Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Going Under

I've been having a really bad day, grieving for John and Corey. Corey's birthday is Saturday, and John's is Sunday. I started off crying over my coffee and have gone downhill since.

I'm usually a procrastinator, but when it comes to being sad, I work in advance.

Two things have helped:

First, B. shared this picture postcard of the 2009 Iowa State Fair Butter Cow with me:
It's 600 pounds of butter sculpted into a Jersey wire form. I find it extremely comforting.

Second, I called S. She has always given me sound, practical advice. When it comes to grieving counsel, she is the reigning queen. Today's helpful morsel is, "Carbs and cuss words release seratonin." Girding up my loins with this and her first rule of grieving, "Life sucks, and s_ _t happens," I feel I can get through the rest of the day.

No, I don't really believe that life sucks. Somehow, though, saying it dulls the pain a little.

P.S.
Just in case you're thinking that you have messed up your life and your family would be better off without you, you're wrong. Your family loves you NO MATTER WHAT and would like the opportunity to talk it over with you.

2 comments:

Fotofule said...

Miss Wen, I LOVE your mix of humor and grief. Although the balance is individual, for me, portions of levity (from those allowed in my most intimate circle of grieving friends and family) has helped stabilize my grieving, which threatened to drown me at times. Although I don't plan on launching into a cuss fest (and I know you won't, either) just the line about cussing and carbs made me laugh - and relate. How DO you launch those overwhelming emotions into space? Laughing out loud or imagining myself hurling epithets into the void helps me realize that the grief is not ME, just something I have to pass through -perhaps for a very, very long time, but with humorous 'pit stops' along the way.

Wendy Haught said...

Love you, Bev!

You remind me of something Susan Haught said: that the pain/grief has to move through and out of you.