It's been awhile......I've missed this site, my writing, my outlet, my release. I find peace, resolve, reflection and healing in writing words......these words that are deep within. These past weeks, I have been on a different road.....a road that I don't really want to travel right now, but I know I must in order to enter some of the outside living world.....working this "part-time" job. I like my solitude, my quiet time; it is my journey to travel so please let me live it. In fact, most books I've read say that it's very normal during a grieving process to shut out the world for awhile.....whatever time that might be. It doesn't mean that I'm depressed or needing help. I am sad, I am changed, but it is okay to go within as I am learning about myself, and keeping my few around me. I know you all are out there, even though I may not talk or return a call, but it's how I must cope. I'm growing in my relationship with God and with myself. Some may not understand that journey, and all I can say is that it's my journey to travel. If you want to come aboard, then follow my movements or not. I am trying to learn how to live with the most tragic and painful event of my life. I am forever changed, and I need to do it on my own terms.
In dealing with change, I have taken on this "part time" job which was meant to be a distraction and even a new beginning in living life again, but somehow, it has taken over my daily thoughts. Given my personality, I perseverate on perfecting whatever it is that I do. Some might call it an obsession, OCD.....I don't know.....but I always strive to be the best at whatever I do. As I work with these students; I bring home the emotions and the "work" if you will. It's a transition in my life that I'm trying to balance, not in time management, but I'm learning how to balance the emotions of students and their needs. I didn't anticipate that I would be taken in by so many of their emotional needs along with their educational needs. I keep telling myself that this is where God wants me to be so I must do it. Perhaps I need a repetitive type job like working in a factory line where I do not have to interact so I can work in a productive sense without the "heart". There is healing in repetitive work, atleast there is for me. No doubt, I feel valued and needed where I work, but somehow I feel as though I am forgetting my sister by doing all of this. So in these days that I haven't written there have been many emotions on so many different levels. I think of where we were at this time last year, and I wonder what happened? What the hell happened? Grief does that......it brings us back and forth each and every day. We think we are learning to live, understand, breathe......and then it HITS you all over again.......and the tears flow.
On the day before Chrissy's passing, I thought back on what I was doing.....something so strange....sort of abnormal I suppose. In this craziness of living with the cancer, is anything ever normal again? On the last day before her death, I was moving about her house with confusion, wondering if her last breaths were near. I left her room with the nurse, who would often take her vitals and such. I found myself in and out of her room, talking with her sometimes, "doing" just to keep my mind off of what was fast approaching. We all knew it, but we never spoke it aloud. There I was in my sister's kitchen making candy.........I was making candy. It was December, and it was my hobby, my distraction to make cookies and candy during the holidays. Of course, for Chrissy, my hobby was her trudge. She liked it when I baked those sweets, and she would often be my tester but baking was not something she cared to do herself. Some people have their knitting, crocheting, athletic events or wood working. I have my baking.......it's my escape. I don't always have the time to do it, but when I do, I relax in the routine movements of the task. Crazy to some of you I suppose. It is a stress releaser for me, but still, I thought it strange how I could stand there in her kitchen making candy and cookies. In the back of my mind, I really thought she might have this miracle moment where she would smell my sweets and come to life like Lazarus did. On another level, I thought it might bring some normalcy to a very chaotic, out of control situation. Perhaps baking would keep her here with us.......somehow. Was it possible? I really thought these thoughts in my mind. If she smelled my cookies or candy, which she loved so much, perhaps she would rise out of her bed, taste them and the cancer would miraculously disappear.
Odd as it seems, I was thinking that back then.....a painful, surreal time for me. Only recently have I come to realize that it kept me moving and living, and it prevented me from falling to pieces. Baking was definitely a distraction, a coping method for me. That day I left my sister's house to pick up my kids from school, prepare dinner, and before I went back to her house......I was forming peanut butter balls! How strange is THAT???! There was my sister lying in her bed, and I was rolling peanut butter balls. When I returned that evening, Chrissy's situation had obviously changed, and I knew any minute could be her last......those moments of her final breaths. We all knew it was closing in to that hour, but only minutes before I was preparing sweets! For a while after her death, I crucified myself for doing such trivial things. Without a doubt, I know I spent quality time with her and I am forever grateful for that time. Distraction is necessary sometimes as long as you don't stay there. So as I learn to live again, without her, I do use distraction as a way to cope, and it is okay as long as I don't remain there. It is there in front of me......always in my shadow, constantly in my daily life......her death is still there and I am learning to cope without her.
Be true to yourself, honor those loving hearts around you and give support when it is needed, not when you want to
No comments:
Post a Comment