Riding the Wave

 

Years ago, Life Coach Martha Beck described attending a funeral with someone with Down's Syndrome, and she noticed that this person would feel extreme grief for 90 seconds (I cannot find the actual article, so I am not completely sure this is the exact time).  Martha observed how this person would fully feel the grief and then it would abate.  This description stayed with me and when Ellie died and I would feel that wistfulness of missing her, I would know that if I rode that wave, it would only stay with me for a short time.  Yesterday as I was driving past the high school, I had this sudden pang of wistfulness, wishing desperately that there were teenagers roaming about that high school, rather than all of us at home virtually learning.  As I felt it, I felt myself resisting it.  Then I reminded myself that it would pass.  As I had this thought that I could just feel it, the grief began to release me.  The same thing has happened repeatedly when I drive past the movie theater's empty parking lot (right next to Costco).  I feel a pang of longing, then it recedes, leaving me to ponder the present, and what I will purchase.  This concept has helped me so much over the years because it lets me know that I can feel the grief and it won't take me under.  It makes me feel like the grief, wistfulness, longing blow past me, rather than staying stuck to me.  

The whole process reminds me of contractions during birth.  During childbirth, I imagined myself riding the wave of a contraction, it would go up and then I would ride it back down (with a LOT of loud noises coming out of me, it WAS after all painful, I am not denying that).  I think now that maybe grief is like childbirth, it's messy, it's painful, it can come at unexpected times.  In the end, you emerge from childbirth with a new person (hopefully) and with grief, too maybe, you emerge as a new person.  Perhaps a person who has slowed down a bit to take in and feel gratitude for all the precious moments we are gifted. I think the biggest hope is that from the grief, I am able to emerge in some way a better, wiser, calmer, more appreciative person, rather than letting me it take me down or reduce me to less than I was.