What my grief looks like

My experience with loss has come in very many different forms from death to a breakup, even down to the loss of a job. None really have been easy or sometimes not even realized I was going through it. Having to lose my job… well, I didn’t really lose it, I had to walk away. Because of my son’s behavior (which happen to be autism and DMDD) I was getting calls almost on the daily. It became to the point I had to quit because I just couldn’t keep consistent at my hours, and it was becoming a problem with my boss. My boss was a dear friend I thought. She’s from another country and never got her license to drive. So, she was dependent on everyone for her needs outside of her home. She eventually did and didn’t need me so much. When this happened, well seemed like we became more distant for one she didn’t need me as much and two, she became busy with her life now that she was able to do as she wanted as well as needed.

When we spoke, we decided it best that I get my son taken care of and that I would be able to come back when I got it together. Thing is when I did there wasn’t a place for me there anymore. With other blogs if you have read, I had a breakdown of shit as well as some trauma. So, I felt like I lost a lot then. Not just the money, but it was customer service and had regulars that I saw every day and miss terribly as well as losing one I had seen as my “best boss friend”. I don’t get out much and I never really run into any of them when I do, so it has been like losing a whole family sort of. The loss of my friend is rough still, I didn’t realize that I had lost her till when I broke down and came to her as a friend in crisis. She really had no time, and now able to be free to visit after the ex’s departure. It really hurt because I thought she would be there for me like I had for her many times in the past. She wasn’t though, she still doesn’t call to even check on me. I used to hear from her on the holidays…. Not anymore. Like I said she is to busy with her life as well as that store. I grieve for that, it’s like a loss that feels like a death only you still stand to run into that person or customer every now and again. Seeing how I never do, hurts that I won’t ever go back now. So yeah, I grieve for that. I liked my job, my customers, and being social. I now just have my close friends that look after me sort of speaking, and that makes up for the loss.

The loss of a significant other, the breakup. This would include friends, sometimes it’s a breakup with them as well. These are rough; you will run into them as well as make it a point to in some cases. Friends can just be caddy about things. And sometimes you find that either they were never friends to begin with, or you someday down the road find your friends again. Boyfriends are so hard, or girlfriends. Affairs of the heart, and the logic of the brain is a nasty combo sometimes. Makes us go crazy on either side of the breakup. I don’t know about you, but I have been broke up with as well as doing the breaking. Neither one of them feel good. For me as friends would go? I would really have to been betrayed by someone who I was friends with. So, for me it is closest thing to death. Now wait, not like I am comparing them necessarily, more like identifying with the hurt. I personally have had to have a death in my mind and a funeral for some friends cause it’s just easier to see them as so. Same as the partner, easier if you look at them as gone. Though you may be relieved they are gone, there is that part that is mad as fuck that the next woman that comes up is “happily ever after”. It’s all good folks, it’s for the best once you get past the sting. And you got to keep in mind, never look back or get to be that jealous person. Things happen for a reason and when you don’t move on then you leave no room in your mind or heart for what is next to come. There is always better than an ex. They are an ex for a reason. Not something to ever visit again… so move on. God has a bigger plan for you.

Though the pain is still there, hurts the heart and makes the mind crazy to see them in your mind, or real life, move on. To think you meant so little that you can be forgotten and easily can just move on. I always looked at it like, “the woman who gets them next will reap the hard work I did and not put in the time”. That would always get to me especially when I was the one dumped. Now the feeling applies to being the later, just not as bad as the salt in the wound. You still have the feeling of someone benefitting your hard work. I’ll be the first to tell you that it happens, and it does make you feel a bit of a way. Not like you want them to be in your life, but you have gone through the mess of the relationship (domestic violence as well). The work I put into this and never got the outcome other than the end.

I say this cause of the most recent this last relationship I ended. I had to end it, or it was going to end me. (I may have blogged about him not sure.) The fear was something I couldn’t move past. So many of the different things to think about for the pos and cons. Not that it was such a hard choice of knowing it was over, it was the getting it over. That I had a hard time with. I compare it with death because inside, I was dying, and I was the only one that could save me. (With the help of memory makers) I found the strength to do so. I was going to walk away from my own home just to do so. It’s so much easier to walk away then to throw someone out. And then the parental units that loved him so much. I won’t even get started. This also makes me have physical ailments like seizures. This took a mental toll on me and now find it open some things I didn’t even become aware of till it was over. My mom was a big toll, seeing how she still has “love for the man”. I just thank God that I’m over the hump and blessed with the kindest of a man, who I feel love, see love, and love more than the day before.

