Thoughts at the end of my 9th Bereaved Mamas Day:
People always tell me I’m so strong. I never know what to say to that.
But over the last half year or so, I’ve started to experience more judgement toward my grief— I’ve heard everything from I am too much in my grief, to it has lasted too long, to I act like mine is bigger (than theirs). Just today someone so dear to me told me
I
Am
Too
Fucking
Fragile.
The truth is I am fragile— fragile like a bomb, not fragile like a flower, as Frida Kahlo wrote.
I’ve tried everything in my power to become resilient and sturdy under this weight
AND
also to represent grief truthfully so that another mama/griever might not feel quite as alone as I often have— there are so few visible examples out there.
I’ve tried to be transparent and generous with my sharing, my listening, my support—even when it was far too heavy, I have tried to be a good steward of sacred grief. I am fragile from this.
I have also had to tend to my well being like a wounded animal, one who is frightened and resists, but needs constant care and attention to survive. I’ve had to build a path for myself every single mother fuckery day, laying one stepping stone at a time through the vast wilderness and solitude of child loss from suicide, learning what I need as I explore all the shadows it casts. I am fragile from this.
I have lost sooooo much— relationships, money, direction, hope and especially, I have lost precious time tending to this ache. Countless hours spent staring into the abyss. I am fragile from this.
I have rebuilt my life more times than I can count and watched it fall apart with another’s careless words and actions because I wasn’t steady enough for another blow. I am fragile from this.
I have felt like such a selfish prick for feeling so bad, for so long, I’ve become a terrible friend/sister/wife/daughter, yet the loss is still omnipresent and I have yet to find a way to stop feeling haunted by Isaacs absence for very long, so I generally and genuinely believe people are better off without a sad sack following them around— I’m convinced they miss the me that died with him. I am fucking fragile from this.
But this is not entirely a sob story.
I believe a thing that is resurrecting me is Somatics. For I have become a true friend to myself.
Somatics help me grow my capacity to feel more than I think. To be present with what is— not cut & run. To explore beyond my well worn neural pathways that lead me to ruminate. To honor what I discover within my felt sense rather than recoil in shame & despair when someone’s words cut to the bone. To belong fully & wholly to myself no matter who rejects me, no matter what, no matter why—even if it’s because I am fragile as fuck.
Not everyone can walk beside you through this. Those secondary losses can cause scar tissue armor to form around an already immobilized heart. Stay open. Pry yourself open. No matter who is/n’t rooting for you, root for yourself. Find a somatic educator, find me when I’m healed up, but find someone who can help you stay with yourself— and help you drop the stories that keep you believing that anyone gets to have a say in how losing your person makes you fucking fragile.
Be fragile if it keeps you tender!
Just. Please. Keep. Going.
Maybe we are f*cking fragile (some of the most beautiful things are), or strong, or brittle, or too this or that, or pink or yellow, or green or some other labely blahblah bullshit, all of it, or none of it...we are HERE, and however that looks, Sister, I LOVE YOU- f*cking fragile and all!