Every other week I participate in a ‘one word’ blog carnival. This week’s word was ‘grief’.
Grief. A tiny word. Five letters. ‘i’ before ‘e’. A story of precedence. What comes before grief? Love. Friendship. Familiarity. Hope. A belief in tomorrow. A belief in another day. A better day. A different time. A time for endless hello’s to fill our day with promise. A time to love.
And then death sweeps in and robs us of that time. That moment. Those endless hellos punctuated by good-byes that do not mean, never more, but rather, until later, until we meet again, until the next time.
In death’s embrace we fall and grieve for the one who was lost, for what was lost, for time lost and never to be recaptured.
In grief there is no next time. No better time. No later. Grief consumes all time and steals all hope of a better tomorrow.
Grief.
When love ends, we grieve. We grieve the passing of what could have been, should have been, might have been, if only. We search for ways to give meaning to our pain, to explain the sometimes inexplicable causes leading to loves demise. Sometimes, we talk it out. We make arrangements on how to separate, how to divide loves spoils, how to survive loves loss. We draw up agreements, outline custody and visitation arrangements. We divvy up assets and liabilities, arrange for payment. We divorce and move on with our lives, sometimes poorer but always richer in experience.
When we have loved an abuser, love cannot die. Love never existed. There was no mutual agreement to love honestly, truthfully, respectfully. There was only the abuser’s mask hiding his or her intent to deceive. There was only the lie we did not know existed.
In love’s vanishing out the door slamming behind their last words, we hang our hopes on one more chance to say, ‘good-bye’. On one more time to see their face, hear their voice, be in the presence of the love we believed to be true.
In our grief we plead for one last time. We pray, he will return. We pray, he or she, the one we loved, will come back if only to give us a chance to secure the elusive closure our empty arms yearn for. We want to say good-bye on our terms. We want to have the last word, to make them hear us, see us, feel our pain, witness our anguish. We want to know they understand the harm their passing through our lives has caused. We want them to ‘see’ how much we love in the hopes that the one we loved, the one we believed to be true, will return. We want one more chance. One more time. One more good-bye.
And so we plead with time to give us this one last chance so that we can come to terms with their good-bye. So that we can steal the time to learn to grieve on our terms.
And that is the lie we tell time. Give us a chance and we will make them hear us, just this once, so we can grieve freely.
It never happens. It can’t. Because grieving an abuser is the greatest betrayal of all. In having loved a lie, we can never grieve what never was.
With our empty arms and broken dreams, we must give into grief and mourn for the one who was lost. The woman who was abused. The woman who was lost. The woman who fell. The woman who was betrayed and who betrayed herself. We must mourn for the one we must love the most. Ourselves.
Once upon a time I loved a man who was untrue. He never really existed, though I searched for him between the lines he spoke that were all lies. Between the pages of my journal where I wrote of love ever lasting and promises of happily-ever after. I searched for him in every nook and cranny of my mind, desperately trying to make real the unreal. To make sense of the nonsense that was his passing through my life. I searched and held onto the hope that the pain, the turmoil, the sorrow was all a lie and he would turn up and be true.
It never happened. It couldn’t. He was the lie.
And in my facing the truth of his deceit, I grieved. I grieved for the dream that could never be, the love that never was. I grieved for the woman who was abused. The woman who lost herself in the arms of an abuser. I grieved for the pain she endured, the pain she caused. I grieved and cried and wished and hoped and prayed upon every star that the pain would cease, the tears would dry up and my heart would be healed. I prayed for the past to be erased. The lies to be vanished. The horror to be undone.
Nothing can undo the past. There is nothing that can be changed in yesterday.
Grieving a love that never was is part of the illusion of loving an abuser. We look for meaning in our memories and come up empty.
On either side of grief is love.
Grieving for the woman who lost herself in the arms of an abuser, set me free to fall into the arms of love.
In grieving for all that was lost, all that was forgotten on the stormy waters of his lies, I embraced all that was possible when I set myself free to sail upon the sea of love that surrounds me, sustains me, and lifts me up.
Love has no limits. Love knows no bounds. Love is my answer.
Stand in love. Grow in love. Be love.
