You’d think with change being the single most constant in the first 20 years of my life I’d be used to it. Growing up a Military Brat change was inevitable. I was a living Joseph’s coat of many colors. Just as I’d get used to one spot Uncle Sam would request our presence in another.
That pattern continued even after Dad retired. He simply had itchy feet and by the time we settled in a west coast beach town in 7th grade I’d changed schools 14 times…revisiting some more than once.
In soon to be 56 years, I’ve worn the changing frames of daughter...student...friend...wife...mother...grandmother...widow.
Change.
You’d think I’d be used to it.
But, no.
Change throws me into a temper not unlike that of a toddler forced to go to bed. Or a teen being told, “No. You may NOT have the keys to the car.”
My travels on this grief journey have been much the same…fought tooth and nail, stumbled through as the bull in the china shop with “NO, NO…I will NOT go!!” being wailed at every turn.
I have not gone “gentle into that good night”. (Dylan Thomas)
I’ve not been full of grace and charm.
Not the genteel woman wearing her grief softly as though looking through gauzy curtains.
Not for me the internal examination of whether I am doing things in the right order or according to some predetermined plan for the widowed. After my embarrassing realization at the one year mark that things did not become “all better” because of a number, I truly realized what a lonely, rocky path this is.
Had I known then what I know now I’d not have been so arrogant to think I could do this trip alone. I’d have eaten that humble pie sooner and asked for help. This is damn hard work and doing it alone sux big hairy donkey balls, as my son puts it.
I have fought that demon called Grief. Lost numerous battles with the many headed monster with the attendant emotional scars to prove it. Won a few…enough to remain standing…bruised but not beaten. Hidden away in both an emotional cave and within the cocoon of alcohol only to discover…”Damn...He’s still DEAD and I’m still HERE.”
Slow to learn the lesson.
Slow to realize with finality that here is where I am and that my railing against the world and my miniscule place innit will not change one damn thing.
I do not wallow in the sorrow any longer. The shadow of Death remains, but I am no longer cowed by it.
I AM changed. I am NOT who I used to be.
Unwillingly changed by the passage of 4 years, some months and several days…here I stand wearing yet another frame to my life…a window upon a world I’ve had no idea how to survive except that written above. I may not be proud of each step I have taken to get here, but I AM proud that I am still standing and that I can look back on a life full of more smiles than tears.
I AM a survivor.
And, I will NOT “go gentle into that good night”
The poem:
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT (Dylan Thomas)
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
(This post was prompted by a conversation with a group of creative people whom I’ve come to greatly admire for their view on the world. Thank you for the inspiration.)
