Commendation

I wasn’t sure where to put this, but I wanted the members in the Grief Club to see it. It’s going to be brief — not my usual “mini-book” blog. But I need to tell you all how proud I am of you. To join a website, to make yourselves vulnerable, to reach out to others and let them reach out to you — it’s more than I could do when I was where you’re at.

I personally think you’re doing great — each one of you. I know some of you (if you’re anything like I was) may not even want to be doing well. (To me, doing good meant getting closer to accepting my son’s death and that was not something I wanted to do.) I don’t know; maybe I thought by not accepting it I could somehow prevent it, or make it not have happened. There’s an old phrase, “insane with grief” and I’m here to say, I was. My thinking wasn’t clear. I couldn’t balance my checkbook. I could look into the face of someone I’d known for years and not recognize who that person was. My short-term memory got blown out. I’ve never been so totally blasted by an event in my life. The biggest difference is that every other time, I accepted a problem as a challenge. I wanted to get back up.

Not this time. Losing my son not only knocked the breath out of me. It made me not want to breathe anymore — for a while.

I feel like a proud mother hen clucking about her ducks (bad metaphor, I know). But I feel so good about how you gals and guys are doing. I just wanted to let you know. I’m not a hugger (unless I know someone). But I’d happily give each of you a warm, genuine hug.

My best,
Melody Beattie

November 09, 2010