The Edge of Grief

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” C.S Lewis

Ever had the sense of impending doom? I have. For most of my life I have walked around with the feeling that the shoe was about to drop. So far it never really has but the feeling that it ultimately will is unshakable. When I try to get to the origin ... I can't. There is no logical reason to have this feeling - but there it is.

I used to joke that while I was sleeping my mind was awake plotting against me. Hovering above me staring at me waiting for me to wake up. Something like this:

ME "Yawn ... what a beautiful day!"

BRAIN "How's that retirement going asshole"
And there it is my first 10 seconds of the day and I'm fucked. Ugh. I have come to believe the elusive origin of the dark cloud that hovers around masquerading as fear is actually grief. Now we usually think of grief in terms of someone close to us dying - but any deep loss can cause grief. And grief is one of those slippery feelings that tricks you into thinking its something else. It's common to refer to the 5 stages of grief:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression 
5. Acceptance

These stages of grief are no picnic in their own right. So its not a stretch to say that GRIEF SUCKS. (T-shirt Idea???) It sucks so bad that our minds squirt off to less painful endeavours that, with the exception of acceptance, are based in fear - which also sucks.

What are we afraid of? Feeling that deep sense of loss, I guess. I have had to deal with my share of loss. My paternal father died when I was young and I handled it poorly. I went straight to anger. The anger, more like rage really, was so bad that ultimately I was forced to deal with it or it would have unraveled me. I was finally able to come to acceptance after a good round of depression. In the mean time two of my three Grandpas also passed on.

By the time my third grandpa passed I was able grieve in "real time". I was able to comfort my other family members, rather than make them more worried. I was able to feel the sense of loss in a more reasonable time frame and did not carry the denial and anger with me for years as I had before. When I held on to those toxic emotions they compounded and turned on me creating a whole new set of troubles. In a relatively short time I was able to reach a level of acceptance around his death and the other loved ones who had passed on before him.

I believe that the spirit, or whatever it is that guides us through life, is like a muscle and if you don't exercise it you get "spiritual atrophy". On the other hand, when you exercise your spirit it remembers the path you took like "muscle memory". So the first time I dealt with grief I had no muscle memory. Through the pain caused by the loss of my father, I was forced to find my way to acceptance. Now that I've been there once each time after gets easier.

So why the black cloud? Well, I have had other deep losses in my life. Through a series of unfortunate events, I had to cut my childhood short. I can trace the feeling of impending doom to those events. That sense of loss has caused me all kinds of problems in my life - especially in dealing with the Humans.

I wasted many years denying, raging, bargaining and wallowing in depression. It was only after internalizing the lessons I learned from the passing of my father that I was able to find the peace that comes with acceptance. I still pinball all around the five stages of grief. Happily I am spending more and more time in acceptance... Thanks Dad

Respectfully, form the Edge