Grief

Grief is a tricky beast.  I'm not sure I even want to try to describe it, but I'm sitting here typing so there must be something inside this writer's soul that needs to work it's way out.  Is describing grief like mixing oil and water?  Because oil and water can not be mixed.

A few weeks ago, my personal D-day actually, I was at a Pot Luck.  Chuck and I had been pretty excited about it.  I was in the kitchen of a friend's house mixing up the dressing for the Oriental Salad I was going to serve.  Since we don't own a salad dressing shaker (what the heck would that be called anyway?), I always use our Margarita  shaker to mix dressing.  It called for EVOO (Mom, that means Extra Virgin Olive Oil).  When I went to wash the shaker out, the oil would not- could not- be moved.  I scrubbed and scrubbed and used really hot water.  But, no.  The oil stayed put.  I stuffed it in our bag and went on with the Pot Luck as usual.

Now this is a strange component about grief.  I'm thinking about that Margarita shaker and the oil not mixing with water.  And it was that very same Pot Luck where I started bleeding- which led to the loss of our baby- and had to leave early.  That very same Pot Luck when every time I think about it, I want to burst into tears.  And every time I think of that stupid Oriental Salad, I feel sick to my stomach.

So we returned home with instructions from a nurse to rest, and be assured that the baby would be OK.  Of course I began scrubbing that dumb Margarita shaker again to try and get the oil out.  Another component of grief:  people do the strangest things.  Like scrub Margarita shakers to get the oil out.  Because really people don't want to pay attention to the doom residing in their soul, choking them.  They just want to scrub.   In the end, a paper towel did the trick.  Until I moved on to the actual salad bowl and found more oil.  I gave up.

So why try to describe grief?   Especially when it's like attempting to mix oil and water?

I'm certainly not looking for sympathy votes as I write.  I'm not.  So many other people are grieving, too.  I just want to tackle this beast of grief.  What is it?  How is it taking it's toll on me?  On Chuck?  Grief is so different for every person and has so many different faces.

For instance, Chuck and I both lost our very first baby, our only offspring.  But the way we have handled it has been as equally different as being male and female.  How can I lie in bed, suffering- crying the morning away into my pillow, while he goes to work and tells people he's doing "well"?  It's because grief rears it's ugly head so differently in so many different ways for every different person.  My way is not better than Chuck's way and vice versa.

That's all I have to say for now.  It's time to go heat up left overs for dinner.  And Lord knows it won't be anything to do wtih EVOO.