The Suitcase

I am really enjoying the book Folly Beach by Karen White. It's like a breath of fresh air to have finally found a good book, one where I can get lost in the story.

There is a character Emmy who early in the book becomes a young widow when her husband Ben is killed in action in the war.

The author writes about Emmy's grief following the death of her husband. Grief is a feeling that encompasses your whole soul. It is intriguing to me to see the many ways others express those feelings of grief with writing. The words are carefully chosen by the author to describe a very personal feeling, but yet with each one, I can fully understand and relate to the feelings shared.

Not far into the story I came across this paragraph:
Her grief was a silent thing-an invisible virus that gnawed at her from the inside but somehow managed to leave the rest of her unscathed. Her reflection was a surprise each time she saw it, expecting to see something withered and gray, or a black hole where her face had once been. Grief became to her like breathing; she couldn't rise or go to sleep without the pressing feel of it against her heart, the weight of it like a suitcase she didn't know how to unpack. Her sleep was dreamless, yet upon waking she'd be sure she'd heard fading footsteps in her bedroom, unsure if they were returning or go away. And each dawn she'd force herself to lie in bed with her eyes closed, hoping to see Ben one last time; hoping he'd tell her which way the footsteps were leading.

I especially connected to the phrase about grief being illustrated as the weight of a suitcase that you don't know how to unpack. One is left to carry that suitcase of grief forever. It is heavy indeed. I have learned in times like last week the case opens itself whether you want it opened or not, and the pain just spills out leaving you exposed to the raw emotions that result. For me personally, I have found such an experience to be rather exhausting. I have also found that this exhaustion takes days if not a full week or so to fully begin to recover from. Yet on other days, even the ok days, the suitcase is with you too. One must carry it everyday for the rest of their lives. It is there that there is such a common misconception among those who love a grieving soul. We carry this suitcase with us all the time and it has become who we are as a person. Speaking about our child (or other loved one specific to each case) doesn't make us remember our loss and cause us to feel sad. You see, the suitcase is already with us. We loved well and therefore, that love for our loved one is with us always, not just when someone brings up the subject of our loss.

It has been three years for me now. Three years since I last held my youngest son in my arms. Most days, time seems like something that makes no sense to me anymore. At times, it feels just like yesterday that my life was changed in such a profound way. In many ways my heart is still very much there in 2008. My senses are still fully awakened to that time if my life with even the smallest of things evoking vivid memories of those days spent in the PICU. Strangely I am also living, and trying to live fully, in 2011. Admittedly, I am still unable to quite figure out how to live in both places at once.

Early in my grief journey I made the mistake of thinking there was some way to get out of carrying this suitcase. I said things to myself like "If only I worked hard enough, looked hard enough at the grief, and spent enough time staring it in the face and not looking away, maybe then it will go away." I mistakingly thought there was a way once and for all to unpack this suitcase, put the suitcase down, put the suitcase away, and walk away- forever. "I don't like this suitcase and I don't have a use for something like this is my life" seemed like a statement that would so often play over and over in mind.

Time...heals all wounds. I heard this over and over until I wanted to vomit. I wanted so badly for someone to tell me WHEN it would stop hurting, almost like it would be bearable if I just knew and could visualize a stopping point. It hurts so badly that I would and probably would still do ANYTHING to make it stop. Now, three years later, that very same pain is very much still there, the difference now is that I have just begun to accept that I will carry this suitcase for the rest of my life, like it or not. Acceptance. I am succeeding more and more each day with the ability not to spend too much of my precious energy fighting what cannot be changed. Against my will, I have learned the skills needed to carry this suitcase. It is heavy and sometimes, like at the present time, I will just sit down with the suitcase and rest for awhile. Sometimes the suitcase is open and raw emotion is exposed and sometimes the case is closed and the emotion resides privately within my soul. However, like it or not, the suitcase is with me for the duration of my life here on earth. I still don't know how to unpack this suitcase and I'm not sure if I ever will. Maybe I don't want to.