Grief

Grief.

It’s a heavy word. Given its meaning, this word seems like it should be longer or more complicated or difficult to pronounce. But it’s just one syllable that drops into your stomach like a brick.

On some days.

On other days it’s more of a cloud that surrounds your mind and blurs your vision. Still other days I forget about it completely until I run smack into it and fall down.

When Robin got sick, I was all action. I’ve always loved sprinting more than jogging. Doctors appointments and labs visits and online MyChart checking, and updating the whiteboard with medication adjustments and driving back and forth to the hospital. I was all furrowed brows and bent knees and multiple scenarios planning.

After she died, I charged ahead. It was about making a Thanksgiving meal, and hosting extended family, and memorial service planning and Christmas for the kids. I was all action and numbness and sprinting forward, not able to acknowledge or digest the tragedy and my own shock.

It’s been six months now and I’m realizing that the treadmill of all action that I was running on has abruptly halted while I was mid-stride. I slammed down onto concrete. Hard.

In a collision or traumatic injury people often cannot remember exactly what happened or the moments after. They are dazed and piece together the truth over time.

This is me now.

After she was gone, I was still trying to run. Fear became my ever-constant menace. Anxiety was the scary clown that would pop out unexpectedly. Decisions that were so simple before became mind-numbingly difficult. I tripped and faltered and fell, not understanding that I should have just stayed down.

I tried to keep doing and going and being the same person I was before Robin died but I wasn’t. I am not.

They say hindsight is 20-20 but I still need thick glasses to see. I am just waking up after being knocked out and trying to figure out what happened.

When you lose consciousness you don’t feel any pain but I am awake now.