When Grief Knocks

It is 1:30 in the morning, and sleep will not come. The occasional beeping from my husband’s monitor is one of the many thieves trying to rob me of rest. Lord knows this hospital has seen enough of me over the past several months, and I have certainly seen enough of it.

A few days ago, I received a copy of my sweet friend Allson Byxbe’s book, Journaling as a Spiritual Practice. Yesterday, before leaving home, I grabbed it, knowing there would likely be long stretches of time sitting beside my husband’s hospital bed, watching, waiting, and praying.

Tonight, I turned to page nineteen.

The last paragraph.

The last two sentences.

And suddenly my world stopped on its axis.

“You can’t unknow what you’ve learned, which is its own kind of grief. It is as if you’re knocking fiercely on the door of a house from which you’ve been evicted. You can still see the warm light flooding out of the windows. You can see all the other house guests warmly inside, in their safe, cozy environment, but you’re out in the cold.”(Byxbe, Journaling as a Spiritual Practice, p. 19)

You see, a little over three months ago, in this very same hospital, I shared a holy moment of forgiveness with the man who both raised me and devastated me in ways no child should ever have to understand. He passed away just a few weeks later. Now, I find myself walking these same halls, hearing the same beeping monitors, and being forced to remember the childhood wounds that led me to that powerful moment of forgiveness.

And now the anger phase of grief has come knocking.

I tried not to answer the door.

I told myself I did not have time for it. I am too busy trying to nurse my husband back to health. Too busy sitting in hospital chairs and listening to machines breathe their mechanical prayers into the night. But grief does not care what I am doing. Grief does not check my calendar. Grief does not wait politely for a more convenient hour.

It knocked anyway.

So, I answered.

And grief and I had a long-awaited conversation. One I could not have before, because I did not yet have the language for the moment my life changed. Language for the moment my innocence was ripped from my hands and heart, the very first moment I began being abused by the man who was supposed to nurture me, protect me, and provide for me as a child.

You see, Allison’s sentences finally gave language to the pain I have carried.

The pain of suddenly being evicted, all those years ago, from my own safe place. Childhood.

The moment I was pushed out into the cold.

And the grief of knowing I can never go back inside again.

So now that grief has told me what it has longed all these years for me to know, I can return my focus to my husband’s bedside.

Victoria The Poet