A Story in the Wash

I wish someone had told me.  But then, would I have believed it?  I suppose I had to arrive at it in my own time.  One day, shit got real, as shit tends to do.   I started to feel a pull, something (someone?) telling me to get over myself and get what I needed.  And then one day, I just began.

And after it all, I offer this.

Write. Banish that thing: that trauma, that woe. Crack yourself open, send it out, and release it. Let it fly. Then write some more. Losing someone you once called home will never not be real, but the weight of it can be altered. If it sits in you, causing trouble, humming low and aching at best, searing and tearing at its worst, then cast it out. Whatever it is, let the mind articulate what the heart can’t, and in so doing, launder it. Take control of your story by telling it. That thing you carry won’t go away, but it will emerge changed, and so will you.

I never knew any of that was possible. Then I wrote a book while figuring out a mystery illness. It wasn’t supposed to be a book, actually. I started by simply writing letters to someone who would never read them. Suddenly I was writing chapters. It became a vehicle for processing grief for my mother, whom I had lost not long after my grandmother had also left this life. I thought, after years of going through it that I had it handled.  Turns out, there was work to do.  The chapters fell right out of me in the span of a couple of months. Once I started, I was addicted to the eviction of thoughts and emotions that had been with me, marinating, for years.

I wrote in the morning before work, the evenings after, weekends, whenever I had a moment. I gave up social media, because ick, anyway. I used that time to write.

And then I took a break, because wow. Through my keyboard, I had vomited out all the things I never wanted to talk about. Apologies for that visual. Once it was done, I didn’t write again for many months. And then one day, I started the revision process — a little here, a little there. A memory, a pain, a laugh, a cry. I picked up those little buggers again and rinsed them in a bit of the clarity that I had been given by it all.

Are those grief and trauma marbles still rattling around in there? Yes, but they are different now. They have been processed. Washed. And I am made free.

I vanquished their power over me by owning them.  They are mine, these experiences.  This amazing rollercoaster of a life has been all mine and I am grateful for every single thing in it.

So now I’m hooked, and here I’ve landed. This writing thing is awesome, come what may. I highly recommend you send out your own bits and pieces, and give the gift of your thoughts, your stories in the wash.  Whether you do it just for those you love, for the world, or for yourself.

Writing for yourself, and/or for those you love is an act of caretaking, a way to leave yourself on the page for them, preserving stories. My mom taught me that, and she made me promise I would keep it going.

I was once told by someone I didn’t like at all, “grief never leaves you, but the way you deal with it changes.” Super true, even though I resent that unlikable person being right about anything. Grief settles into your bones and becomes a part of every day.  Not the boo-hoo sobbing part, but another version — an ache that you aren’t aware of most of the time, then it creeps up and out every now and again. That one person, or two, that you lost have become part of who and what you are, as they always were — but now in a different way.

And it was in the writing I learned how very much they are still there. 

Here.

I believe that was the biggest revelation for me, in writing about my mother.  Instead of the missing, I started to realize that my heart has a way of ‘seeing’ that allows me perfectly clear vision in remembering. She remains here with me, because of that.

The initial extraction of someone you love from your life is sharp, a profound trauma. And not just love, if they are someone who IS you — your guts, your insides — you wonder how to live life without them. How could I possibly be in the world, when she was not?

Time rounds the edges of the trauma, but my writing sent it out of me. Scrub-a-dub, and back inside. Now, it lives on but I have come to love my grief. That may seem a little odd, but stick with me on this one.

It’s like a warm hug that I allow myself from time to time. I get in it and spend some time. My grief is big love, immense gratitude, and a celebration of a beautifully full life. It is time travel. Love isn’t lost, it is still with me in its entirety.  It is our life together, this grief of mine. I hold it gently, as it is my honor to carry it.

My mother was a writer, but before now, I never was. Until a book fell out of me. I wanted to write while she was alive, but the shadow of her intellect and talent was long. I was insecure and hesitant to begin.

Seven years after her passing, it’s as if it wasn’t a choice. I sat down. I started typing. Writing about her let bloom the gift of being drawn to that desk and doing something she loved.  It’s as if we wrote it together.

The thought of sending this all out into the world, this work of love, is thrilling and completely nauseating at the same time.  But, I can’t wait to learn what my experience, my grief, can do now — will it help at least one person? 

I sincerely hope so.

-LC