Reflections on grief, healing and transformation
#19 My cloak of many colours
I don’t romanticize grief and I don’t ascribe meaning to it. We like to think that what’s happening to us is new and unique. Actually, it’s boring. Someone, probably someone you know, is going through what you’re going through right now. Before therapy and memoirs about pain and loss, your great-great-great-grandmother had lost a couple of children in infancy before she turned 21. Trauma is presented as this great teacher, come to impart hard truths before leaving again for you to enjoy sunnier climes. Nope.
Grief didn’t interrupt my carefree life. I’ve always had sadness wrapped around me like a thick cloak and I just didn’t realise it. It silently directed everything I did. I lived in its shadow, wondering why everything felt so heavy sometimes, why things which seemed easy for others, were so hard for me.
A few months ago, I had to fill out some official paperwork and I went through my usual bout of panic attacks. I’ve always hated filling out forms. I get especially bothered by the proof of address field. I feel illegitimate, like an imposter or a fraud. This time was no different. I trembled, started sweating and pacing. I imagined someone knocking down my door, leading me away from everyone I love. I imagined being put on a plane and sent far away. My husband had to fill out the rest of my forms. That’s how we spent two whole days. Me on the couch crying. His voice patiently reassuring me that I had nothing to worry about. I put my fingers to my cloak of grief, and I felt its velvety weight around my shoulders.
When I was 8, I had a dog, a turtle and a stone garden seat. I used to walk through a living room that was carpeted in forest green and down a long corridor to my bedroom. I wore a navy uniform and blew into the morning air to laugh at the sight of my breath. Then, I never saw any of that again and everything was different. I still think, after all these years, that if I go back to that little town, I might just see my dog. After 25 years, only one of which contained therapy, I see why I have spent my life looking over my shoulder, waiting for everything to collapse around me like a pack of cards.
It isn’t fair that this happened to me. However, now that I have acknowledged grief as an old friend, I turn to it and in its treacherous caverns, I see possibility. Maybe things can be different for me. I imagine myself at 8. I tell that child that I now have the options, resources and tools she never had. I have the agency that was denied her. I wish I could tell you that my anxiety drifted away like a leaf in the wind. It didn’t. But it was a huge step for me. My grief was still heavy, but I realised that I don’t have to keep looking back anymore. Maybe I can find the courage to look forward.
