Time Passages

X-ray after surgery - September 2017

Once again, a long time has passed since I wrote a blog post. Sometimes, despite my best efforts, grief steals my voice. My logical brain knows that by writing about my feelings I process them in a more healthy way. My emotional brain just can't make the jumble of feelings into words that make sense.

It is not that I haven't thought about writing. It is not that I haven't sat at my keyboard and tried. But nothing materialized.

A dear friend reached out yesterday to check on me, since I had stopped posting. That was the encouragement I needed to start again. Thank you, Adrienne.

I have been trying to work on my newest book, and have encountered the same problems that I do with this blog. The words just won't come.

Each of my books has a theme, always visible to me, but maybe obscure to my readers. The theme guides my storytelling, it helps me to know what to include, and what to leave out. The theme of my last book, "Blessed by Discovery" was coping with grief, in all the forms that grief can take.

The book I am working on now has a theme of healing.

I think that is what froze me. I don't know how to heal. Or at least I didn't. But I think I am figuring it out.

This morning, I started to think about healing from grief in the same way a person heals from a physical injury. I decided to use my broken arm as the analogy.

In September 2017, I fell and broke my arm. Lateral fracture of my radius, and crushed a bunch of the small bones in my hand. A very talented surgeon put my wrist and hand back together with a plate and ten screws.

I participated in occupational therapy, and regained full function of my hand.

But the scar is always super sensitive. And sometimes, the plate just aches. And sometimes, the base of my hand aches. I healed, but the pain still persists.

There are times when I don't think about the fact my arm was broken and had to be put back together with hardware. But never for very long, because of the sensitivity of the scar.

The grief over Cecil's death is like that. The scar his death left in the fabric of my life is super sensitive. I have very few moments where I am not aware of the pain.

And sometimes, I just ache to see him, to hear his voice, to laugh together, to walk together. The pain takes my breath away.

I think I was thinking that the pain would lessen as time went on. But just like the scar on my arm, and the ebbing and flowing of the pain in my arm and hand, the pain from grief will never go away.

I have to learn to live with the constant sensitivity. I have to learn to live with the ebb of flow of intense pain.

Just like my arm is healed but still hurts, I will heal from my grief, but the pain will always be with me.

I need to accept that, and make my peace with it. I truly believe it is only then I will find my new normal, and stop losing my voice.