6 Months of Grief Project: Day 117

He Sees Me, So Please Read Me

This is Day 117 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

Today was a terrible day on every level. Thankfully, I have therapy on Wednesday evenings, so I was able to go right in, sobbing my eyes out and be witnessed deeply and clearly. My therapist shared some facts about grief that I did not know until today. When something shocking and sad happens in your regular life, it can trigger the source of your grief all over again — so something that normally could be felt and worked through relatively easily feels 1,000 times harder because deep grief is being triggered all over again.

Today I cried so much. Every corner and private breath I could take today, I sobbed. I cried in the car through my entire commute. I cried for an hour on my lunch break. I cried all through my therapy appointment and I'm crying now. I cried so hard, I threw up. Today feels as sad as the day he died. He's so far away. I'm so alone. I hate my life so much it physically hurts me.

My late husband could always calm me down, no matter how worked up and anxious or fearful I was. He could read me. No one will ever love me or see me like that ever again and this fact destroys my whole being.

Many years ago I was a sinful girl

A sinful girl, no worries me;

I never lied

Please read me.

Not much conversation ever came from me,

I never knew reality;

I never tried.

Please read me.

Ah...

Maybe I've been lying on your couch too long

I'll stay if you will see me through, explain why

Please read me. please read me. please read me.

— as sung by Nina Simone

I can't survive this. I am surviving this. Somebody please, read me...

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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:

• Filmmaker Gemma Green Hope made a short animation in memory of her grandmother 
• Photographer Sarah Treanor Takes Moving Self-Portraits to Cope with Her Fiance's Death
• 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:

• Open to Hope: Finding Hope After Loss
• Widowed Village
• Camp Widow

• Soaring Spirits International

Living with Grief Resources:

• The Grief Geek
• Modern Loss's excellent resource list
• The writings of Tim Lawrence
• The Rules of Grief are for Other People by Shawn Doyle on The Good Men Project
• 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 Losses, 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.