In mourning for the one who lost herself in the arms of a man who was untrue, I found myself. I found myself and fell in love with all that I can be when I set myself free to live this one wild and precious life free to be all I am when I let go of grief and fall… in love.
ElizabethBennett
Tomorrow is the big day-unemployment appeals case in the morning and a job interview in the afternoon. I will be saying my prayers all night long and hoping for some sleep.
Hope to heal
Hey Lizzy ~ I will pray for you to have a wonderfully peaceful nights sleep, and a big victory on your appeal in the morning.
You’re getting verrrrrrrrrrrrrry sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepy. (((hugs)))
h2h
Eden
Hi Lizzy B.,
I too, am sending prayers and positive thoughts your way! STAND TALL !! You can do this!
All the best to you!
Eden
lesson learned
(((((((((((((( Lizzy ))))))))))))))
Love and prayers to you for tomorrow.
LL
ElizabethBennett
Thanks ya’ll, so much. I just wanna take the power away from those spaths and put in back in my hands! They are big time losers!
sadme
Hi all,
I haven’t been on in a couple weeks. I had posted back in the begining of June and was feeling strong… then the my ex spath showed up in front of my house… I did not talk with him, but when his wife showed up, thinking that she caught us.. I let her have it. I have had no contact with him since he called me from a pay phone back in March. 12 days before I found out he married this other woman. I felt strong that I did not talk to him, but it keeps crossing my mind… what would he have said for himself. Bastard… that is what he wants, I still am having a hard time with all of this. This article is so on. I just signed on after downloading pictures off my phone. My cartridge was full, there were pic of my spath, I started crying again. My daughter came in my room and she asked if I was crying. She asked why. I told her that there were pic of me on there. I looked at her and told her, i will never be the same. I told her I want to know why he did this to me… my 14 year old daughter told me ” because he has an illness” Yes! Yes, he does, she gets it. I love her so much. I am so angry for the tears that roll down my face in front of my daughter, family and friends. It is so very hard to make them understand. I think some of them think that I am crazy. Sometime, I feel that I am going to go insane. Put me in a straight jacket and let me bounce my head of the walls. Ugh… I hate the empty future that I feel I have. We had so many great plans, we were in this for the long haul, we were like a young couple, starting from scratch… we would talk about that. *we refers to the spath I have had some good days. I went days without crying… then another melt down. I then had 5 more good days… now I am on another crying jag. I hate this. I want to see a bright future with someone that can truly love me.. someone that I can truly love. I get told to be thankful for what I have… I am…. I just feel so numb, I want something more to make me feel special and loved my a romantic partner that is in my life for me… not what he can get out of me.
Louise
sadme:
You will find that love again…you will. I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but if that is what you want, you shall have it someday and it will be right…it will not be a toxic relationship where someone will lie to you and destroy you.
I am going through the same thing. I have a few good days or even a week and then boom. I feel like I regress again and I hate that. I want to KEEP moving forward, forward, forward with no regressing backwards. It’s so hard, but I keep telling myself that someday I will look back and wonder why I wasted so much time on him.
ElizabethBennett
sadme-you will find that love again. It is so very hard though to keep going back to feeling all that pain. I pray that it gets easier for you. At least your daughter understands. I know how it feels though to have everyone telling you to get over it. They have no idea how it feels to be betrayed like that. I hope you start feeling some peace.
spathinator
Hi all, its me. and I’m here because I’m mad.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/43473213
June 20 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court threw out on Monday a massive class-action sex-discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the biggest ever such case, in a major victory for the world’s largest retailer and for big business in general. The justices unanimously ruled that more than 1 million female employees nationwide could not proceed together in the lawsuit seeking billions of dollars and accusing Wal-Mart of paying women less and giving them fewer promotions.
It’s a case of our courts siding with spaths again, for the sake of keeping women in low paying jobs and making us more vulnerable to spaths.
But they forgot one thing… most shoppers are women.
And we have options for cheap chinese goods, Kroger and Kmart. I suggest we all boycott Walmart and pass the word along. Get the snowball rolling and see them cr*p their pants.
sadme
Thanks, it does help to log on and blog…. and i am on the bandwagon of the Walmart band wagon. 😉