Another F*cking Growing Opportunity

“Grief isn’t linear. Except for when it is. And it always is. But only from a long way up” (Inglis, 2018.)

I still miss you with such a power. Moving mountains with a paintbrush would be easier to deal with. OK maybe not. Depends which mountain, and the strength of a paintbrush moving it. Oh and size.

Anyway.

Your son said he doesn’t know how to live in a world where there is no you. Me neither, really. But here I am, not knowing, for a second year in row. For an eleventh. Look at me. See me, like you always knew how. And like you wanted to.

That look, when you lower down your glasses to rest your big brown eyes directly on my bullshit. I miss that glance.

The warmth of your presence, also. The aftershave, which would greet me as soon as I opened the door. You only shaved on Fridays, and often not even then. Your kiss left stubble imprints on my cheek. The only stubble I never ever minded. It was a stamp of home, like when you get into a nightclub and they stamp your hand.

Simple.

When I miss you so much it hurts, I go into writing. Writing as Inquiry, as I was taught it is called during the course of my PhD (Richardson, 2003). The non-objective way of dealing with realities, however you might experience them. Writing as therapy (O’Connor et al, 2003), as someone else named it, but without instructions because this is not a therapy session and I am nobody’s client. Or a granddaughter. I am a researcher making personal a fuel for professional. But still personal.

Always personal.

Someone suggested I get a tattoo to remind me of you. No. You are, will be always imprinted on my skin, in the laughter lines of my face, and under it, through the smell of wine and olive oil and salt and quartered tomatoes for dinner.

You are always with me.

Often it saves me.

As I remember how you taught me to breathe with my belly, otherwise I let the panic in. I remember how to listen without focusing on waiting for my turn. I remember how you always thought of me as of little girl underneath the sky of bombs and how I always told you that it wasn’t that bad.

It was worse.

But it was better as well.

You knew. Parts of that road we travelled together, through the long night bus rides and changing of vehicles in the no man’s land in between the borders. On other parts I hitchhiked on my own, in the big trucks chasing each other on Balkan motorways, half falling to sleep between the words of a language now I only think on.

I was not afraid. I believe in kindness.

You taught me that as well, when you held my hand en route to gypsy camp to introduce yourself to the travellers. “They are the guests on or land”- you said- “And we should treat them as such”. So you did. You had a dinner with their main person, and convinced them to send the kids to school and in the return you will make sure they are treated well by locals. As you did.

That particular camp descendants- the children you taught- are still there. Decades later.

I didn’t think you taught me enough, though. So after you died I talked to people about you, paid for so many coffees only to hear stories I couldn’t quite decipher, which didn’t make much sense to me.

They were hard times, yes.

You, an alcoholic? Never.

Now I have a suspicion that with the other alcoholics in our family being the way they are you just didn’t want me to know.

(Thank you.)

I still miss you with such a power. I am often cold in the world. Especially this world now, pandemic and scared and stuck far away from Adriatic salt and olive trees.

I feel lonely more often than not.

Don’t worry. It was always there. It is harder now, yes, without you to invite me in, and make sure I am not hungry and that I am warm.

But harder does not mean impossible.

It is what it is.

Another fucking learning opportunity, as you used to say when either one of us would found themselves in situations we hated. Lovers who try to write their way out of behaving morally. Friends betraying us. Family explaining to us how it is all our fault.

Another.

Fucking.

Learning.

Opportunity.

Instead of Posttraumatic Growth (Tedeshi and Calhoun, 2004) or whatever other smarter and more academically minded people may call it.

AFLO, for short and for when other, politer and passiveagressiver people are around and we really need to communicate to each other that we are there for each other and yes, they are being challenging on all fronts.

AFLO: random mum asking me whether I am sorry that my child will be stupid as I am not breastfeeding?

AFLO: the lover tells me he is engaged, in the morning after.

AFLO: your sons do not return your calls after you said you won’t give them any more money.

AFLO: you are dead. It’s been two and eleven years. What do I learn from that?

Frank (1995) and Jane (Speedy) encouraged me to think with stories, not about them. You liked that approach, didn’t you? When I told you about my PhD and narrative research and autoethnographies and all the other ways to bend the objectiveness out of reality. You agreed it was important to take stories as whole.

I wonder what would you think of this one. And also, how would you feel it?

You always did remind me to think with my body as well. To breathe, mainly. Air in, through the panic and down to the belly and around the thoughts. Air out. For not all can be understood in language only.

Let me just do it here now:

Air in:

I feel lonely. Like on an island bereft of people, but with plenty of ghosts to gaslight the loneliness experience.

I feel cold. Like on polar bear’s hunt through the ice of the wide blue ocean to get some food to eat.

I am not hungry though. I have a few stones more. That’s about 15 kilos. No you can’t just give stone any weight.

