No Rules for Mourning

The unthinkable happened to me this past February. On a rainy Sunday, my boyfriend of a year-and-a-half and I mutually decided we were at a crossroads and ended our relationship. It was the healthiest break-up I’ve ever had, yet incredibly painful. Four days later, just after work hours, I got a call from my Mom in southern California that my Dad had called 911 because of debilitating abdominal pain. He thought it was his hernia that the doctors had been watching while he was trying to lose some weight.

Twelve hours later, I arrived down south and he was just recovering from emergency abdominal surgery. The findings had been grim: his colon had actually ruptured and his system had gone septic. The prognosis was not positive and he had a huge battle ahead of him. Two days later, two months ago today, after a strong fight (for a not-so-healthy seventy-two year-old), his organs began to fail and he passed quietly just after dinnertime with his immediate family and one friend surrounding him. Six days later would have been my parent’s fortieth anniversary.

All this in six days? What gives? They say God doesn’t give you anything on your plate that you can’t handle. It’s all I kept thinking to get me through the first month.

I can say that the past two months have been the most challenging months of my life. I’ve felt emotions so deep that sometimes I think I’m going to die of the emotional pain. Sometimes I double over in pain while crying and other times I feel like a comatose zombie. I am numb, sad, expressive, explosive, and quieted all at once. I felt I’d lost a limb when my ex and I broke up, now I feel as though part of my heart is truly lost, broken forever. It’s a break-up times 100.

Personally, I have come to rely on some obvious sources. The first being friends and family. It’s certainly true that you learn whom your true friends are when these circumstances show up unexpectedly. The simple phone calls of checking-in have been my savior on dark days as have the abundance of cards from afar. I don’t feel I owe it to anyone to pick up my cell-phone when they call but I owe them my deepest thanks and appreciation. And I’ve made that clear to friends from the west coast to the east coast to London. Of course, though, I do pick up for my Mom and brother! We’re in it together and we’re grieving completely differently.