Molecular change
Can we feel our bodies changing at a molecular level? I’m thinking most anatomical scientists would say no. I’m also thinking most of them haven’t studied the body/mind connection through the grieving process, whether the experience is that of the profound loss of a loved one (Owen), nor the profound erosion of a culture (the proposed FISA bill in the U.S.). I’m feeling both these days.
My friend told me yesterday, that she’s watched a number of people change dramatically after a traumatic loss, so much so that it seems “like a cellular change”. I contemplated her words throughout the remainder of the day and most of today. Here’s what I think. I think it’s deeper. I think it’s evolutionary, and therefore so slow and invisible to the average observer, that we can barely see it happening – though we feel it in our bones – and looking back, we clearly see it in a timeline of events.
I think this change – who my family is today and who we are becoming – and how it’s (the change) manifesting itself in our day-to-day relationships (with each other and the world), is something core-deep, more indescribable than even…a human cell. It’s a change that exists at the molecular level. A level that requires not just a powerful microscope, but an adept imagination, faith perhaps. In other words, I believe we have too few tools to discern the change in our world views, our public and private self-images, and dare I say it? our personalities, to describe adequately what it is that’s catapulting us to dark corners of despair. I’m wondering – who are you and your family today, and who are you becoming?
Science and math have never been my strengths. I understand them at a basic level given their natural properties, but at an intuitive level given their outcomes. That translates to subtle, life-changing feelings…vibrations really.
This is my inside voice speaking. My outside voice has no clue what to say. Except maybe, AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHH.
This is when I want to grab my cats and pet them until I fall asleep. But then, they bite me, and I remember that sometimes my need to be gentle is met with bare teeth and a drop of blood. I watch as the pigment stains the quilt and I see molecules, something smaller than platelets. I am changed. And, grafitti becomes my friend.
I LOVE U
4EVER
MY TEETH BECOME PIANO KEYS
FREE HUGS
MY TWITCHING TOES BECOME DRUM BEATS
ICANTSEETHEBIGDIPPERTONIGHTBUTIKNOWITSSTILLTHERE
Song for the night: What Are You Looking For? Sick Puppies
http://youtube.com/watch?v=osqJgLcqWr0
omg Linda , I feel your pain & confusions as i walk this journey with you . But the thing to me is , it is so so ALONE no one else seems to GET IT !!!!!!!!!!! THANK -YOU SO MUH FOR YOUR POST. I AM SO SORRY FOR YOUR PAIN BUT I SO GET IT . LOVEYOU BIG BIG HUGS SANDY
Linda-
Thank you, for your comment. Also, for inviting me to the river. As, we know, Owen was wonderful and unlike anyone I’ve ever met.
Linda,
What an interesting post and I can get my mind around it. Grief does remake you because the loss is a part of who and what you were. How can you ever be the same in any way when someone that you love so much is taken.
My grief cannot compare to a mother’s loss such as yours. The pain of loss of a child especially when mystery surrounds the event can do nothing less that “remake” us on all levels.
Thank you for your expression of sympathy on my blog. You and I are walking a different, but similar path…it is unimaginable to face life again without those who defined us…but, as Beethoven said on his death bed, “Must it be?” and his lost love replied, “It must be.”
I SO get this! So many changes going on in my life. From loss, and injury, and family dynamics that constantly evolve (not always in pleasant ways.) Every loss changes us. It both diminishes and increases us. I remember when I was the Moderator on the Grief Board, I wrote a discussion question about death- Loss: Are You More Or Less? We are certainly less because a presence we treasured is gone from our life, and yet we are more for having experienced all the many dimensions of love and loss. We are forever changeed…that much is for sure. Hugs-Sparkle
There is much science does not understand. Certainly, they have a long way to go to explaining grief.
I can relate to this as well. My loss is recent, my son, at 22 on 4/22/09. I feel myself forever changed. And, like sandy said, SO ALONE! I am divorced, my mother died this past Christmas, my brother is just not there for me now, my ex “has a life” and although he grieves, he is not present either.
My friends are overwhelmed, I guess. They feel uncomfortable when I speak of my son, Jim. Most of them, anyway. He may have passed on, but I didn’t get amnesia! His memory will always be alive!
I have to pray each day for strength. I have only God to turn to and now this.
Bless you Linda. I have sent many emails to your email address and know you can’t answer each one, but it is a comfort just to write.
Dear God have mercy on us all.
Susannah