I’ve been doing some deep grief work this past month. I didn’t even realize it at first. Three weeks ago I pulled an intercostal muscle under my right breast that went all the way around my back. It was painful to raise my arm, and it especially hurt when I coughed or sneezed. Driving and steering exacerbated it, so I mostly stayed home, resting, and icing.
And then a friend came for an overnight visit. When Marika and I split up, I didn’t share the specifics and details of why it got so bad that I chose to leave. Not even with my closest friends. Because they know Marika and it didn’t seem right.
But my visiting friend didn’t know Marika, and so I opened up about some of those details. Which brought back feelings of shame, and hurt, and sadness, and more shame for keeping it all to myself.
And it also tapped into that deeper trauma layer, when I was six and my brother Lenny died. My parents were so lost in their own grief, and my friends had no idea what I was going through, so there was no one to share my deepest feelings and secrets with.
Both were big heartbreaks and deep losses. But I realized that the grief that I was feeling this time was less about the breakup or losing my brother, and all about not being able to talk about my feelings about what was happening.
This is what some people call Silent Grief. Silent grief is when we feel compelled to hide our emotions and carry our pain alone because the people around us, either implicitly or explicitly, are not receptive to our suffering. And so our grief tucks itself into our bodies, waiting to be triggered, wanting to be released.
I think a lot of us have experienced big grief from all we have lost over these past two+ years. And we don’t know how to talk about it. Many of us are grieving for what life was, and how so much has changed in how we connect and relate. We don’t know what to do with our feelings of not wanting to go out, of feeling stuck, stalled, disconnected. And those of us who enjoyed the solitude and isolation, who turned inward toward creativity and growth, may feel guilty for not feeling such loss. So how do we begin to talk about all of this?
Back in the 60’s we didn’t talk about grief. Or cancer. Or death. Especially with children. There were no grief support groups, no books for kids, no language for me to process what I was feeling. And so I had to feel all of my feelings alone.
In my twenties, a dear friend encouraged me to ask my parents about Lenny. She said, “He was your brother. You have a right to know.” And, even though the conversations made my mother cry, it opened up an amazing dialogue and was the beginning of our deep healing and reconciliation.
Over the years I’ve done a lot of grief work with therapists, and I have learned that it’s OK to feel my feelings and talk about them, that they aren’t going to pour out and never stop. I’ve worked through many of my feelings of sadness and loss through my writing and my art. And still, something deep happened this time that took me to the healing core of it all.
A second friend came to visit for Thanksgiving. I was her last stop on a two month book tour, and she was happy to just have a place to rest, and work, and unwind. We took a lovely morning walk with Tillie and some friends on Thanksgiving morning, but then I was too exhausted to fix all of the sides I had dreamed about. I did manage to make mashed potatoes and roast some vegetables, and that was just fine for my friend.
I had no energy. My coughing went deep into my lower lobes. And I was sweating a lot. I took a Covid test, just to be sure, and it was negative. I knew I wasn’t sick. This was grief, showing up to move out of my body.
I have always carried my grief in my lungs. As a kid I had bedtime coughing fits, and the pediatrician told me to lie on my belly and hang my face over the edge when I coughed. Some nights my father would hold me in his arms and run the hot water in the shower until the bathroom was filled with steam.
In high school, I got bronchitis every January, and, sometime in my thirties, I was finally diagnosed with asthma. Coughing is so second nature to me that I don’t even realize it. But when it gets deep and painful, I know my body is trying to tell me something.
Over the next few days I continued resting, and icing, and writing. Friends texted and called, just to check in. It reminded me that here, now, in this present moment, I am not alone.
As much as I just wanted to lay around, I knew I needed to move my body. I started to stretch my right side, even though it hurt. The pain reminded me of recovering from open heart surgery, so I knew it was getting better.
I shared some of my journey with my friends on Facebook and it was so heart healing to be held and heard and loved. But the comment that struck the deepest was from Scott, who was Lenny’s best friend. He and I haven’t spoken in more than forty years, but I post a Happy Birthday message for him every year, even though I never hear back.
But this time, he wrote, “Lenny was my best friend and I know it was devastating for you, because it was devastating for me.” WOW! I cried and I bawled, and it felt like a deep zing of connection and opening and healing for both of us.
