Good Grief 6

There are so many layers to the complexity of grief. It is so badly portrayed in films/TV and the like. Kubler-Ross writes of the stages but it feels too simplistic. There are so many interconnected layers, so much is unexpected, it can feel like walking blind through a minefield or drifting rudderless on an uncharted fickle sea. Yes, those stages are all relevant but not only are they non-linear (not that she said they were) but each has such an enormously idiosyncratic range. There are the layers of the loss of the person, the loss of relationship, the loss of sense of self, to name just a few. I go for a simple walk this evening, there is no reason to return, I could just keep going (which brings me back to the point of nothing joins the dots, or offers any coherence or anchoring), I look around the room and see bits of me, bits of him, bits of us, all make up a dead narrative (I'll return to the 'at least you have all those lovely memories' and other anodyne shit when I'm in the angry phase). I love this rock and its laminations, it not only reminds me of the complex layers and the distillations that are going on all the time but it is also a fitting geological metaphor for the seismic fracturing that occurs in every facet of life after death, in terms of relationship with self, others and the world.