Good Grief 25

I did a Parkrun yesterday. They are a great set up and this one finishes off with a chance of a coffee at the café in the park which is set up to support those with learning disabilities - it all has a good community feel, both in terms of the runners, knowing there are parkruns doing the same thing nationally and internationally and that it supports a local social initiative.

I've blipped these silver birch because as I ran I had waves of panic. These aren't new to me, they come with grief .... or the waves of grief come with the panic, I'm not sure which way round. As I run my body is aware of the effort and it seems to be a microcosm moment that symbolises the pain and effort that has gone on over these years and continues every day at a different pace and in different situations.
I watched it come over me, the panic and the pain of the loss floods me and I want to just drop to the ground and say, 'no more, I can't do this anymore, I can't keep going, I don't want to, I can't bear it' . I see my husband, I see him smiling, I see the physicality of him, the bulk of his body that simply is no more, I can feel my hand on the fabric of his T-shirt and the solidity of his chest beneath. I still have the T-shirt but the body, the substance ... all gone. It is all unbidden, it seems to come with the effort, it seems to open up a different sort of pathway of feeling the loss. There are so many pathways to grief, so many avenues, so many levels and so many layers, each with a different access route. And sometimes they burst in like this, unexpectedly - a sudden rush. They don't particularly surprise me any more. They are what they are. But I did just want to stop and fall to the muddy ground. Again a microcosm moment of the effort of keeping going each day for so long ... and for what? I just want to stop and cry. I try to tell myself that it is just a parkrun, it is just another day, like all the others, get on with it, get over it. It tends not to work very well. I'm not ambitious or driven, I'm not really fussed about a 'personal best'. It's all pretty pointless, something to do to get the day moving along, improve fitness, meet up with others ... why do we do anything when it comes to it. There are no real motivators for me at the moment. Love seems to be the main one. It irritates me that it seems to be so central but I shouldn't be surprised. It has kept my engine going in the past and it is why my engine is struggling to keep going now. I wish I could convert to a different kind of fuel ... but then, maybe I don't.
As I ran and as I panicked I noticed my friend was saying encouraging things like, 'nearly there now ... we're doing loads better this time', etc. I zoned out, it wasn't helping - being nearly there and doing loads better do not figure any more. I looked at the trees and thought, 'those hazel leaves are huge in this shady bit' and then I watched the wind in the tops and up to the sky, and then I saw a stand of three silver birches and was struck by the interconnectedness of each of them to each other, of their roots to the soil, of the soil to my feet and across to the trees on the other side of the path, of the leaves to the air and on and outwards, way beyond all of us. The interconnectedness of things. And kept running.