Pain
Loss is such a selfish thing. You wonder why everyone around you isn't screaming at what's happened. You wonder why you aren't screaming, because inside, the keening never stops. You feel it in the back of your throat with every breath, any moment you might open your mouth to release it. But instead, you keep it inside - the pitch and octave careening about your body, ripping every cell to shreds, and you can feel yourself dying, being torn from the inside out. Blood should be poring from every pore, and you don't know WHY it isn't. You don't understand why everything around you doesn't stop and kneel over from the vibration and shockwaves of the pain. Because it comes in waves. One moment you lose yourself, you forget for just a second, you ride a crest of understanding perhaps, but usually its just a moment of laughter or interaction - and then the crash down comes....you remember. And its more than you can STAND. And the GUILT. The guilt of forgetting for that second. The guilts that you WEREN'T a good parent, you WEREN'T fast enough, you DIDN'T DO ENOUGH, you didn't LOVE enough. And if it were a violent, traumatic event, your mind's video camera plays it over. And over. And OVER. It's torture.
With the lost of a person, everyone understands on some level. With the lost of a loved one, non-person, its belittled. "You'll get over it. Just get a new kitten." Even with those who have lost a non-human child, we forget. Until it comes again. Relief is found with those who have also just lost - their keening echoes yours, their tears are real and immediate and yours, and you both hope soon that it will fade. You hope the pain will fade, but not the memory. Both fade to some extent. But you still wake in the middle of the night crying, because you thought you felt him/her, you thought you felt the weight on the bed, in a dream you cuddled.... Last night I thought Gilgi jumped on the back of the couch. I felt a brush against the back of my head, and the cushion give and I felt overjoyed for just one moment. And then the crash. I thought I heard him in the kitchen. Then the crash. Your mind is just making sense of the random that bombards us everyday - its natural that it files the nonsense in as common experiences. Your eyes do it too. I keep seeing him hiding in the shadows. But he doesn't come out to greet me. And my heart breaks again.
With the lost of a person, everyone understands on some level. With the lost of a loved one, non-person, its belittled. "You'll get over it. Just get a new kitten." Even with those who have lost a non-human child, we forget. Until it comes again. Relief is found with those who have also just lost - their keening echoes yours, their tears are real and immediate and yours, and you both hope soon that it will fade. You hope the pain will fade, but not the memory. Both fade to some extent. But you still wake in the middle of the night crying, because you thought you felt him/her, you thought you felt the weight on the bed, in a dream you cuddled.... Last night I thought Gilgi jumped on the back of the couch. I felt a brush against the back of my head, and the cushion give and I felt overjoyed for just one moment. And then the crash. I thought I heard him in the kitchen. Then the crash. Your mind is just making sense of the random that bombards us everyday - its natural that it files the nonsense in as common experiences. Your eyes do it too. I keep seeing him hiding in the shadows. But he doesn't come out to greet me. And my heart breaks again.