Journaling Grief - A Way Forward

February 1, 2023

In what “order” are we to place our individual grief in relation to the grief of the world? Over the years and time after time, I have tried to understand the process of grief. Not just for myself, but for the world, entire. Because the entire world is surely suffering the anguish of loss and the grievances of continuous warfare that is perpetuated on so many levels. And in using the word, “Warfare” as a description of a reason for or a cause of grief, we must remember that warfare is conducted on many levels of the Human experience – Love/Hate; Life/Genocide; Sports & Entertainment/Aggressive, Stressful and sometimes Negative Competition (and even entertainment) to the point of injury or death; and outright, full scale WAR - that “Man-eating Animal”, in the form of vicious combative battles that destroy and devour lives, land and all hope for future life on earth. When I think on these aspects of Worldwide Grief, my own individual grief seems miniscule…and yet, I continue to wake up with tears falling down the side of my face. Why? And for whom am I really crying? I think, for the world, entire. Thankfully, HOPE still lives and keeps us all moving forward.

February 2, 2023

I have a dear friend who lost her husband a couple of years ago. And at that time, I was calling and texting and leaving messages, but she never answered either. She just did not want to talk to anyone – not even her closest friends...She still demands her solitude and privacy. And we who love and know her, still respect her wishes. I am so glad I did not take offense to her refusal to answer my attempts to contact her, because now I understand exactly how she must have felt. Since the passing of my husband, I have been living in that same space of purposeful solitude. It is exactly what I want to do at this moment. The emotional energy required to process my own feelings and thoughts drains me of the desire to try to explain or express to others what I feel, and have felt, since Al passed. We all move through grief in our own ways, at our own pace…the same, but different. Journaling helps me to express my feelings.

February 7, 2023

I watched Al’s memorial video again today and looked at the images of his life, trying to learn how to see him without seeing him…etching his image into my mind’s eye. I still don't feel like having or entertaining company or engaging too much. I do talk with family and close old friends but only when I want to or need to, or sometimes when they contact me. I am done with putting my best face forward - what you see is what you get these days. But I feel it getting a little better each day – a little easier to look at life again…slowly, but surely.

Someone told me that when we experience the painful and traumatic grief of losing the kind of beautiful, fulfilling love that I experienced with Al, that the only thing we can do in the aftermath is to find ways to pay that love forward and share it with others. I thought about that advice, and it does seem to me like something new or different to do, because it is what I have always done all my life…it is what I continue to do. But it does not ease my sadness or fill the void that I feel in my heart while I am missing Al so deeply. I cannot and will not ignore what I am currently feeling. I believe that I must feel it…every painful moment of it.

February 8, 2023

Thinking about the times when Al and I would be in the same room, and I would express a brief prayer, almost a whisper, to That Power Greater Than Man…and I would softly cry out, “Father and Mother!”, and Al would always hear me and ask, without fail, “Who’re you talking to?”, to which I would reply, “I’m not talking to you”. Now that he is gone, I still do that. And whenever I do, I think about him… “Now, do you know those to whom I was talking? I hope you are with them.” Al was very attuned to me, and he always heard me when I uttered prayers. I still hear him asking me, “Who’re you talking to?” when I utter the words, “Father and Mother!”

February 9, 2023

Today I talked with a dear old friend, who is also a family member. We both needed to unload our hearts and share what we are currently experiencing. It was a long, cleansing laugh and a hard, ugly cry…Medicine for the soul. Our conversation was “raw” with the honesty of reality. I told her that I had been holding my tears, and sometimes they well up in me so much that I feel as though I could vomit them out. Surprisingly, she understood. And I was relieved that it did not make her feel uncomfortable or sorry for me. We reinforced each other, and I felt so much better when I hung up the phone. It felt like a forward movement.

February 12, 2023

My thoughts are whispering today but I still hear them…

Mourning Rose

February 13, 2023

Today I looked at the photograph I took of Al on his last living birthday. The expression on his face told me that he was trying to give me a smile…and he did. But I could see that he did not have much to put into that smile. What I will always remember about him is that each time I wanted to take a picture of him and asked him to look at me, he would…and he always gave me his sweet, smiling eyes, even when that smile was a little dim. He tried to smile at me the day before he passed, when he asked me if I had ordered his corn flakes (the box that I still have that he never got the chance to eat). He was trying to make me laugh – to keep me from crying. That was one of the many things that made him such a Sweet, Dear Soul. He was so gentle, peaceful, and sweet…Love. And because of that Love in him, I have a treasure trove of beautiful images of his dear, sweet eyes looking at me…because I asked him to.

Al's Last Smile For Me

February 14, 2023

His Love is here with me. It comforts me and I recognize the feeling, as I did when he was physically present in the room with me. As I am writing this, I am enjoying a Maze concert video on YouTube we used to watch and enjoy together, and it is tinged with sadness, but I am enjoying it, nonetheless. We were regular YouTube concert goers…tuning in to as many of our favorites as possible, sometimes spending an entire day “In Concert." One of our greatest shared loves was music. And Al was one who listened deeply. Sometimes, he would point out an instrument or a certain strain in a song that I would have missed over and over, until he brought it to my attention. And while he did not sing or play an instrument (I did, both), he paid attention to the detail of the vocals and the instruments of music. Now, when I listen to music, I enjoy it so much more when I think of the joy I experienced listening to music (and learning) with my best friend, Al.

Forever Thankful

February 15, 2023

Today Facebook saw us holding hands for the last time in a photograph that I posted as part of my ‘Black History, Black Love’ post…Black History that is written into hearts much more than into books. History does not often record the love that flows back and forth between Black men and women – the kind of love that keeps growing, even after death.

Holding Hands for the Last Time