It was two weeks after the funeral. I was moving around in a thick, hazy fog. Still in shock, disbelief and moving my body from Point A to Point B – but never remembering how I got there. I could feel myself sinking, sliding slowly down a very dark, deep lonely pit. Dear God, I have never felt this intensity of despair. I had a huge elephant sitting on my chest and I was suffocating – and yet, I had the most incredible empty space throughout my body.
That emptiness was the space Alan’s energy had occupied for 23 years. We were so meshed and so intertwined that I never realized what part was me and what part was Alan. I visualize this combining of our energy as if Alan’s energy was an invisible octopus that attached to my chest. Once attached, this octopus pulsated energy throughout every cell of my body. We melded, combined, connected – became as one - my mate, my lover, my confidant, my provider, my protector, my solid.
And now, that he is dead, it feels that he was ripped from my chest – leaving wounds that would take years to heal. Without his energy in my body, I was so very, very tired. I couldn’t get my bearings straight. I could hardly put one foot in front of the other. And yet, with this incredible sadness and fatigue, came a huge amount of nervous energy, driven by fear, not knowing how to move around, to comfort my broken children and to even begin to fill that space in our lives that Alan occupied.
So there I am, exhausted, no energy and then at night, I could not sleep. That underlying nervousness, restlessness, constant processing – I was wiped out!
The boys had an open house at school. Parents would go through their children’s schedule, meet the teachers, and learn about the courses and expectations of the teachers. My friend, Carla and her husband, Lewis called and asked me to ride with them. It was amazing how childlike I was, like a little girl. I was in such a daze. It was like my friends would hold my hand and I just went with them.
So, I sat in a desk in one of Chad’s classes and a woman sat next to me. She handed me a piece of paper. You don’t know me, but my name is Claire Daly and I have two sons, Benjamin and Jonathan. My husband died five years ago. Here’s my number. You call me anytime, day or night. I know how long your nights can be.
Four days later, I am pacing the floor at four in the morning. I had been up all night. I felt like a caged animal – a lioness in a zoo, pacing back and forth looking out the bars of my cage. Trapped, frustrated, losing my mind!
I remembered that lady that gave me the paper with her number on it. At five a.m. I called her.
“Claire, this is Laura Weaver. I feel like I am losing my mind.”
“Laura, I live a two streets from you. I am coming.”
Twenty five minutes later, Claire is at my kitchen door with a paper gift bag and two cups of coffee. We sat on my patio and out of her bag, she pulled a box of Kleenex, two bottled waters and two books.
Claire looked at me and asked, “How are you?”
I started talking to her about the pain, the emptiness, the profound sadness, the constant “headtalk,” the thick, thick fog I lived in, my fear of helping and raising my boys alone, the heartbreak over my broken family, my fatigue, and the never ending sleeplessness.
Claire in all of her wisdom of walking this walk before me said, “No, Laura, you are not losing your mind. This is grief, you have been broken. Be gentle with yourself, feel what you feel – this is the beginning of healing.”
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