Daryl Wood's Blog

It is nine weeks today since I held my sweetie as he passed from this life. Nine weeks. How did I get here? How have I survived the unbearable pain that comes with losing my ‘person’, the one who lived within and all around my heart and life, the one who witnessed my every move, the one who held me in place when the world started spinning? And the world is spinning now in ways I had never imagined.

In my innocent arrogance I am asking how it is that I keep falling into the same patterns that most grieving people do. I am told that with all I’ve learned and all my intense training I am better skilled to handle things than most others. I’ve even said it myself in my attempt to find something normal in my new abnormal life. The truth is that I am pretty much like everyone else who suffers a great loss. We struggle through our days and nights feeling abandoned by a world that either cannot help or cannot look us in the eye. And we all, every single one of us, knows that we were those people until, for a brief moment in time, the clock stopped ticking for us.

What sustains me are the small circle of loving people who set aside their own judgements and needs to just listen to me wail when wailing is what I need. And when I pick myself up … which in itself is an absolute miracle … they are ready to converse back and forth about the weather and their lives and the minutiae of life that distracts us all.

I hardly recognize myself in the mirror yet I still see a lot of me in my daily habits and conversations. I hear myself telling someone else who is grieving about the power of forgiveness. I hear the way I accept that his suffering was undeniably harsh and to know that it is over brings me peace. I watch myself mail cards and send messages of warmth and hope to those in the middle of their own difficult times. And I send birthday greetings, blessings for new babies and congratulations on achievements

Writing is my path to inner peace. I have filled journal pages with letters to my sweet Doug and used it as a place to plant thoughts and feelings that simply must be heard. I’m told I am so strong and that I will get through this. What I know for sure is that so far, up until this Sunday morning, nine weeks through this nightmare, that I am 100% successful at getting through it.

As long as I keep asking for help, I’ll keep going. There will never be a time when there isn’t someone willing to listen. Asking for help feels risky but I am a student of how vulnerability builds connection. I ask it of others and right now, for however long I need, I will take the chance and ask.