sorrow

River’s Lock

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Tears not cried gather

in a river behind a lock’s

rusted gate

Years of tears held back

because the time was wrong

to grieve parent, home, pet,

choices, words unsaid

(tears) retained, condensed

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In a river behind a lock’s

rusted gate

salt tears gather, grow

stagnant, back up as

algae blooms, duckweed too

Water level rises

Rusted bars strain and groan

seeping green ooze

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Years of tears held back

because the time was wrong

a lesson in repression taught

learned too well

feelings buried

fears of hurt or anger

held like a punch to the gut

against repercussions

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To grieve parent, home, pet,

choices, words unsaid,

unshed tears collect

swirls of green slime, finally

the bars splinter, crack

open to release seventy

gushing, surging,

years of tears

To Love What is Left

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–Mary McCue

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The stranger who sleeps next to me

looks like an older version

of the man I married 20 years ago

but that person no longer resides in his body. 

Dementia steals him away every morning

when I shake his leg to rouse him

remove his watch and necklace of rudraksha beads.

He lies there like a sack of sand

not raising arm or head to help me.

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He’s a toddler going backward

not intending to provoke or obstruct

forgetting that the pants

go on before the shoes

while I seek a way to forgive

my spouts of anger, bouts of tears

His disease tethers me to home

like a dog on a line

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Bitter words, vinegar sour

dare not look back at years lost

dream of a better time

Then waken next to a stranger

with his face.

Where Sorrow Resides

/ tangledmagic / 4 Comments

sorrow

Years ago I read that sorrow affects the lungs.  The idea remained buried in a back drawer of my mind.  Recently, though, I’ve had cause to unearth this notion while dealing with a persistent health issue.

In December, while vacationing with my husband in California, I caught a bad cold.  Normally I would rest at home and kick such a virus in a few days.  My illness was exacerbated by an upended routine, long days of travel, and demands to be present for West Coast family gatherings during the holidays.

Three days before our flight back to New York, I realized that it was more than a cold.  My chest felt like it was imploding.  At the local urgent care I was given a “Z-pack” for bronchitis.  Things got a little better until the flight home, when the symptoms got worse. Back I went to another urgent care on a Sunday and was given another antibiotic.

Eight weeks later, I was still wheezing and tired, with stuffed sinuses.  The ENT specialist that I visited said I had a sinus infection and–you guessed it–gave me a third round of antibiotics.

The point of this narrative is this: in Traditional Chinese medicine, lung illnesses are connected with grief.

cycle of creation

ottowaholisticwellness.ca

I’m a grieving spouse, having lost the future I’d imagined with a spouse who is no longer the person I married.  Although I keep active and engaged with caregiving and many activities, I live with an underlying river of sadness, that springs up into my eyes often, sometimes with the slightest surprising provocation.

Grief  must be expressed to let it go.  We can’t measure the severity of loss with instruments, but only by how strongly it is felt. Unexpressed grief harms the lungs.  Coupled with the all the other emotions that caregiving can produce (fear, anger, guilt–see above diagram), caregivers’ health may be threatened.

So how do caregivers cope and keep illness at bay?  Exercise, meditation, support groups, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)*, time with friends, religious practice: all of these help me stay healthy.

lungs in chinese medicine

 

The website below was enlightening.

https://www.chinesemedicineliving.com/philosophy/the-emotions/grief-the-lungs/

*more about this in another blog