The Breaks
Grieving is not grief.
It is mostly rage and reason.
Rage and reason control your memory the way the remote controls your channel surfing when nothing is on.
You are the terminal. And memory bridges the everlasting with the never existing.
Grief is everything that keeps you from grieving.
I lost someone last month. Someone close to me. Someone in recovery. Someone fighting a good fight. Lost and gone. He took his own life. I found him. It rocked me.
And I hear you. As I’ve heard everyone. Everyone speaking from that place of loving compassion. I know it is not my fault. It was my friend’s last wish in fact: don’t blame yourself. He also asked for forgiveness.
Look. I know the litany of things I should know about this. I know the serenity prayer. Recovery shaped my adult life; God has given me new horizons. But there is no defense against grieving.
Salt has lost savor.
I see myself; I am not myself.
I have been sharing in meetings how resentful I am, at present, with recovery. I hate all the slogans that I have written about on this blog—everything is a reminder of what didn’t work for Tom. It all wasn’t enough for him. He needed more. And it’s not my fault. I didn’t know. Ignorance is no defense. Not knowing can’t stop the guilt. The pacing. The sleepless nights. The breaks.
My first break was to my sponsor.
“You’ve been doing the next right thing all day, haven’t you?”
Me nodding, underneath a tree once the medical examiner had left. “I’d like to go for walk with you,” I said.
It breaks. It really does.
Some breaks lack magnetism. Dumb feelings that can’t piece themselves back together.
I now hate the expression, “Those are the breaks.” That should be reserved for times when we can put one foot in front of the other and march out of things. Those aren’t the breaks. This is:
My wife in the kitchen as I was on my way out. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I’ve been through this before. It’s just another—” I let the door slam to stop me from lying to myself. This one is different.
Maybe the breaks can be defined as those moments when we can’t lie to ourselves any longer.
Why don’t we talk more about what is broken?
Because it hurts.
Grief is the mechanism that gives death a stay of execution. We do anything to avoid the loss. That loss is too much. Tom is gone. I don’t accept that yet. I don’t want to talk.
I don’t want to write this.
I don’t want to let you in.
Yet I write.
I will read your comments.
I will fulfill my end of this bargain.
I will let you in, damnit.
I know no other way. Recovery has given me no other way of dealing with life other than through recovery. I haven’t quit showing up. And I’m not quitting now. I am here, still.
And I will stay here until I start to recognize the person who started this blog. The person who connected eagerly with other bloggers, went on a dozen podcasts, collaborated, met a whole world of sober folks on Twitter. That person is not here. I’m sorry. But I am going to keep doing the things that person used to do and hope that habits can transfigure him. If not, I’ll have to let him go.
I turned 37 a week ago. So I bought a book. I went 16 days without reading. I’ve never gone that long in sobriety without reading. And I don’t mean emails. There’s no helping reading dozens of those a day, unfortunately.
I bought a book. One of Zadie Smith’s. One of hers I hadn’t read yet.
It was the first time I felt like my old self a little bit. Escaping through her words on the same highway I’ve travelled before.
But I crash every time.
Re-entering into a rage and reason I cannot control.
I’m convinced, more than ever, that it is the loss that makes us human. It is not the gain or the given.
Knowledge is an orbit. And the breaks never stop spinning.
Each of us bear distances you cannot see.
We are centrifugal beings, pulled about by a loss you cannot touch.
It is beyond all of us, spinning in pieces.
Speak with someone, anyone, and watch their pieces whirl.
Or don’t.
I don’t blame you if you don’t.
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I’m so sorry to hear you lost your friend, Mark. How traumatic to find him. Somehow it seems especially cruel when someone in recovery takes their own life, and it’s more common than I would’ve imagined. I hope you will give yourself lots of time and space to feel what you’re feeling and recover. Glad you decided to share it with us.
TY Kristen. Really nice to hear from you! I will try for sure.
What a difficult thing to experience. I’m so sorry.
Mark,
I just don’t have the words.
I can’t even imagine.
Let yourself feel those feelings.
Love,
Your friend Wendy
He lives on in and through you. Honor that.
Thank you for sharing this vivid truth Mark. We are praying for you guys.
