6 Months of Grief Project: Day 52

The Red Wet Wound of Grief

This is Day 52 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

Last night I dreamed that my husband was alive. I didn't actually see him, or talk to him, but I felt him with me, the way I would always feel his presence in the house, even if I was in another room. When I woke up, I listened for him rattling around in the kitchen. He always got up much earlier than I did, and would do his best to quietly make coffee and his breakfast, only to drop something, or let the kettle whistle or slam a cupboard too hard. He was a bear of a man, and bears live big and loud as soon as they wake up. While his loud mornings drove me crazy, there was also a comfort in hearing him foraging around in the kitchen.

As I slowly became more awake, I finally realized that not only was my husband not in the kitchen, he's not actually alive anymore and it broke my heart all over again. It feels like this grief is a red, wet wound that never seems to heal. Just when I think there's enough scar tissue, and I might be okay, I get gut-punched with grief. I felt his presence - his essence - so deeply in my dream, how could he not be here? How can I be all alone in this house that we shared? Why does it hurt just as much as it did that first week? Will I ever feel stronger? Will I ever feel the comfort of sharing my home with someone I love again? Or is this just the first few months of a long life of solitude and loneliness?

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I am very aware that this project can bring up a lot around yours or other's grief and loss, I will always follow every post with some online grief support resources that have helped me. Please feel free to let me know of online support that you have found healing in your grief, as well:

Art with Grief:

• Photographer [Sarah Treanor] Takes Moving Self-Portraits to Cope with Her Fiance's Death by Jillian Wong
• When the Fall Comes, a film about Grief by Adriana Marchione
• Self-Portraits: Expressing Emotion Through Art on What's Your Grief?
• The Hard Romance of Grief by Mark Liebenow
• The poetry of John O’Donohue

Resources for Widows:

• Camp Widow

• Soaring Spirits International

Living with Grief Resources:

• Modern Loss's excellent resource list
• Grief Bibliography on Grief Healing

• Teresa “TL” Bruce's What to Say When Someone Dies
• They Brought Cookies: For A New Widow, Empathy Eases Death's Pain by Ann Finkbeiner on NPR
• A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

• Megan Devine’s Refuge in Grief

• The Geography of Sorrow: Francis Weller on Navigating Our Loses, interviewed by Tim McKee in Sun Magazine

• How to Be a Friend in Deed by Bruce Feiler in the New York Times

• 12 Things to Know About the First Year of Grieving Someone You Can’t Live Without by Laurie Costanza in Elephant Magazine

And remember, I am sharing this project on a variety of platforms, including my Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook feeds, as well as my Pinterest page on Grief. I use the hashtag #6MonthsOfGrief, so it can easily be found on any platform. Please share this project with anyone you think might need it.

Thank you, and see you tomorrow.