Grief Changes: aka I'm pissed off that I still live in this crappy country called complicated grief from suicide loss but maybe things do change.
First, things are fine. Everyone is healthy and alive, and mid-pandemic, that is not something to take for granted. Second, grief is an unfolding thing-- like a comically long devil's contract unspooling across the carpet-- you never signed it but are stuck with anyway, smeary black ink and a bloody handprint sealing the deal. And I'm mulling that over and want to chew on my thoughts, here, longform, in bloggerspace. It's a cliche that there are stages of grief. It's a given, a known, almost a punchline. In graphics describing the stages, they are as neat and orderly as a flow chart. First Denial that morphs into Anger, as you shake your fist at God. Then you beg and Bargain. But nothing changes-- God's face is impassive. You sink into the miserable, neverending reality of it in stage Depression, and then eventually you wash your face, and emerge bigger and better, sadder maybe, but wiser into the stage of Acceptance. Something about this tidy taxonomy makes me gri...