April, Come She Will

I've read, and others who understand have told me, that anniversaries can be hard. I know Jim's birthday back in January felt OK for most of the day but when I got nailed at a dinner party it nailed me hard. This grief shit is so unpredictable, sporadic at times and tough stuff.

I'm coming up on an anniversary and I'm getting nailed already. I was out at my mothers house to see my younger sister and her family who had come down from Bangor. The surf was huge, bigger then I can remember in a very long time; wild, surging, pounding and gorgeous. We had a wonderful day, I stayed for lunch and later in the afternoon the grand nieces all showed up and went to fly a kite out in the field. I couldn't join them. I could barely put one foot in front of the other. I was so incredibly tired that I felt a tremendous weight on me and an inertia that was sucking me down. My family was saying "Mary looks like she's going to fall asleep!", or "Mary, God you look so tired". And I was, so tired!

Rather then join in the fun of kite flying on a gorgeous afternoon I just got up saying "I gotta go home." I kissed my mom and then just waved a hand to the other family members in the kitchen at that time. No going around to give everyone the normal good bye hugs ... just a quick "bye" and I was out the door and heading home. For some reason I did not want any physical contact with anyone. What was that about?

That night, as I laid in bed, I got hit by one of those huge breakers I'd seen roll in to crash against the rocks earlier in the day; it crashed against me so hard that I had to curl into the fetal position and hang on. What the heck is going on? It's still more than two weeks to the actual one-year mark.

Ah, but it's April. When I scrolled down to my 2010 posts and then to the month of April here on this blog (yes, you can do it too.) I see that starting on April 26, 2010 all the big shit began to hit the fan for us. This was the beginning to the end; the ER visits, the hospital, the Hospice.

You know, it almost feels like PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome). I work with war veterans doing acupuncture for them to help ease their PTSD and all the symptoms that are associated with this syndrome. I can't imagine what these folks have lived through but I hear of the flashbacks, the insomnia, the emotional swings and sudden angry outbursts. I am experiencing some of this now; all that pain, fear, weariness and unfathomable grief is resurfacing from all the memories in my cells.

As the Maple trees are coming into flower with those pretty little firecrackers of red and yellow explosions at the end of the branches and the crocuses are powering out of a still cold earth, and snowdrops wave their pretty white heads ... April in Maine still remains very cold and bleak for me.

"April, come she will"

Loving you all back,

Mary