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8. The Bubble


It's my new address.

Written Monday, November 25, 2019 / Day 105 / Afternoon


I have flashbacks all of the time to what I would call my “pre-grief” life. They are short because that’s all they can be. That part of my life is over and my current life is in this state of hollow emptiness that exists in a cultural bubble to all who are around me.


We all are familiar with the way death is processed - an immediate outpouring of attention and support. Intense expressions of loss that are felt by all of those affected. The intensity fades depending upon how close to and how affected the person is to the actual loss.


Over those succeeding weeks the intensity and contact diminishes, diminishes until it is virtually gone.

Everyone must return to their lives. There are duties, responsibilities and obligations that need to be met. So meet them we do. There’s just one problem - the victim - or victims of the loss are left with their loss. Depending on their support structure they may be facing that loss with or without the direct regular involvement of others.


If a spouse - the loss is quite direct, for other family members it is just as biting since that former connection no longer exists.


For those of us who carry the loss then, we face our lives in a rather peculiar reality. That of being alone - or as I am seeing - in a bubble.


You can be outright alone or within a family support structure - either way your bubble is there.


And you are in it.


In my “pre-grief” life’s perception - I’m just not sure what I though about those in the midst of their losses. Depending upon the situation there were periodic degrees of sadness. But then there were obligation to attend to - life to deal with and off I would go.


I do not have ill will towards anyone now because I was there. You reached out as best you could and then back you went.


Perhaps an occasional card or if close enough a phone call. So I get it that I don’t have a lot of contact.


Thankfully I have participated in several support groups. They have been helpful. Then there is my “administrative life” and the writing that helps to some degree.


But the rest of it is pretty awful. The loss of the other half of my life is a difficult pill to swallow at the moment. Difficult even though I know God has been inching me along. And I do know at the deepest levels of my spirit I am in really no shape for anything too complex at the present time.


So I have reached out to my family and they have been a comfort. I have to do the reaching even there but that’s okay. I have to get used to doing something although the thought of doing anything is oh so distasteful to me at the moment.


One of the earliest thoughts I had in all of this was that everything would have to be new. New because since she was at the heart of my life - that life is operationally over. It had also died.


If there is to be something out there in the future - it looks like it will have to be new. I have no idea what that is - but that’s fine. New will come along and I know I will recognize it when it becomes visible to me.


I retroactively become sad for how uninvolved I was in reaching out to those grieving a loss. Somehow my life and activities gave me a pass since, well, I have all these things to do.


Things I have to do. Really? Wow. I’m so sad for my ‘pre-grief” self. I actually want to give my “pre-grief” self a slap or two for being so insensitive.


But here in the bubble now - I navigate each day as it comes. I observe those outside the bubble in their lives and activities. That was me in the day so again, I understand.


I will pray for the strength - which I seem to be receiving - to help me endure my time here. Until that day I hear that wonderful sound.


The sound of my bubble - bursting into something new.

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