I think about death a lot--not my own, which I'd like to avoid for as long possible--but death in general. Sometimes, I feel like I am constantly mourning someone or supporting someone mourning someone. And I guess I am. This isn't because I am special or cursed; it is just because death happens as much as life does.
After my father died, I started calling September "Death Month." When this strange, morbid practice began, it gave me weird comfort to block off 30 days to mourn. Giving the month a name allowed me to declare to the world that I got to have this month to be sad and angry and dark and mournful.
The problem is that grief does not happen in an organized, scheduled way.
I'd find myself irate with my own grieving feelings that occurred outside of "Death Month," and often for seemingly no reason whatsoever. And then my brother died, also in September (in fact, his heart stopped the second time on September 17, the anniversary of my father's death and then it restarted and he returned to us for a few more days). When David died it felt like September really was "Death Month," but then when September ended, I couldn't give up on my greiving. I needed to hold on to it to feel sane.
And that is the other weird thing about grief--even though it causes me to sometimes act less than even, it feels so honest and truthful to grieve. When I am particularly sad, I inexplicably have a hard time actually grieving. It's like I am so beyond sad that I cannot summon the energy to get to the place where I want to be--I can't cry, I can't wail, I can't do it. Even though I need to do it.
I need my grief because it borne from incredible love. Without the grief, it is like the love never existed and I cannot think of anything worst than wiping away the love and life I shared with my dad and my brother. My solution: I read their obituaries or the eulogies I wrote. I force myself to remember their lives and their deaths, so I can get on the grieving and then, somehow, return to my regular life. I know, I know, it's maybe weird, but my grief is mine and I just let it be weird.
Death is weird--you know? One day someone is here and the next day they are not. It is a horrible bait and switch--whether a tragic death or simply a sad death of a person lived a long, long life. Here and then gone. Alive and then dead.
The one thing that remains is always the grief--which is really just the love.
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