Grief Personified

I signed up for “Writing Your Grief” by Megan Devine a week after my dad’s funeral.  It’s a 30-day program with daily prompts to write about your grief.  The pain of my dad’s death was compounded by the death of my mom six months earlier and my husband ten years before that was excruciating.  I know that it will take time before the pain lessens, but I needed a place where I could express how I was feeling.  Every day I dedicate at least twenty minutes to writing.  Each prompt is so different that I’m able to explore a variety of places where grief lives.

In this prompt, I had to personify grief.  This is what she feels like to me.

“Who are you, and why are you spinning?”

As she slowly comes to a stop, her arms fall to her side, and she breathes a heavy sigh.  Her eyes are red and puffy, and her mouth is drawn down.

“I am Shadow Self. I spin around, trying to excise the claw that grips my chest.  Can you see it tearing at my flesh, pulling at my heart? I spin, trying to shake it loose, but it only holds on tighter.”

Shadow Self slides to the floor, her head in her hands, gulping for air.

“How can I help you?”

“You think you can help me?” she asks. “Do you have tools that will loosen the grip that makes breathing hard?  Are your ears strong enough to bear the sounds of m screams? Can you swim through the tidal wave of tears that will sweep you away?”

“You can’t bear the ferocity of my storm.  So let me spin until there is nothing left of me.  Until I’ve freed the beast that I have become.”

Shadow Self picks herself up off the floor and begins to spin, faster and faster, as tears cover the floor and screams fill the air.