Grief and Fear

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.

At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

I have written before about how grief "hits" in different ways. The day my dad died after the initial shock I went into planning mode, deciding when to go to Charleston, making phone calls, receiving calls, etc. It was busy. An hour or so later when I slipped into my truck and started the 6 hour drive, alone, I started to feel like my body was shutting down. Pins and needles in my extremities, moving closer and closer to my heart. I have never had pins and needles in my stomach before, but I did that day. My body hadn't been physically harmed, but it hurt. Driving alone I felt free to let it out. I have never allowed such raw emotion to be released. It didn't feel like a decision.

Lewis writes about feeling concussed. Yes. For the past few months I have felt like I am in a fog. Simple decisions difficult. Hard decisions overwhelming.

This is an experience that we all share in. Everyone has or will lose someone close to them. But the thing I have found that I have been blessed by through all of this has been the community of family and friends who have surrounded me and my family. Who have taken care of us. Texted. Called. Checked in. Offered to take the kids. My wife especially has shouldered the burden of a husband often disengaged.

I am so very thankful for the dozens of people that have come alongside us in various ways and for whatever duration. It all means so much.