Day 1

Footprints of Death...............

I asked God in the shower what I should do to get through this particular grief process and He said, "Write about it!" I immediately got out of the shower, created a blog page, and began to write.

Also in the shower, I was thinking about everyone who is still asking me how I am doing. When asked I tell them, "I am doing ok." Then I usually smile at them in a way that makes them believe me, which also makes them feel comfortable. In truth, right now I AM NOT OK. In fact, I am far from ok. There are moments when I want to scream, curse (which is unusual for me), do cartwheels, run 10 miles, hop, jump, dance, cry, and end it all with a tantrum in the middle of the floor. But I cannot do half of what I feel because it makes other people feel uncomfortable and our society does not allow us to experience our grief, we are merely expected to suck it up and move on. "Life is a part of death they say". "Your parents are in a better place now." My all time favorite one is, "Well, at least they don't have to suffer anymore." What I would like to say to all of these comments is, "PLEASE SHUT UP!" "DO YOU HAVE YOUR PARENTS?" "CAN YOU CALL YOUR PARENTS ON THE PHONE WHEN YOU NEED ADVICE OR A SHOULDER TO CRY ON?" If the answer to either of the last two questions is, "Yes", then please shut up and remove yourself from me. The truth can be ugly but I am determined to speak my truth so that I can truly heal from this nearly debilitating experience.

In truth, I am crying now as I blog. I am crying because it's already been a month since November 10, 2009 when my Dad passed away, my last living parent. It's been 10 years since my Mom passed away, her departure date was October 30, 1999. They were the best parents for me. No, they were not perfect, but God could not have chosen two better people to father and mother me. I love them and they taught me so much. In their death it is like they have left me with strength that I do not know what to do with, at the same time I experience weakness that causes me not to get out of the bed.

Since life happens in stages, I guess I will experience my grief in stages too. In fact the experts say that there are 5 stages of grief (Barone & Ivy, 2004). The five (5) stages of grief are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. For those who know me, you know that I love making acronyms for everything. When I look at the words of the five stages of grief I take the first letter of each word and immediately spell out BAADD. I know that this is not the correct spelling of the word "bad" but this is an accurate emotional spelling of the word bad and how I feel right now.

I'm tired now, I better go....

Reference:

Barone, James E. & Ivy, Michael (2004). Resident Work Hours: The Five Stages of Grief. Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges 79 (5), 379-380.