I have my best and brightest ideas when I am in the shower. Something about the near sensory deprivation of a small, dark portion of the room with only the flow of water as your companion somehow really lends itself to deep thoughts.
I was thinking about life and death and all that happens in that dash in between.
I realized how grief and life are both a lot more circular than linear. We think we start as babies, and move into toddlerhood, childhood, the teen years, young adulthood, then into late and very late adulthood until we peacefully cease to exist. In grief, we go through the five stages in order and never revisit them again.
I am in the stage of life when all my friends have, or are having, children. As an auntie, I have changed more diapers than I can count in the last two years, and I am happy to serve these tiny, precious souls in this vulnerable way. But, what about when we have aged so much that we need someone to perform this vulnerable task for us again? I think of my dear hospice patients, whom I see for my social work internship, and the way they casually discuss having their briefs changed by caretakers.
We start life needing help to eat, bathe, dress, and toilet. We get so spoiled in those intermediate years, doing it all ourselves and believing our mortal shells secretly hold immortality. Yet, the time will move on, and we will need yet another pair of hands to complete these tasks for us. From dust we came, and to dust we shall return.
Grief, about anything in life, happens in a similar way. We wallow in our anger, spend time in bargaining, and finally rest in acceptance, never to trudge that circle again.
Those of us with conditions, like Ehlers-Danlos, that invite all of its friends to the party over the years, know that grief is a circle, not a line. Grief, like life, has stages we will revisit. A new diagnosis and I am spun to sadness. Another failed treatment, and I spiral back to denial.
At my lowest, I find myself retracing my steps in the circles of life and grief, recognizing the paths I had worn in the brush the last time I made the trek. Yet, I see those steps are never just mine. I have gathered a community through every version of the journey.
Look at the lazy circles your life has created. Look at each rendition of those journeys. Count the footprints. Look at all those who carried you when you couldn’t imagine leaving anger or imagine needing someone to help you use the bathroom.
Look at those footprints and thank them for being there.
Love and spoons,
Emily
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