You knew million and one way to get rid of it: 4 hour body, fasting diet, keto, all of it. I couldn’t read about any of it without crying so I decided to eat more healthy and exercise more.

We will see what happens.

Now, through the panic:

Is this all that is meant to be? This experience of being removed from the world, while still existing in it? These hugs from others which are like cuddling the twigs, when your hugs were akin to climbing a mighty oak and disappearing in its big branches. The fog of everyday encounters where all the passion is traded for fear. Of making a mistake. Of being alone. Of a wrong thing to say. Of a language that I speak almost perfectly but do not feel in.

I can’t even run away happily. I am a parent now. It would be the same thing my father did to me and I don’t want that.

I am better than that.

You made me be. You helped me become.

Also, I know it wouldn’t work. You also thought me about geographicals- a thing people do to run away from their life in a hope their life won’t follow, only to discover you can’t outrun yourself. Taking a geographical, you called it.

Did you learn about it in rehab? Or running away as a boy through the Balkan forests hoping you do not get caught and gutted? You know, that little thing you forgot to mention in all the time we knew each other.

Down to the belly:

I know I will be ok. Gut feeling calms me very often. I do not know how, I do not know when- or where- but it will be ok. And better than ok, it will be good. I promise. You promised. You wrote in one of the books you let me keep:

You are very important to me and I am to you.

Just like that. Knowing what is important.

To ground yourself is important. To write it out is important. To grow another oak of hugs for others to climb on is important. To ground the thought in theory helps.

To note the lessons which grew out of another fucking learning opportunities:

1. Time and place coexist. And one without the other is a bit shit. And deep experiences which take place in their crossing space are quite ephemeral.

So I decided: I will sell the house you left me, as it will not bring you nor the hugs nor the safety cocoon back. Nor my childhood. Nor happiness and calm which was once there.

Selling the house you left me is the hardest thing I ever did.

I learned how to walk in those rooms. The funny accident of poop happened on that balcony.

I wrote my first poems in that kitchen table. From the other room’s window 16 year old me blasted Alanis Morrisette for my best friend to hear, two houses down.

You died in the room where I learned how to walk. Kitchen’s poems found their way to my PhD. Best friend became lover became ex. You liked him a lot. I haven’t seen him 10 years now.

And isn’t that ironic?

2. Gut feeling. Always listen to it. And act on it. Be responsible for your actions. Stop waiting to be rescued. Leave the drama triangle. Set boundaries with people who are emotional black holes. Manipulators.

But remember:

3. Most — a big, overwhelming majority of- people do their best. Really, even if it doesn’t look like it. So if you’re safe and have time and place in yourself, try to understand them. Listen to their story, without waiting your turn to speak. Immerse in their experience. Like you wish someone immersed in yours.

4. You can’t — well, I can’t- purely write my way through the grief. Body still feels it. I am still sad. You are still not here and despite the cologne I have, the figurine you bought me, the watch from Soviet Union, 53 years old and now on my wrist, the you shaped hole is still in my heart.

But I can- and well I will- fill it until it’s just a ground beneath the tomb. With smells, yes. And posters. And figurines. And time. And stories.

And ephemeral experiences with others.

So this is my grief for you: another fucking learning opportunity. Through the several theories and one body and the 13 years of practice. And the breathing.

I miss you. You are dead. I move on, because stopping is to be dead, just not quite breathing.

If I stop, I am doomed.

I move on, because I always did it. I move on, because that’s what you taught me. I move on, because that is what you did: hiding from a massacre in church 1941 as 14 year old boy. Travelling through another war to come hug your granddaughter and be her safe. Answering phone when I just gave birth and almost died and was worried about my daughter and whether both of us will survive in hormonal mess and with 3 litres blood lost. Listening to me sob for a minute and saying:

AFLO innit?

Thus making me laugh.

I miss you. You are dead. I miss you so much it often hurts. No matter the explanations. No matter the methodologies. It hurts. But they do make that hurt easier, so I peruse this knowledge bite by bite.

I move on.

Catch me if you can.

And if you can’t, I will catch up with you eventually.

References:

1. Frank, A. W. (1995). The wounded storyteller: Body, illness, and ethics. University of Chicago Press.

2. Inglis, K. (2018) Notes for the Everlost: A Field Guide to Grief, Shambhala Publications Inc

3. O’Connor, Moira and Nikoletti, Suzanne and Kristjanson, Linda and Loh, R and Willcock, B. 2003. Writing Therapy for the Bereaved: Evaluation of an Intervention. Journal of Palliative Medicine 6 (2): pp. 195–204.

4. Richardson, L. (2003). Writing: A method of inquiry. Turning points in qualitative research: Tying knots in a handkerchief, 2, 379.

5. Tedeschi, R. G., & Calhoun, L. G. (2004). “ Posttraumatic growth: Conceptual foundations and empirical evidence”. Psychological inquiry, 15(1), 1–18.