A few days later, another Facebook friend asked about a favorite book as a child. One of mine was “Are You My Mother.’ My mom used to read it with me, and I would be the sound effects for the crane. I saved very few books when I hit the road, but I kept the copy that my mom gave me in 1988 when I was 29 and she was 58. I had forgotten that she had written in it.
Reading her words, about the past and the here and now, I cried even deeper. Not because she’s gone, but because it was so powerfully healing again, in that moment, for both of us.
The next day, Marika, who I haven’t seen since April, needed to come over to pick some things up from the garage. I had asked her to come when I wasn’t home, but I didn’t feel well enough to go out. So I buried myself under my covers and bawled, waiting to hear the garage door open. It felt just like when Cody died, and I waited in the bedroom with earplugs in, and the whole RV shook when the funeral home man carried his body down the stairs.
But the deep, piercing grief in that moment wasn’t about Cody. It was about lying there in my bed, feeling utterly alone. Just like all of the other times.
But this wasn’t those other times. Right here, right now, it may just be me and Tillie, but I am not alone. In addition to all of the love in my life, then and now, I also have myself.
So I started to tender myself. I made Manischewitz split pea soup with extra carrots and celery. I wore my mom’s green turtleneck and gave myself literal hugs. I found pictures of my younger self, and embraced her tenderness and strength. I attended a Zoom chanting concert, and danced to a favorite Elton John song. I drank immune therapy hot tea from my special mug, guzzled Robitussin DM, and watched two seasons of Leverage-Redemption. And I spent lots of time cuddling with Tillie.
And I finally got back on my bike. The minute I started pedaling I felt revived. I rode for twenty five minutes, and felt lighter, less tired, and my chest didn’t hurt as much. I felt the griefs of the past and the present lining up like the layers in those transparencies of the human body, aligning and leaving my body.
Early on, I thought that an epsom salt bath would be a good thing to help draw out the toxins and the grief. But when I checked, I had no salts. Then I got some, and the tub didn’t have a drain plug. I found one the next day, but I wasn’t up for cleaning the tub.
Every night I thought about it, but the bathroom was too cold, and the thought of putting the heater in the room and turning it into a sauna didn’t sound good either.
Two weeks passed, no bath. Then I had two nights of waking up in pools of sweat, sweating on my bike ride, sweating on my walks with Tillie. So one morning, after my walk and ride, I made the commitment.
I cleaned the tub, ran the hot water, poured in some Epsom salts and got in. The water was just hot enough, but I had to keep half of my body out of the water to not feel like I was going to burn up. I looked up at the shower nozzle and thought, Oh, a cold shower right now would feel so refreshing. But I stayed in the hotness, feeling my body relax and adjust to the temperature. Eventually I wished the tub was even deeper, so I could submerge my whole self.
The next day, I was still sweating on my bike ride in 60°, so I knew I needed another soak. This time I filled the tub a little higher so that more of me could be underwater. I embraced the heat, knowing it was softening my muscles and releasing lactic acid. I bent my knees and crossed my ankles and slid further under so that my head was submerged, with just my nose and eyes above the water line. It was as wonderful as floating in a swimming pool, but better, because the hot water felt like a hug.
And now, a few days after that last bath, I feel like I have returned to the present tense. I feel lighter, my rib muscle is healed, my whole heart chakra area feels open and expansive. My chest is still tender, but I am hardly coughing. I truly feel like the grief is gone.
And I hear myself saying new things, like “Life is getting better every day,” and “I feel happy.” My whole being feels open and ready.
I read somewhere that we grieve to make room for more love. I am definitely noticing new channels and connections opening, and I have finally let go of a few that really didn’t serve me. As excited as I am about what might possibly be next, I know that the joy of the journey is in focusing on what is right here, right now, and noticing where I feel the true heart sparks.
And I definitely feel some sparks about supporting others in giving voice to their own silent grief. If this speaks to you, I see you. And I want to hear you. I want to offer a space where we can acknowledge our grief and start talking about our feelings. I don’t know quite what that looks like yet, but if this is something that feels good to you, please let me know. We’ll see what we need to create for our grieving hearts to heal.
With an open and healing heart,
Ruth
