how did i get here?

my husband, my beautiful Dragon, died suddenly at 12:03 AM on 9 February 2009. there was a cold, lovely full moon and 3 feet of snow on the ground. i "slept" for the following 10 months and "woke" to the physical and emotional pain and torments of deep grief. i "woke" to find i had moved the day of his funeral and that i am lost. i am looking for me while i figure out the abstract, unanswerable questions that follow behind any death. my art has evolved. his death changed that as well because i am forever changed and will forever bear the mark of losing the only man i can ever love.
there is alive and there is dead and there is a place in between. i am here wholly in my heart for my children, but i feel empty inside at this time. i miss him. i have not gotten very far in my grief journey. i make no apologies for this.
this is my place, my blog, where i write to tell the universe that i am still here.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

the art of grief

i've been down, really kinda scary down.  ashamed of my meager life and my little retail job.  tired of explaining that Marines don't make 6 figure salaries.  worried about my physical health.  i have a doctor's appointment about my diabetes and my broken foot and broken knee on Tuesday.

it's been three years and i miss him as much now as i did the moment he "left" me.  i remember sitting beside him in the hospital after they pronounced him gone.  i couldn't believe his body was there but he was gone.  he was gone; just gone.

i sat there holding his arm, trying to get his fingers to close around mine but it was all wrong.  he wasn't warm anymore.  and he was getting cooler.

sadly i still remember this with clarity and detail that astounds me.  but then i've always been cursed/blessed with a great capacity for memory.

i've held many jobs over my life.  when i was 16, i was a model.  i never told anyone that after i left my hometown.  but i was.  i was a little local model for a boutique.  it was my mother's idea and i always did what she told me to do.  but the one thing i have always been is an artist.  i was called a shy child, extremely withdrawn.  i wasn't really though.  i was just careful.  i never wanted to get into trouble.   when i was 7 my mother was told to get me involved in some activity after school.  i asked for art lessons.  she allowed it.  and i've never stopped being creative, artistic.

Antonin Artaud wrote:  "no one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modeled, built, or invented except to literally get out of hell."
i can tell you, from my experience, that statement is true.

i still paint.
 
footboard of my bed that i don't use but it's leaning against the wall in my hallway with books slowly building up underneath it.  so i guess it's a glorified book end.

 the headboard that i actually use as a headboard.  i also play my ocean waves sounds to try and go to sleep with.
 my shark board.  it's leaning against the wall of my bedroom on my dresser.  i love him.  such a flawless machine.
my embroidery piece that i am working on for a Memory Quilt.  it has taken me hours and hours,
and hours and hours to do this and i am still not done.  there is still so much more shading and highlighting to do.  i'll take a photo when i am done.
and of course, Bunny's clothes and her bags i wear, the way i use her as my alter ego, is all my art.

and my words.  my writing.  it builds up inside me and i have to let it out.  i have to tell someone about what i feel.  you guys are it.  you are all i have.

i am grieving still.  i get along okay.  i am fighting this slump with all that i have inside me,
which is my love for him, and my children.  i can't let them down.
and my silly little dogs.  i love them so much.

now i need to try and love myself a little bit. more than self preservation.  more than, "i'm doing it for him and my children."  i need to try and like myself.  i need to find something inside me that my mother never saw, that my father ignored, the my brother turned his back on, that my first husband turned cold towards......
i need to find something inside me that only my Dragon saw.
my children?  aw, they love me because i am their mom.  they imprinted on me and they know i would die for them.
but me?  just me by myself?  what am i worth?
i need to collect my thoughts and remember all the things my Dragon said to me when we were courting, and we were courting right up to the moment he died.
i love him.
but i need to like me, to find something in myself i am proud of.

maybe,
maybe i can be proud of my art again.
maybe i can try to pull myself out of this hell of my own creation.

get it?  i "created" my own hell?  how's that for irony?

7 comments:

Debbie said...

There is so much about you to be proud of. You are thoughtful, caring, funny, considerate, creative, resourceful, spiritual, smart .... And that's just off the top of my head. It is hard to find the good things in ourselves without having them reflected back by the light in our loves' eyes. But those positive qualities existed before and still exist. We just need to learn to identify them on our own. Very tough, but very important. Your Dragon saw these and so many other qualities. They are there. Just because others have been blind in the past doesn't make them right. It makes them blind. I wish you peace.

Lonesome Dove said...

Deb said it beautifully.

Anonymous said...

Hi, I found your blog by accident - and read it and it was so profound. Loss is a huge blanket, I am not a widow, but had a couple of losses in the family that knocked me out of orbit... Your blog says it well ... it is hard for it to be "perfectly" ok again, and people don't get it... or most don't... sending good thoughts and wishes for a better Friday...we can try ...right??? Yes we can...

Judy said...

All the worries--money, health, future--combined with being alone--make it very, very difficult to be positive.

Anonymous said...

replacement car key

Hi. You can use painting as a diversion to your grief. You need to move on with your life. Think that he's happy wherever he may be now.

abandonedsouls said...

oh, wow, Mischy, "you need to move on with your life." wow. thanks for the tip. i'll just go try and do that right now. wish i'd thought of it.

abandonedsouls said...

am leaving your comment up because of course every grief blog needs to have a link to an ad in it. you never know when you're going to want to shop while you're reading about someone's grief journey.

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