April 13, 2010: Healing starts from the soul

I know that this past year has been super rough on all of us. As a country, we're losing our jobs, losing our financial stability, and we're losing our hope. But that's not the hardest part, because in spite of losing so much, we always have the people in our lives that can give us back a little bit of our faith in life and hope for recovery. The hardest part is losing these people, the ones that give us so much and have so much taken away from them by passing.

Even in normal times the pain from losing those close to us feels like it's too much to bear, and like life is closing in. We can turn to religion and pray for their souls, fill our hearts with something bigger than ourselves. We can turn to alcohol or drugs, and make our hearts stop hurting temporarily, make everything stop hurting. We can turn to each other, and look for something to grow inside where we feel empty.

I can't begin to know how you feel, or even begin to imagine the suffering and pain that loss bring to every person individually. I can only tell you how loss has always manifested inside me. It hurts, worse than the worse pain I've ever felt. It's not the physical pain of a sprained ankle or dislocated knee. It's an internal blinding pain, beyond the point of tears and far past where healing is a sure-thing. Beyond the pain is a hollowness, like all the life has been ripped out of you. An all consuming void, like you would imagine a black hole is sucking everything out of your person. You can't breath, you can't eat, and nothing means anything to you. The promise of tomorrow being a better day suddenly doesn't mean anything to you and going to sleep is just a way to pass the time faster.

Grief takes a toll unlike any other, it punishes you for loving another being with out prerogative. It's a punishment for doing good unto another, and turns daily life into a prison. Days meld into each other, and the words "tomorrow" and "yesterday" just don't seem to mean anything anymore, time is stopped and only through grief can you really know what having a day be both long and short is. The things you loved before, you don't really want to love so much. The fear of multiple loss is unbearable, the way night is unbearable for children afraid of the dark.

Just like I can't tell you how grief feels for you, only my experiences with it, I can't tell anyone how to heal. It's a journey you have to lead for yourself, but you don't have to go alone. When someone is lost, he isn't just lost for one person. He's often lost for many, and being available for each other is going to teach you to be strong. Not for yourself, but for others. It will teach you to open yourself up again, because you can share your pain. When you see something that reminds you of him, you can look to each other and let go without fear of foolishness and lack of reason. If a smell or a sound or a joke brings you back to them, enjoy the memory and for a moment forget your present together.

Everyone heals their own way, and I can't tell you that if you cry hard enough or long enough it will make you feel like nothing is wrong. But I can wish you the best in your trials. Love makes you strong. Love yourself, love others, and love the good in all the things you can. As a human, you're doomed to be a survivor, and recovery will knock on your door.

Love, Polly.

RIP Big Mike. Ventura County.
RIP John John Chapman. Moorpark, CA.

“Do not weep for me, This is not my true country, I have lived banished from my true country — I now go back there, I return to the celestial sphere where every one goes in his turn.”