It’s the year anniversary of Day 1 in the Grief Valley.
I really thought today would feel different.
A year ago today, my father spent his 70th birthday departing on a West Coast cruise with my mother and other members of our family. He posed for the requisite sail-away photos, had a celebratory first night dinner, took a relaxing walk around the ship, went to bed… and never woke-up.
In many ways I feel like I’m still sleeping too, still expecting to wake-up from all of this.
Most people speak about how difficult the nights are after you lose someone you love, but for me it’s the mornings that have been the most cruel. So many dawns with grief, you feel it fresh when you open your eyes and look round and you realize, “Crap, this actually happened”.
And it’s like the first horrible day all over again.
365 days in the Grief Valley and I was hoping for some grand revelation today, some brilliant moment of clarity; a dramatic turning point upon which I could pivot and sprint toward some sort of resolution.
I desperately prayed that I could pass along a sacred nugget of truth today that might help you too; you who are in the Valley with me.
I don’t think that’s coming.
Thankfully, as so often has been the story of my life, music has spoken the cries of my heart, tapping into the deep recesses of pain where words are hard to come by, and given me words.
Like a letter from an old friend, this was in my music library this week:
I know there is no end to grief, that’s how I know there is no end to love. – Bono, California
That’s pretty much the deal.
This really is the story of The Grief Valley: once you enter it, you never really ever leave again. And the most ironic thing, is that you don’t want to.
To leave the Valley would mean to leave behind Love, because love for another is the source of the loss, and it’s that loss that fuels the grieving.
And since you can’t walk away from Love, you take it with you and you make peace with the reality that your life is now and forever a Valley life.
Yes, there are days when you get to a precious bit of clearing and you feel the sun more fully, days when you laugh and eat great food, and dance and dream; days when you almost feel like you’ve stepped through it all for good.
But it’s never very long until you look-up and you realize that the mountains aren’t gone, your eyes have just learned to adjust to their shadows.
Everything is saturated with memory and so everything is what reminds you of the love and the loss.
The pain of the absence of my dad isn’t going anywhere. It couldn’t, so long as his absence replaces his presence. That separation will be here, no matter how much time passes.
Because my love for my father will remain until my last breath here, so will the pain of his passing; no end to Love, no end to Grief.
I’ve come to accept that I’ll share my days with both of them, so we better all just get comfy.
Tears are a tribute.
That phrase has been with me since my first days in the Valley and I’m still honoring my dad today. I don’t fight them anymore, those tears. I welcome them. I cherish them. I celebrate them.
For me, they are conversation, and communion, and restoration, and resurrection.
Those tears are proof that Love and Grief persevere and they need to, because both remind us of the delicate sweetness of this life.
So in many ways, Day 365 is just another day in the lifetime sentence that Death hands you: One year to life in the Grief Valley.
Love.
Grieve.
Love.
Grieve.
Repeat.
This is what we do.
Keep walking.