I saved grief of a loved one for last, I don’t want to come a crossed as my grief is deeper than anyone else’s, but there are just many kinds of death. One is no different than the other, we just find some easier to cope with than others. Depending on the one that has lost someone, everyone grieves differently. One extreme the other. Some don’t look as they are bothered by it at all. They are probably ones who get hit the hardest cause there is nothing worse than holding grief inside yourself. You need to cry, hit something (I don’t suggest this) or has extreme anger issue that sometimes are aren’t aware that this is where the anger comes from.

The loss of a child could, I’m sure is the worst kind of grief one can go through. I can’t imagine what pain I would be in if I lost one of my kiddos. My dear friend lost her son, I’m not sure as to how long ago, maybe five years, she grieves for him as it was yesterday. It hurts me not to take the pain for a while so she could have relief from it. Not only did she lose her son, shortly after her mom that she was caring for, she died, I believe some weeks later of lung cancer. Her brother was disowned because him and his girlfriend took and stole to sell her meds, she was unable to swallow, then ingested the liquid forms of meds. She didn’t just suffer the cancer, but detox withdraws as well. Loved that woman. Then her sister has been on a remission from colon cancer, and it came back twice as worse with MS on top of it, she also had covid too. And at final, her aunt is now with hospice and dying as we speak. She says she looks like her mom did and she is just tearing up inside and marches on because she has too when she rather give up and die. You really don’t know what to say or help ease some of the pain. All I know to do is be there when she needs me and is low to the point of no return. I love you my dear friend.

My own grief I struggle with is what is saved for the end of this blog. I was torn up when I lost my papaw and was just able to make it to him before he died, I feel like he was waiting on me before he left. When I got there, I held his hand and opened his eyes, and one pupil was bigger than the other. The one was like dilated and the other was as small as a head of a needle. I was able to tell him he was going to be a great grandpa and he was gone shortly thereafter. Mama lasted ten years after very unhappy. She told me that it was hard cause she lost half of her. Never understood till I got older what she meant. Now, when she left, I was completely heartbroken. I was the favorite; I was their only granddaughter. I spent probably more time there then with my mom. Loved her so much, papaw always said I should have been hers because we were just alike. I used to go and write her, but nowhere to send it. I started to take my letters to her grave with my spade and make a hole and drop the letter down in it and cover it up like you never knew it was there. Seemed to help a little like I felt she was getting them. I so desperately wanted to talk to her.

Now, the loss of my dear friends Terri and David hurt like none other of any loss I ever felt. David was such a good descent of a man, I prayed with him often. He played music for me, and we were putting music to my poems before he passed. When we were kids, we rode the bus together. He was always right there and stood up to anyone that was giving me grief. He was such a little bad ass. I saw him scrap before and he was a force to be recon with. It was sad to see him beat the cancer that he suffered just to come back with vengeance. His was in his glans, and he swelled like a goiter on his neck. I was fighting an addiction with synthetic pot. It was so bad I was slowly killing myself. I was so sick coming off that stuff. I was too sick to leave the house when he was in the hospital, I missed my chance to see him one last time. He passed and I missed my chance to pray together one more time. He was a spiritual outlet for me. I miss him on the daily, I quit writing thereafter. I am the poet whose lost her words. Losing him was like that song “when the music dies”. It just doesn’t seem the same anymore.

Then there is Terri of course, I have written about her, most vivid memory. She was the closest to death I have ever experienced. It sticks to me like it was just yesterday.

Sometimes it takes me a day or two to do some of these blogs. They do take a physical as well as emotional and mental anguish. Sometimes they make me black out or pass out. I don’t know I just like to go to sleep. Then I guess there have been times that I have a seizure. Sometimes right in the middle of a paragra

ph. So, with this last bit of grief is something I must compare a death to. She was my best friend, I never met, nor will I ever meet another like her. They broke the mold with her. I felt her leave this place to another of peace. She suffered no more. She was so bad, she asked me several times to just end her, so she didn’t have to feel or deal with the pain. This for me is a grief I can’t make a description too. She took a piece of me with her. For her I wasn’t the best friend till the end when I never left her. For me, she was the most vibrant, beautiful, brilliant, and hard ass all rolled to one. If you ever had the chance to have encountered a moment or had the opportunity to call her friend, you have endured the epiphany if brilliance. I love her and miss her so much. I wish she was still here to go to and to feel the energy from her personality.

I hope this finds you all well, have a good day!