The Wilderness
Slogging through complicated grief is just that, a slog. Like you’re walking through knee-deep mud and you can barely move. People tell you “one day at a time.” I say in return that sometimes it’s one moment at a time. There is so much to process. When I’m spending time focusing and processing on one facet of grief, it feels like another facet becomes lifelike and waves it’s hands saying, “hey-o, over here, I need some attention!” Then I feel guilty. Am I focusing too much on one facet and not enough on the other? Thankfully, my grief counselor gives me some perspective.
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When Grief Is Complicated
I’m preparing to speak in a couple weeks on the topic of grief and sadness. I’ll be sharing a part of my own story along the way, which got me thinking about complicated grief, or, as some say, compounded grief.
When meeting with my new grief counselor a few months after David’s death in Iraq, she listened to my story intently. When I finished, she let out a deep breath and said, “You are suffering from compounded grief, Marilyn.”
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A Pantoum Poem For David's Birthday
This week at my Wednesday morning writing class, our instructor, Nancy introduced us to a form of writing poetry called Pantoum. Probably seven out of the eight women in class groaned a bit because writing poetry is not even close to their favorite form of writing. This is a memoir writing class after all. Afterwards everyone felt differently; I even felt a little excited, learning something new. Let me try to explain Pantoum:
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