Finding the Islands

The days and weeks (and, let's face it, the months and probably the years) following the loss of a spouse are like being caught in a storm at sea: everything is swirling around you, and you're caught in an eddy that keeps pulling you in opposite directions while somehow keeping you from making any progress. It's overwhelming, it's terrifying, and it's exhausting. The only way to survive is to find a moment to rest, to catch your breath, to look around you and make a plan. And the only way to do that is to find an island, something solid to grab onto for a moment to steady yourself. 

Different people find different islands. One of my islands is writing out my thoughts and feelings, putting them down in black and white so I can understand them - and more importantly, manage them. For other people, therapy might serve a similar purpose. Identifying your feelings can be an island. 

Another island for me is quiet. I am often doing work with my hands that doesn't take much conscious thought (cleaning, sewing, cooking), so I usually have music or a podcast or an audiobook or a TV show running in the background. Between that and having two teenagers around the house for the summer, chatting with friends, bickering with each other, or talking back to video games, silence is a rarity in my house. But the hour or two when I'm awake but before the kids get up, the world is quiet except for the birds chirping and the occasional barking of a dog, crowing of a rooster, or rumble of a passing truck. It becomes an island of peace before I am swept back into the maelstrom of life. 

One of my less healthy islands is comfort food. A butter pecan iced coffee from Dunk's, a piece of buttered toast, a cookie, a bowl of creamy mashed potatoes, ice cream with hot fudge sauce, a good cup of coffee, a favorite cocktail. As Ina Garten says, "You can be miserable before you eat a cookie and you can be miserable after you eat a cookie, but you can't be miserable while you're eating a cookie." This is true of a lot of foods. Immersing yourself in the very physical act of eating something enjoyable brings a very physical pleasure that overrides any emotional pain you are experiencing, if only for a few moments. That's an island. 

Hugging my kids, or a friend, is an island. 

Snuggling one of my cats is an island. 

Prayer is an island. 

Watching the birds and wildlife in my back yard is an island. 

Pulling weeds in my garden is an island. 

Listening to Chopin is an island. 

Baking a loaf of bread is an island, even though I couldn't bring myself to take off my wedding rings as I usually do when I knead dough. That loaf might have had a little added salt, but even as I cried I was on an island. 

Sometimes the island is the sense of relief I get after I do a task I'm dreading or fearing, like when I got a lesson on pool maintenance that turned out to be less intimidating and complicated than I had feared. 

Happy memories are an island. Looking through photographs and videos, reading reminiscences sent by friends, smells and sights and sounds that remind me of the past have become an island. 

Some islands you just stumble on unexpectedly, like a person on the other end of the phone who gives you compassion and grace when you were expecting hassles and red tape. 

Tears can be an island. I spend a lot of time trying to pull myself together so I can make a phone call, be with my kids, run an errand, deal with daily life. But I need to cry, so I find time to do it. For some reason, the car has become my "crying zone." When I am alone in the car, I let the tears pour down my face. I'm not crying over a specific issue or situation or thought, it's just a release of the built-up tension and anxiety and fear of the unknown. The relief I experience from letting myself go is very much an island.

Another way of looking at it is that anything that brings a moment of joy, however small, is an island. I recently saw this poster on Facebook, and I find it to be completely true: Micro joys are how we survive macro grief. 

There is no joy great enough to counteract the load of grief on my heart right now. But the small joys help to chip away at it, to give me a moment, if not exactly of forgetting, of balancing the grief. When I feel like I'm teetering on the precipice of falling back into the storm, every tiny moment of joy tugs me back from the brink. I'm still on the edge, my footing is still not secure, but at least I'm not falling. At least I can catch my breathy before fighting the next fight. 

I just need to keep finding the islands.