Member-only story
After Easter
I remember spending the first few nights after my father’s death in the home where I grew up, in the “back bedroom” as we used to call it. The room which had been mine as a child had been made into the space where my mother painted; the bed in which I had slept is now my son’s bed. So this space was not one that felt comfortable or familiar. This “guest bedroom” remains a place where clothes accumulate on the bed next to the ironing board. We had to clear the bed for me to have a place to sleep that night.
[Audio link is below.]
The place of grief is not comfortable or familiar.
I have walked along with many others through their grief, having worked as a social worker in hospice and in my current setting as a clinician working in outpatient therapy. Some losses are expected; some are sudden and tragic, a sharp sort of trauma in themselves. There are losses of those who are old and those who are young. There is loss due to disease, accident, and sometimes leavings that are intentional.
The variety of grief is astounding. Each path walked has a different landscape through which one walks. The common quality is the murkiness, the fog through which you travel. You are in a different place. The road is unfamiliar, strange.