“Maybe the breaks can be defined as those moments when we can’t lie to ourselves any longer.”
There is so much truth packed in one sentence, I’m sobbing. I’m deeply sorry for your loss and break. May an everlasting grace meet you in this midnight hour.
Thank you Amber. Wishing you the best.
There are no words. I’m so very sorry.
Thank you for the brutal beautiful honesty of this post. Even in our most grounded recovery, grief and loss is difficult. I do not think that we are built for these raw emotions anymore. We distract ourselves with the good … the hobbies …. connection … helping others and when we are grieving and everything is off it is difficult to find the positive that feeds our soul. May you keep feeding your spiritual self and be gentle…. there are no answers and we are left to make sense of the broken
Thanks Jenn. I am certainly one for distractions. I find ways to stay so busy that I don’t have to sit with these things. One day I’ll sit with this. Thanks for your comment.
Ride it all.
I am very sorry for your loss. And very sorry that never have I yet found words that make a difference in someone’s grief.
TY Colleen
Brain cancer. A diseased motherboard. As I pulled away the mirror was empty, there was no one there to say goodbye. No nod or wave until the next time. I fought myself to remember the last.
No one to miss me, I was now sobbing in my loneliness. Ashamed as if I took the last of him and made it about me..
I picked up speed as the road had become an open pit of despair. George was gone now and so was I. My best friend, my only friend really was leaving me behind yet I followed blindly into the darkness.. I was going with him, I was always going with him but this time? He had left me behind. Fear surrounded me now, I was lost, defenseless in my selfish betrayal. Courage was gone.
The funeral was a lifetime of Georges faces who’d come to show their final expression. I stood like a hand carved head piece on at the podium. The best of me. The mirror was full looking back. Reality. My own reality. George was truly my best friend but to my dismay, I wasn’t his. George had many best friends. At this moment I welcomed all of George. I understood my place.
As I shook hands and waved and nodded to everyone as they left. I felt free to let them all have their piece of George to live with, to take. Share with eachother in life as a rainbow bridge, help us all accept the rain. I knew then I was not going with George, he was coming with me. Was I worthy? More than anything I wanted to be.
It’s been 4 years since the funeral. Yesterday George and I were fixing my motorcycle in the garage together. I couldn’t figure out the clutch problem but George stepped in and reminded me how we fixed the clutch on his bike years ago. I thought for a moment of others George was helping out . Other friends like me.
You were worthy then and you’re worthy now. Love the idea with sharing a rainbow bridge. Thanks Sherp
Hey Mark, it’s okay to be angry, it’s okay to rage. Your rage resonated within me, shook me. Reminding me of how I felt when a friend died drunk. How much pain and self-blame there was within me. Being powerless has fuelled my own anger. I rail against entropy. I walked away from people who told me ‘this too shall pass.” And yet it did. A year later, I still send texts to my friend, I think of him often. He still surprises me. Love is a powerful thing. I try to temper it, knowing I carry no magic wand.
I appreciate that very much. Sometimes it’s good just sit with others who know—knowing that no one really knows—if that makes sense.
So first, I thank you for sharing, even when you don’t want too.
I lost 2 of my brother, one year apart. The first was horrible, losing the second kicked me while I was down. I now have 21 years in program, when they passed I had 12 and 13 years. I learned about grief, more so I learned about pain, sorrow true loss. I could not reconcile it with any tool we have in our 12 step tool box. My wife was getting fed up with my darkness, can’t blame her, I was so angry.
My path forward came through realizing that if I had a choice, to not feel the pain it would only come if I didn’t have the love. In order to be in that much pain one has to have that much love. So would I have chosen to forgo the love so I did not live with the pain?
Not a chance. The pain of loss is the price of deep love. The tears still flow at times, so does the love. They are with us always, we talk of them always, we share with them always, they are with me always.
God Bless you.
Scott–Wow. Just wow. Thank you for sharing that.
May Bod Bless you too!
And may God keep both of us loving deeply–and leaning on each other to recover from the wounds involved. Thank you brother,
Mark
Thanks for sharing, Mark. As is usual, powerful words flow from you.