We talked about lamenting today a bit at counseling- how so much of the Bible is filled with major and minor characters lamenting- but how today our society doesn’t really have an avenue for this kind of lamentation. Maybe that’s why I found mine here online and so many others do as well. It is private but potentially public as well. No one has to look me in the eye to read it. I can still appear normal when I go on an errand or take a walk with my daughter. I’m not affirming this, but I guess this is what it is in our day. I told her a bunch of stuff that had happened to Dan and I the past few years and she said, “That’s a lot of loss.” I wasn’t sure how to feel when she said that. We just stared at each other for a bit.
I need to find ways to “comfort” myself or experience God’s comfort, according to my counselor. I’m not sure what that looks like- she just kept saying “whatever that means for you,” so I guess that’s what I need to figure out. She tells me the comfort will prevent the bitterness that will come otherwise.
I tell her I’m going to try to visit Dan’s grave soon- and she tells me that’s a big step and she’ll be interested to see how that is therapeutic for me and how I write about it afterwards. I am too, but mostly- I am terrified.
I also told her that I’m afraid some moments when I feel not great but functioning- that I’m in denial, but she didn’t think I was. “I’d say that’s probably progress,” she said.
Progress.
But if I stop for just a second- the quiet horror is there again. “This is really happening,” I think. I so want to tell you that it’s happening. I so want to tell the you that is packing up your suitcase, cleaning off your desk, getting ready to go…I want to tell him all about it. Because he doesn’t know. I know the sorrow and the scar will stay with me forever, but I hope this horror leaves after a year or so, or at least changes to something else without my noticing.
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