*regroup* (personal)

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*This is a cross-post from my personal blog. I plan on returning to regularly scheduled blogging at some point — but I don’t feel I can until I process some of this. Thanks for your patience.

According to the recent reading I’ve done, there are five stages of the grieving process:

• Denial
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

Another list I found detailed this:

• Numbness
• Disorganization
• Re-organization

I think I relate more to the second list than the first, although I’m not discounting any stage. That would be dangerous.

There is no set time frame, or order to either list. Any one of these things (and probably more that don’t appear on any neat list) can hit at any time. Everyone processes grief their own way and in their own time. In my own particular circumstance, I think the grief is further complicated by the imminent arrival of our most beloved Muffin. It is also common to grieve big changes in our life, to include the loss of a job, a change of environment or any one of a dozen situations.

Change is neither good nor bad. How we deal with it – that’s where the “good and bad” come into play.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this. I’m guessing I’m just trying to figure out the process so I can cope. This is a part of the Mad Survival Skillz Set.

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I have spent the majority of my life taking care of other people. This is not a complaint or a whine – it is what it is. The one person who has been consistently on the bottom of that list is….me. I do believe it’s time to change that, to a certain extent. Or at least to change the order of the list. I often wonder if I’ve put other people ahead because I don’t think I’m worthy to be ahead of them on the list, or if it’s because it is such a habit to me I don’t know how to behave otherwise. Or is it because I have been equally blessed and cursed with an overabundance of empathy, and it hurts me, really hurts, to see other people in pain and not try to alleviate it as much as I’m capable, at the cost of spending too much of myself.

I don’t know. I feel like I have all the questions, and very few of the answers.

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I think Numbness is a coping mechanism I’ve utilized frequently. I’m very good at disassociation, because when you get too close to the fire, it burns and it hurts. I don’t want to hurt anymore.

The truth of the matter is, I’m shook to the core. To the absolute bedrock. To know it’s coming is not the same thing as going through it. I recognize the stages, and looking back, I can see where I went through some of the stages already. There’s no denial – hellfire, the writing was on the wall from the first. I knew, from bitter experience, there is no bargaining. That’s self-delusion, more than anything else, and actually, I consider that a part of the Numbing thing. Anger – yes, I did have a period of anger, especially when the cancer came back again. And “anger” is really not what I felt – I was fucking pissed off. Still am, to a certain extent. But Momma always told me life is not fair, and I suspect she meant death, as well.

Depression and I are friends of old, dating back to childhood. No surprise there. Acceptance – hey, we all know the score. Death is inexorable, inevitable, and part of the natural order. I don’t have a beef with death. I do think that in many cases, death gets a bad rap. Death is what set Momma free, and my belief is she’s reunited with the people she loved most in this life. I firmly believe I will see her again.

What I seem to be struggling the most with is this feeling of aloneness. No one ever has, or ever will, love me like my mother. She didn’t love me the most, she loved all of her children equally, but she loved me best. Do you see the distinction? She was such a force of nature. She used to tell me, if you can get through me, you can get through anything. She was the Professor in the School of Hard Knocks, and I learned so, so much from her. She was not a saint. She was not, by her own admission, even a good mother for most of her life. Alcohol and hard circumstances played a big part of that. She was a real person, can you dig it, and to me, that is more important, with all the foibles and faults of any of us. She was not perfect, but she was real, strong, and very, very special. The relationship with my mother has defined me in so many ways, made me into the person I am, and now she’s gone. Where does that leave me?

*regroup*

We didn’t always have a good relationship – there were years that were very dark, and hurtful. We were able to reconnect and forge a better relationship, stronger for the fires we endured, and I am more grateful for that than I am almost anything else in my life. I almost didn’t take the risk – but thanks to Baby Sissy, I did, and I am so, so glad I did.

She was my safety net. I was hers. I don’t know if I can stand without her.

I am so scared and heartsore.

*regroup*

Tags: Coping, Death, Grief, momma