Grief

The never-ending presence

I’m not even sure how to write about this topic right at this exact moment.

Whew.

Have you ever heard about parts work? The theory, that is frequently used in therapy, is that we all actually have different parts to us. We have an anxious part, an anger part, a joyful part, a protector part, a sad part etc etc. Many many parts of us exist at the same time. There is also Internal Family Systems which is parts work as well. The idea that we have an entire system of parts inside of us and each of them take their jobs very seriously. Their job is to keep us safe and keep us attached to our safe caregivers when we are young and as adults that attachment is (hopefully) in a healthy state and we have safe people around us to feel connected to.

This is an oversimplification, of course, and this is work that can be done with a therapist over years and years. But you get the idea.

So, we all have a part of us that is Grief. Which interacts with sadness, attachment, depression, pain, hurt, loss and more.

Grief feels like she is working overtime these days. We live in such an interesting time. We carry the entire world inside our back pockets. All we have to do is open our phones and we are bombarded with an influx of juxtaposed ideas. Friends and family celebrating birthdays and going to concerts and soccer games and parenting and partnering…

And, we see the destruction of an entire population. We see the videos and photos of dead children. Bombs being dropped and drones with rifles sniper shooting innocent people outside hospitals where they go to shelter. Palestinian civilians being brutally carpet bombed and run over with tanks. Buried in mass graves and imprisoned for nothing more than being Palestinian. The Government of Israel and the IOF soldiers committing atrocities the likes of which make me chilled to the bone.

We see the United States Government making choices that are so outrageous. The “Progressive, Left-Wing” President of the US supporting the Extreme Right-Wing Fundamentalist Religiously-Led Government in Israel.

I have learned so much about the world that I didn’t know in the last 4 months.

I could go on an on about this specific situation.

But this is about GRIEF!

Grief is the sense of deep loss of something that you had or thought you had or maybe even only aspired to.

I aspired to believe that my country Fought for Freedom for all oppressed people. I have spent many years unlearning that idea. I have learned that it has never been true. They have fought for their own particular freedoms at times, yes. But they have done that at the expense of many other groups of people. The indigenous tribes that lived in the USA way before any white people showed up, the Africans who were brought over for enslavement and traded and sold like chattel. Japanese Internment camps in WWII. The US didn’t even join in WWII for years after the Jewish people were being burned to death in the Extermination Camps. The US didn’t help the French in their Revolution even though we wouldn’t have won ours without them. Vietnam. Korea. Iraq. Iran. Afghanistan.

My grief has felt so bottomless lately. Like I am supposed to be functioning in my every day life. I have 3 kids. I own my own Coaching and Cleaning Business. I support my husband in his business-he is a working full-time musician. I have a large extended family and a group of friends I deeply cherish.

And yet, so often in these dark winter days I have felt the pressure of grief. A constant companion that never really leaves me alone. I walk around all day with it. It sits in the center of my chest. It leans over my shoulder and I can feel its breath on my neck while I am driving carpools and taking kids to practice and cleaning client’s homes and writing poems and creating new projects and trying to diversify my income streams and, and, and…

I am getting better at carrying the weight of grief. But sometimes it consumes me. I want to sit and cry and weep. For the mothers losing babies across the world. For the people who have lost their humanity so much that they believe they can destroy another human life and it is justified.

For us. Sending our kids to schools in the US every day knowing that Gun violence is rampant and just really hoping our kid’s school doesn’t become the next headline.

These are real things. Sad and heartbreaking things that I don’t even want to write about because they are so terrible. And yet, whether we acknowledge it outright or keep it bottled up, it’s there. The truth of existence is a weighty one. We are constant carriers of grief. The world around us shifts to different realities by the day- by the hour- by the minute! Paying attention comes at a heavy price.

And I firmly believe we must do it anyway. We must pay attention. Things keep happening and the way to stop the madness is to, first, know about it and acknowledge it. Talk about it and learn more. Process it and then? WE NEED TO COME UP WITH CREATIVE, COLLECTIVE SOLUTIONS! We cannot leave the problem solving to the government. We can’t even just leave it to the Humanitarian Organizations. We need to be willing to speak up and out and let our GRIEF be known! Let our humanity show. Our Passion and Zeal for LIFE! All people deserve life. We come into this world the same way. We all deserve life.

I said to my husband yesterday, Valentine’s Day, that I didn’t feel guilty for the joy in my life. Because there is SO MUCH JOY in my life. But I felt such profound grief because I want all people to be able to have the joy and love that I feel. The simple night at home making fondue for dinner and telling stories and laughing while watching a movie. I want that for everyone.

Palestinians just want to be able to go home. Their kids want to go to school. Did you know no Palestinian Children have gone to school since October in Gaza?

Life can be so simple and so sweet. Humans tend to make it so complex and violent.

I grieve for it. The loss of innocence and the presence of barbarism. I grieve for the women, children, elderly and men lost. The lives lost.

I want to share a poem I wrote recently on a heavy grief day.

Grief is a river

I’ve been holding a knife to the neck of my grief for weeks 

I’ve been functioning every day in my life as if things were normal 

Rushing around the city, prepping everyone for the holidays 

School drop off and pick-ups and client’s wishes fulfilled 

Day in and day out 

I’ve been pushing my grief down and down and down, so I can function in my life 

And now I have time to take a deep breath 

The knife has just pierced the flesh 

My grief is being released from the dam 

A river of blood and sweat and tears and pain rushing forward 

Deep pain in my elbows, my knees, my neck, my chest, my hips, my feet 

There’s a weight on my chest, a physical Barbell of grief

Watching the world stand by while babies are slaughtered over and over again 

It’s destroying me from the inside out 

I carry it fairly well. I have been trained over and over. 

I’m so tired of carrying so much grief for the world 

Tired of being the one who cares while I watch others turn their heads away from the pain and destruction 

My grief is a river of blood flowing that’s been pierced by a bomb or a building or a bullet 

I’ve Written poem after poem, email after email, post after post 

And still nothing has changed 

It is a big wake up call to realize how little power we actually have 

Tomorrow I will focus on what I can control, I will focus on the good that I can do. 

Tomorrow I will focus on my community and on my job and on my family and the people I love 

But today… 

My grief is a river, rushing forward at the tip of a knife flowing over my body, cell by cell, organ by organ, piece by piece 

Today, I surrender 

This may seem like a heave topic to take on on my literal second Substack post. But it is how I feel. A part of me that is very present.

I am an optimistic and happy person with a heavy slant of melancholy and bittersweet. And I need to allow myself to grieve or I will be buried. The only way I can function is to keep trying. To keep spreading awareness. I keep educating myself. I listen to understand, not respond. I feel so very deeply the suffering of the world.

If this is you, know you are not alone. I am here with and for you too. I will always fight for humanity over anything else. Dignity and life and joy and love are human rights. Everyone deserves the opportunity to have them.

Grief is heavy. We will only make it through the sludge of it together. Collective grief to carry individual grievers.

Sending so much love to you all! Thank you for being here.

“But this grief, for all its awful weight, insists that he matters.” Jesmyn Ward

“Pain demands to be felt.” John Green

A song that brings me a little peace in the midst of heavy grief.