I am Grieving, But I'm Okay

So, a dear friend of mine passed away a few days ago now.

I don’t really know what to say or how to deal with it. When I found out I cried and cried, I felt atrocious knowing that we kept missing each other and that we were both so busy and weren’t able to connect in the way we did when we would get to see each a few times of week because we were closer to one another physically. (Classes at the same time, closer to connecting public transit, etc.)

But I haven’t cried since, and I’ve felt great in the past couple of days too. And that’s a really foreign feeling. Sometimes I forget that she’s just not here in the capacity I want her in. In some way the not being physically and debilitatingly sad feels good. When my grandfather I seriously considered self harming again (which few people know about because generally I would throw myself against things to create bruises that I would push and push and push, or find bruises I got from genuine accidents and push), I became heavy with guilt, I would cry all the time, stare out into space and be aloof, and my confidence went down a lot while my anxiety went up ten fold, etc. It was genuinely traumatizing. I still have nightmares about my grandfather dying, and I still get that phantom limb like feeling. 

A picture of me and Danielle in Boystown with a friend of hers. We danced all night together and then ate hash browns. She was always more photogenic than I was.

So, this is a very different experience, and while I’m glad I’m not back in that dark place, I still feel guilty for having fun, even though D was the most fun loving, jubilant, and lively person I knew. S and I went to an amazing show the night we found out after discussing it I could emotionally handle it and I said “D would have gone.” So we went, and I had the best time, laughing, and singing, and making friends. I had a whiskey sour in commemoration of D (a drink we both got by accident once and laughed about for hours) and the next morning we go hash browns (something D and I got after clubbing and what we rewarded one another with when we followed through on something). And I enjoyed them. I didn’t cry, and that felt… Wrong, you know? Here I was, enjoying life to it’s fullest, exactly what D always did, and what she always helped me do, and I felt guilty. Maybe not in the moment but after. 

I kept asking myself, was I thinking about her enough? Is it awful that I afraid of talking to her parents at the visitation? That I’m stressed about what to wear? Am I being selfish and not trulyappreciating D’s impact on so many lives in this time of death and in her life?

I know that this is not the case. Unfortunately I went through death before in an extremely painful way, I’ve learned how to deal with the anxiety, the stress, and how to keep living and enjoying, because I made the mistakes of not doing so already. I know I am a compassionate, emotionally driven, and deeply feeling person, and perhaps my absence of destructive grief is just something I’m not used to/didn’t expect. I’m high strung by nature, so this calmness I feel, this sureness that I will be okay is not what I know how to approach. 

But, I think something that makes this calmness and sureness and healthy sadness and joy possible is the support system I have now. When my grandfather died the only support I had was from one friend and my family (in fact the person I considered my best friend at the time was verbally abusive and mean and used her parents to shame me for my grief and my personality change). But with the death of D, I have my partner, the dear, dear friend we both shared who grieves with me (even though she’s miles away), and my family. The support I feel is through the roof. I feel safe, I am safe.

After writing that, I feel better, actually. Because it makes sense, this is probably why I’m handling it the way I am. Because I love my friend, even in her death, and I am immensely loved, and it reaffirms my love for her and vise versa, which I could never forget and never regret. That love that’s surrounding me now, in all different capacities, even seeing love left on her facebook page, is wonderful. And warm. And it’s helping my cope in ways I haven’t realized until just this second.

I’m visiting Ireland in the fall for 23 hours on my way to Italy to be with parts of my family I love and miss and fear of losing. D was half Irish and very exuberant about her culture from there, and I want to do something there for her. I want to speak to her family and tell them, ask if there’s anything I can do or take with me, if it would provide relief for them, but how do you ask that? People have taken my grandfather’s ashes all over the world, we give out tiny vials people hide in their pockets and in stowed away luggage just so he can be everywhere and see everything. But that’s what we do. Not what we are offered, we ask people to do it for us and all happily oblige, excited to be a part of his life in another way. I’m not sure how to ask to do something like that for someone. Not the ashes bit, but the in memoriam bit.

But now I’m realizing, just going there and thinking of her is giving love. I want to give her family the love and support D always gave me. And isn’t that what she would want most, what we all want most when we’re gone? For the people we love to love each other and continue to love outside and inside of ourselves?