Suddenly vulnerable

Wednesday was an emotionally confusing day. At work, my partner and I were watching TV. The main character of our show was a girl who had survived an accident. One of the images from the program was of her, trying to pull her screaming sister away from the boy who was still trapped in the upside-down car. In a later segment, there was a scene where the father of the deceased boy was speaking to this girl. He said to her how much he had tried to hate her, but couldn't, because she was his last link to his lost son.

I had to get up and leave the room both times. I couldn't breathe.

Later, we were watching the movie Signs. There is a scene near the end when Graham is holding his son Morgan during an severe asthma attack: "Don't be afraid, Morgan, we'll slow this down together. Feel my chest...feel it moving in and out..breathe like me. Stay with me, I know it hurts, be strong baby, it'll pass...believe it's going to pass...We're the same...we're the same." I was still at work and it wasn't a place where I felt I could release into the tears that wanted to come. When my tears can't come, the dull headache begins. I feel my pulse double and my chest clench up...

I've blogged about this before. That night, past the threshold of the morphine's usefullness, past being able to see my surroundings or remember what I was screaming, the sole thing I remember is my tear-filled mother's voice in the darkness. "Just keep breathing, sweetie...let the pain come right down your arm and into me. Let me take it away from you. It's almost over...just keep breathing..."

I experience things - TV shows, accidents at work, words and emotions from other grieving people, anniversaries, continued losses - on a daily basis. They so very rarely trigger the intense reactions that I once knew so closely. The memories are almost...normal? They don't affect me in dramatic ways any longer, they're just incorporated into the days. Then there are days like Wednesday. I react so intensely and I'm left baffled. Why today? Why this scene on this program? Why these specific words at this specific moment? Why am I suddenly so vulnerable to something that isn't supposed to affect me anymore? Why does this still happen to me and why am I not ready for it? There's always a reason. Look deep, look with reserves of patience, and you will find the reason.

Two days ago I read a blog about earplugs (see Jennifer Silvera's link) and had been moved again into tears. I felt compelled to turn this morning's e-mail into today's blog on tears. I opened my planner a few minutes ago to schedule an appointment: LO AND BEHOLD! Thursday will be Derek's birthday. Older me, busy me, survivor me - hadn't yet acknowledged this or given it any thought. But in my deepest reaches, where I carry that wound forever, I never forget. Never. Our hearts are always speaking and they make themselves known - in anxiety, in seemingly unexplained tears - even when we aren't actively listening.

And so I wonder if I'm all wrong about moving on, about not living closely to the experience any longer. What is the defintion of moving on, anyway? I wonder what to call it, what it is that I feel 8+ years later about these meaningful dates. Earlier in my grieving process, it was easy to recognize the rawness of loss, regret, sorrow. What to call it now, I'm not sure. An inability or unwillingness to be healed? Survivor's guilt? Responsibility? Owing? Or is it still just loss, regret, and sorrow, that I'll never be rid of?