Lose the Platitudes

This isn't really a post on being a mommy, but really, when you become a parent it invades pretty much every aspect of who you are and how you look at the world, so in a way it is.  I've had a lot of friends, and some family, dealing with great losses lately.  The still birth of my niece is the closest grief has ever come to me personally, and that had a very surreal quality to it.  It was upsetting, but I grieved more for my brother and his wife than for myself.  I felt pain for them mostly.  If I lost my other niece or either nephew I'd feel it much more deeply I'm sure.  I've had time to connect with them and get to know them as little individual people, losing them would be huge.  I'm not saying it doesn't suck, the loss of Celeste, it's just buffered in a way.

Anyway, I've been lucky, very lucky.  Even among my extended family I've only lost people either before I was born, or ones that I was never close to, maybe met once.  I have my parents, my brother (I'll not go into the other brother right now), my grandparents, sans the Grandmother that died before I was born.  I'm lucky.

The point of this post isn't really about how lucky I am.  It's about grief and how in today's modern times people seem to think they have to rush it.  We're a fast-food, instant-coffee, drive-through-banking kind of society; quick and dirty.  And it's bled into other areas of our lives, areas that should not be subject to such an extreme time line.

I read something recently that had me going "Yup, that's how I see myself reacting" when I thought about losing someone close, especially Jude, my baby.

***
     It's funny the things people say when someone dies.
     He's in a better place.
     How do you know that?
     Life goes on.
     That's supposed to comfort me?  I'm excruciatingly aware that life goes on.  It hurts every damned second.  How lovely to know it's going to continue like this.  Thank you for reminding me.
     Time heals.
     No it doesn't.  At best, time is the great leveler, sweeping us all into coffins.  We find ways to distract ourselves from the pain.  Time is neither scalpel nor bandage.  It is indifferent.  Scar tissue isn't a good thing.  It's merely the wound's other face.
~Karen Marie Moning, Shadowfever.
***

Yeah, I could see myself getting angry.  The less expected and the younger the individual, the more pissed off I'd be.  And I wouldn't want to hear all the platitudes.  If I lose someone and you want to comfort me, shut up and just be pissed off with me.  Get mad at the world, get mad at God or whatever higher power you hold truth to, I sure as hell will.  Yell, rage, tell me it's not fair.

Not that I'm of the "life is fair" school of thought, on the contrary I'm aware that life is unfair on most counts and you just have to do your best with your little bubble of control over it.  That, however, does not mean I have to like it.  Life should be fair, but it's not, and that sucks balls.  Death is often greatly unfair, but we have almost no control over it, which creates a helplessness that cuts.  On top of that we don't know what happens after.  You can preach to me about any type of heaven you want but the simple fact is that it's not FACT, it's faith.  You are more than welcome to it, but it's not fact, you can't prove it, so for arguments sake we're in the dark on any type of after-life.  We're blind and that's scary as shit.

I guess my reason for posting this is two-fold.  One, I've just had it in my head and wanted to get it out.  Two, for those of you reading this that have lost, please don't feel like you have to "put on a brave face", not for me, not for anyone.  Grieve, surround yourself with it, pull it close like a big ol' down comforter and soak it in.  Then, when you're ready, and only when you are ready, fold it up, put it on a shelf and enjoy the simple things while you still have life left in you.  You'll never be rid of it, it'll be there for you when you need it, and at times when you don't want it.  Some times you'll pull it out and curl up with it, other times just open the closet door and peek at it, you may even, on occasion, misplace it or forget it's there... but you'll go looking for something else and it'll slip down off the shelf and make itself known.

Don't be ashamed or afraid of it, and don't apologize for it.  Ever.