Grief is Exhausting

Grief is Exhausting

Grief is grief and it does what it does. Ever present in my life now, the river that flows from left to right through all the minutes of my life its waters are dark and deep. It would seem that days like today, the day after the fourth anniversary of Mandy’s death the cumulative effect is - exhaustion.

And so that’s how I woke up today. My first thought was that I was too tired to do this anymore. “Four years of this is enough, although it was phrased in my mind more like a question which asked, Isn't four years of this enough?”

So I laid in bed for several more hours – exhausted, worn down, worn out thinking about how deeply tired I really am.

I've been tired before. Thirty-five years Mandy’s mother I’ve known exhausted. In the last few years of her life she grew more and more afraid to be alone, afraid of everything real or imagined.

There were nights, many of them, when she called from her bed two, three, four o’clock in the morning.

“I know its two o’clock… I’m sorry… I know you need to sleep, but I’m scared. I can’t sleep. I’m so scared.”

Groggy, I picked up the phone. With my eyes still closed I held the phone to my face and waited for her to get through the fear.

“Okay, Mom. I’m okay now. I’ll try to sleep. I love you.”

Five, ten, fifteen minutes later the phone rang. Over and over for another hour or sometimes two or three she tried to stop calling me until finally the phone went quiet and I hoped against hope that she was really sleeping. I tossed and turned, sat up in bed and listened to see if she was really pacing or crying or on the phone with someone else.

By that time in my life I thought I understood tired. I thought I knew what worn out really was. Before Mandy died and I started on this journey I thought I understood a lot of things. I couldn’t have been more wrong.