An Appetite for Grief

An appetite for grief. I really don't know if there is such a thing. I don't know that I've heard it describe this way before, but I've decided while observing my own process that there seems to be in fact an appetite for grief this is what I mean by that. I feel like I have been adjusting to the loss of my wife over these past three months and I'm making some progress. I mean I am functional and I'm tapping into the resources that are available to me. One of those resources is Hospice. it was in-home hospice care that we chose and home hospice care that brought us together in our more in our most profound hour of need and loss. I feel that the initial shock of loss was numbing. I think that the functioning I embodied was somewhat robotic. I knew what to do because I used to function and now I was imitating that behavior, but inside I was crushed and I needed time and space to express those deep promotions, after the business of the service and visiting with all supporting family and friends, I really needed space to let myself go. I need space to be alone to find out where I really was in this grief process and what I found was when I was all alone, I cried , I cried deeply and mournfully. Essentially, I howled! The reason I'm including this in my suddenly single Blog is because I know I'm not alone and feeling these feelings, but I had to be alone physically in order to release them in order to feel them in order to let them out, in order to let them go. but what I learned in that process was there was an end or there was a point of exhaustion where when I held when I cried when I let myself go unabated it didn't go on forever gradually dissipated, gradually transformed into a sense of peace and calm. In effect, I was exhausted I was satiated and that's why the analogy the comparison to the appetite for grief. When you were hungry. When you were famished when you use phrases like I'm starving you want to eat you have an appetite it needs to be filled and so you find your source you find your source of nourishment and sustenance, and then you indulge. you eat and you eat and you eat until you simply cannot eat any longer. Suddenly, I'm famished transcends to I'm stuffed I couldn't eat another bite! And I believe so it is with grief I believe that when you feel the sorrow, the loss, the impact of the loss you have a certain hunger, a certain need a certain appetite for release for grieving for letting yourself feel what you feel and letting it all out. for myself, I could not do this with my daughter present as much as I love her and I know she loves me and as supportive as I knew she was, I could not let her see me in that state I could not let her see her father in what I considered such a disabled capacity, but I needed to escape that role. I needed to find out and allow myself to go there and what I'm saying is that once I did so once I allow myself to scream like a banshee, the appetite was satisfied the grief lifted the tears, dried the smile, returned to my face, and I was able to go on and I think just like any other appetite just like above where you said I can't eat another bite. I'm stuffed eventually you get hungry again eventually you will eat again and I believe so. It is with grief. It's a long-term process. It's not over in one day, one week one month one year I don't know how long it's gonna take what I do know about grief is that it has its own voice has its own volition. It's in there it's building. It has its own appetite and it needs to be satisfied now people say that time heals all wounds , I do believe there's truth to that. I do believe the time allows wounds to heal, but part of that healing process I believe is satisfying the appetite of grief don't deny it don't suppress it, in the immortal words of Paul McCartney let it be.