Has come and gone and I'm glad August is in the rear view mirror. I spent a solid month dreading it because milestones are always hard. Problem is it isn't just the "day" of the anniversary it is more like the entire month. I start getting weepy and depressed as July marches toward the end of summer. And I stay that way until after Labor Day. But as I've mentioned August is a month full of significant days so I guess that's reasonable.
This was a milestone I was dreading mostly because it "has" been five years and I am still where I am at FIVE DANG YEARS later! That alone is depressing. And in some ways --not all ways but some, I'm worse than I was say three years out. That I don't understand. But I'm going to use this five year mark as a goal. The end of this "continuing to get worse" phase. I am going to get better. I am.
Still waiting for that "Beauty From Ashes" to show up. I do get a little discouraged when I read about all that others have gleaned from the journey through loss and grief --even catastrophic loss. And when I see the beauty from ashes in other people's stories or when I see that God has restored things to others in the wake of their loss because I know that is not possible in my case. I am not, at 66 years old going to get another son. I will never have another opportunity to be that close to another baby in my life. My daughter in law is not miraculously going to be replaced by a better, newer model. So what exactly could "restoration" even look like for me?
I want to be positive. I really do. I want to believe things will get better but I can't see beauty from ashes and I can't see anything being "restored" in my life. Five solid years out I watch and wait expectantly and still the losses continue to pile up.
I'm trying to stay busy. I am trying to make new friends and create a solid social life albeit the landscape has changed drastically. Seems now I gravitate to those that have had and therefore understand --catastrophic loss. I am still reading non-stop; still searching for that one story that has the positive, happy ending that can give me the secret formula to overcoming this pain and heartache and the magic potion that will help me learn to not just live through this but enjoy living again in spite of this and tell me what steps to take in order to mitigate the steady stream of collateral losses.
I'm trying to do things - things I used to enjoy - looking for a spark that might ignite even a small flame of interest in something again. I'm making the effort - which is a step forward I know since it was a long time before I cared to even try.
It was a huge step for me to attempt yet again to see a counselor. Since that first year when I called about twenty with not so much as a single response and the one I did manage to wrangle up could not handle this and decided to just help me deal with the scheduling issues surrounding my sister's care and how to work in "grieving from the tragic loss of three members of my family" between a three hour commute in heavy Atlanta traffic daily to go for 6 to 12 hours a day 5 -days a week in the bone marrow clinic, juggling visits to an endocrinologist, gastroenterologist, pulmonologist in between along with regular trips to the hospital radiology department, dermatologist and respiratory therapist offices for testing or treatments, keeping up with a conglomeration of 28 medications, making sure the house was as germ-free and bacteria-free as possible, planning and preparing meals according to specific guidelines and doing laundry for four people on top of a full time job that I was then having to do at night after everything else was taken care of. Granted I needed help for that. But sadly got no help for the elephant or rather Mastadon in the room.
I think I've had maybe as much as five sessions with her and I got a letter about two weeks ago saying she was resigning. Resigning.
Was it something that I said?
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