us are quite certain of our pasts, our history. The experiences, thoughts, feelings, and people who helped shape who we are today. What happens when that comes into question? Without a past, there is NO solid ground for the present or the future. Any case, I have been feeling this way for months, which is unsettling, and what I was reading today is this is definitely what other ambiguous grievers experience and feel. It is very disorienting, makes you feel desperate for validation and to find meaning.
I suppose the key to survival is learning to become accustomed to this uneasiness, realize it is very normal, and try to find a way to live each day with this grief. That is easier said than done, trust me. On any given day, I can feel like I am going crazy, to I am ready to jump out of my skin, or that I am 100% exhausted.
Three things I am grateful for:
- The basement did not flood!
- Friends who check in and care about me.
- Picking up a yard filled with sticks. It gets me outside, moving, and allows me to unplug from my thoughts and feelings.
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