Grieving in Slow Motion

Grieving in Slow Motion

Slow-motion grieving, the hours pooling thick as honey,

Each heartbeat stretched, diluted

in a nightmare where Anne’s laughter

echoes through the hospital’s hush.

The world blurs: I move

as if underwater, amputated slowly,

limb by limb, no anaesthetic,

pain refusing to subside,

the promise of waking never kept.

Time is a paradox: crawling like a snail,

then streaking past – her eyes fading,

the once-familiar curve of her hand

disappearing in a blink,

while eternity gnaws at my bones.

A kind friend, wise in mourning, sees nobility in these tears,

but I feel only the endless tearing, the jagged ache,

as if my heart is a rag doll caught in a cruel wringer,

each day stretching sorrow, turning shreds into longing.

The kind friend mentioned in my poem, who knows grieving in all its rawness, sent me this wonderful passage:

“In the Lakota/Sioux tradition, a person who is grieving is considered most holy. There’s a sense that when someone is struck by the sudden lightning of loss, he or she stands on the threshold of the spirit world. The prayers of those who grieve are considered especially strong, and it is proper to ask them for their help.

You might recall what it’s like to be with someone who has grieved deeply. The person has no layer of protection, nothing left to defend. The mystery is looking out through that person’s eyes. For the time being, he or she has accepted the reality of loss and has stopped clinging to the past or grasping at the future.

In the groundless openness of sorrow, there is a wholeness of presence and a deep natural wisdom.”

Tara Brach

https://www.tarabrach.com/about/

My friend added, “I like the switch from the conventional attitude here, to consider the grieving person not as pitiable but as especially strong and holy.

I will think of you now this way, as strong and holy.”

I only hope to feel ennobled by my grief one day, instead of perpetually flayed.