The Words We Keep Repeating.
"when he was dying, i said: moe, how am i going to live without you? he answered: take the love you have for me and spread it around the world."
I loved this photo and quotation from Humans of New York.
In the last few months, my mum and I have been hanging on to certain lines or quotations to help us through the grief.
When my paps died, the priest at the hospital told us something that we kept repeating to ourselves. He said that we had to take on the pain so my paps wouldn't have any, that this was harder on us but, had things been drawn out, we'd have had more time to prepare but my paps would have suffered more. It would have been easier on us but harder on him. So we held on to that. Like it was gold freaking bullion. And we kept repeating it to ourselves and to each other:
I can't take this anymore!
Remember: we're taking on the pain so he doesn't have to have any.
Oh yeah, right. Ok. Taking on the pain. Taking on the pain. Taking on the pain.
Another line that has helped me is a Joseph Campbell line (that I mentioned in the first blogpost): Find the place where there is joy and the joy will burn out the pain. Somehow, it seems to help me to have an affirmation, a mantra, something to repeat. Like I'm brainwashing myself. Don't think, Nadyne. Just repeat. Repeat, repeat, repeat.