Application and Code?
I’m a career IT veteran. In real life, I think and write in complex code that I understand and speak. The problem is I post thousands of lines of my unique code in this blog and never compile it into an easy to use application for you, the reader.
Moving forward, I am doing things differently.
First, you get the application.
Then, if you desire, the code.
C:\> cd GrievingScars\1.0\
Application.exe
Loss creates a scar. The scar is formed where the memories, moments, love, happiness, joy, and other positive things once existed. The scar never goes away, nor does it erase those things we miss. The loss that created the wound and subsequent scar has no timeline or destination. Grief of that loss is also a journey without a destination. The only way through the storms of grief is through them. Anything other than that prolongs our suffering.
SourceCode.txt
The open-source code below is free, for you to analyze, modify, and build your own application with.
I’m sitting on a log again, writing again. Earlier today, I was sitting on a different log, feeling some grief. The last time I sat on a log here and cried, it was about a pile of losses I have had in my life. Today though, it was about a very specific person. I really missed them earlier and it brought me to tears. And barely a day goes by when I don’t wish they were still around.
I was born with a large birthmark on my left leg. Oval shaped, dark brown, and hard to miss. It was special to me, hard to explain in words. When I was 12 years old my dad took me to a doctor for his opinion on if it should be removed. The doctor said it definitely met criteria of being pre-cancerous. The doctor left the exam room. So my dad and I figured that we would get scheduled for the removal procedure. A few minutes later, a nurse entered the room with syringes, lidocaine, a scalpel, and all the other supplies. It was going to be removed today. I barely had time to understand what was happening and the numbing injections were in and the doctor was starting the incision. A few minutes later, my special birthmark was gone and I had 15 stitches in its place. I lost something special that day.
I barely remember having it now or that day at the doctor’s office. Today though, as I had my head in my hands and cried, I noticed the scar on my leg looking up at me. I couldn’t help but remember it on my leg, the texture of it, the shape, the color, the edges. And the day I lost it forever.
It created a physical and emotional wound. The physical wound healed over time, but even healed it was still tender for a long time. Eventually the tenderness subsided but the scar was noticeable, big, and red. Eventually it faded into the rest of my skin and the memory of what used to be in its place faded away too.
Until today. Just like the person I was missing entered my mind unexpectedly, the scar on my leg did too.
The day I lost the person forever created an emotional wound. A wound that is no longer fresh and tender to the touch. A wound that has scabbed over to eventually reveal the new skin that was formed underneath it.
A scar was formed where the wound once had been.
The wound is effectively healed, but a mark was left.
This mark is the loss. Loss, even when we have done the healing and moved forward and away from it, doesn’t ever disappear. There is no end to loss. Loss doesn’t have a destination.
There will be days that we notice the scar, remember the painful wound that formed it, remember what we had before the wound, and we miss that. We miss what we lost.
And we have to grieve that loss. It’s widely accepted that grief consists of seven stages: shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance with hope, and processing. The messy part of grief is that it’s not linear. We often don’t go through all of those stages in that order. Sometimes we go from shock, to bargaining, to denial, to processing, to anger, to acceptance, and then back to one or all of the others. Sometimes we skip half of them.
Even messier, is that we can sometimes feel multiple stages at the same time. Sometimes we reach acceptance with hope, and in a matter of seconds find ourselves on a log with our head in our hands, and tears running down our face from feeling shock, denial, and anger all at once.
The most important thing we can do is let the grief enter us, flow through us, and leave us, on its terms. We cannot avoid it or numb it. As I wrote in Be A Buffalo, the only way through the storm of grief is to charge straight into it. And when the next storm of grief arrives, charge again.
Much like the tide comes in and goes out, grief does the same thing. Some days it’s a slack tide. Some days it’s a king tide. And just like the tides, it cannot be stopped, and is a completely natural and normal phenomenon.
Today, I missed the person. I gave myself permission to be sad and cry, to hurt, to deny the loss, to be angry, to bargain. In doing so, I processed the loss and eventually found myself at a place of acceptance and hope. When the wave came in, it felt immeasurably large, and that my day was ruined. Fifteen minutes later, the waters were calm, the sun was warm on my skin, and I was back to the state of acceptance and hope for them to have peace and harmony. And most importantly the hope for me to have the same.
That is what grief looks like when you stop fighting it. That is what love looks like when it has nowhere left to go but inward.
I am Tukayote.
I am unrecognizable.
I am love.