Doors and Windows: Navigating Grief

                                          


I've always believed in the saying that when God closes a door He opens a window.  I came across this cartoon the other day and thought it apropos for my situation lately.  Sometimes when doors close, the windows do open, but getting to the window can be pretty damned difficult.  Certain days within the past week I have felt as if I were stumbling around in the dark but still thinking that my navigation skills worked properly only to run smack-dab into a wall.  There I am, chugging along at my daily tasks, cleaning, care-taking, and cooking not really thinking of anything and feeling relatively emotionally even.  Than BAM!  A thought of my father crosses my mind and I dissolve into tears right in front of God and everybody.

The trigger for tears can be the simplest of things such as walking past grape Gatorade at the grocery store or making meatloaf for dinner.  A memory of my father has attached itself to almost everything in my home and in my life and bumping into them can either feel like brushing past something lightly or being hit with a two-by-four.  It just depends on my mood and the moment.

I am familiar with deep-seated grief.  When my mother passed away suddenly, even when my grandfather passed, life after that moved on slowly and sometimes awkwardly, but it definitely progressed.  Day by day things got easier, the bumping into memories hurt a little less and pleased a little more.  It is terribly cliche, but the truth remains in the old adage, "Time heals all wounds."  It may never heal them completely, but allows happy memories and just the sheer work and joy of living to replace the sadness of missing people who were integral to your life.

The window that God opens may not be apparent immediately, but if a person keeps moving forward, continues to get up every time he or she slams into one of those mysterious walls that suddenly appear to knock them down, and keeps his or her eyes open for the light, it will be found.  I know this to be true from past experience, but on a more fundamental level, I believe it to be true because life just works that way.  Opportunity lies in the wake of devastation.  Living continues in spite of death.  People engage in kindness even after they've been treated badly.  Windows exist all over the place if you just look for them.  I am still somewhat in the dark and I am continuing to navigate the hallways, and yes, some days they are a real bitch.  But I know with certitude that my window is out there somewhere and I will get to it soon.