Fear

Fear is a part of my grief that has always confused me. I can’t exactly say what I’m afraid of or how I expect to deal with that fear. It’s just there, like the sadness. Lately, the sadness and fear and every other emotion has been horrible. I spent an hour sitting on my bed staring into space yesterday. The loss of Andy absolutely consumed me– I didn’t even realize an hour had passed. It’s a dark time. I don’t feel like doing anything. I don’t have the energy to do anything. But, school and work and general life carry on all around me. I have to at least *pretend* to be a part of it.

Perhaps the fear comes from the remnants of shock. I’ve been trying to put this into words, but I just can’t quite find them. It seems impossible to survive the loss of my child. I realize I’m doing that every minute of every day, but it just seems impossible that a mother could look at this loss and keep on breathing. It’s almost like I’m surprised that my body can function with Andy gone.

I’m digging myself out of another dark time, and the fear might come from that as well. There’s a fear of the knowledge that I’ll have times like this for the rest of my life. There’s also a fear that I *won’t* have times like this, that Andy’s life and his death will stop making such an impact on me. I know that isn’t true, but it lingers in the back of my mind. Today I just feel like razors are slicing at me from all directions, inside and out, and I want nothing more than to cover my head and wait for this constant night to pass.

An Absent Presence

I’ve not been posting often lately.  Work is consuming most of my waking hours.  For the past few days, though, Andy has filled the rest.

Once again, my thoughts have turned to the darker part of grief.  I feel more and more like falling apart these days.  Maybe it’s the oncoming holiday season, which is so difficult for so many of it.  Maybe it’s the change of seasons from Summer to Autumn, a time when the beauty of the leaves makes you forget their changing colours and falling from the trees only points to the fact that they are dying.

My anticipation towards the 3rd anniversary of Andy’s death is also digging at me.  I’m afraid of it.  I’m afraid that this will be the year I truly crack up and find myself wandering the halls of psychiatric hospital until the days return to that tolerable semi-normal we all live with.

Grief is frightening in its intensity and the length of time it stays close by.

Depression Creeps In

I haven’t been writing in this blog faithfully lately.  I’m running from my own grief and internalising things, which only leads to depression.  Andy’s birthday is a week from today.  Mothering Sunday just passed.  It’s too much at once.

How do you deal with those times when the grief and all that it brings along are so heavy you feel like you’re collapsing under the weight of it all?  Some days I truly find it hard to even stand.  The grief is as physically heavy as it is mentally.