Closing Windows and Doors: A Path to Healing
Finishing the Details
It has been almost three years since my dad passed away, while I listened to his breathing become more and more labored, until I fell asleep and he left for good while I dozed. I suspended my grief and saw the joy in the event and cleaned his closets and drawers and home. We rejoiced in the brave and wonderful life he’d lead, I missed deeply the love he’s bestowed on me. And I went on, hoarding more of his stuff in boxes and bags in my closets.
Now, the “business” of death is done. I’ve tied up the last loose ends and distributed the last of the funds. I’m grateful since I’ve just been relieved of my employment. My brother has already bought his retirement house – I have no idea what emotions are running though his body now. We cheerfully talk of what the money will go toward and stay safely away from feelings. He’s uncomfortable with feelings, which is why he did not come home when dad passed away finally.
Starting to Heal the Body
But closure is somehow, just that. It’s the closing of a door or window you felt safe having open. You know they won’t come back, but you feel comfortable in the grief you experience by having that doorway to the death still open; the window through which you still can feel the breeze of their life.
My doctor says my nervous system is shut down. But I’m laughing and joking and carrying on as normal. I don’t feel that inner me that’s shut down. He works to re-spark my life force and bring me back. I feel as though I’m living in a parallel universe. But as he works, the returning fire ignites dreams of anger and violence; I dream of slashed, bloody body parts and snakes.
While I don’t have the courage to research the bloody mess, I do look up the snakes: changing paradigm in life, adjustment, renewal, and transition.
The next time I see my doctor, I cry on his table as he works on me, I swear and am angry at the constant pain I endure every day. I’m pissed at the crappy body that my genetics have left me with, the one inherited from a birth mother who pained me instead of nurtured me, and of the pain she must have felt when my birth father left her.
Now, my nervous system is on overdrive, out of control, making me hyper-sensitive. He hands me the Kleenex box and we discuss the next step to help heal as much as my body as I will allow.
