Letting go of the moving parts is hard work

It’s been 8 months since we lost Pete and I’ve been trying to get control of our world. And failing.

I have been trying everything to keep all of the moving parts working together and stopping them spiralling out of control.

Turns out, the only thing I can’t control – time – appears to the be only thing that will help that.

Grief has been such a learning curve. I've had very little experience with it. But it alters, so fundamentally, the internal workings of a family unit, that I've really struggled to make sure our family machine still works.

Despite trying all of the things.

I’ve thrown money at the problems we have faced since Pete died and the struggles grief has thrown at us.

Lots of money … actually, it’s lots and lots and LOTS of money.

I’ve thrown money at clothes and shoes to see if material things can help fill the void we feel without him. At lunch orders and take away dinners. At costumes. At events. At nights out. At weekends away. At whatever the kids ask for in an attempt to help them feel better when they are feeling so sad.

I’ve thrown money at alcohol. And good alcohol at that – because the adage of life is too short to drink shit champagne actually rings ridiculously true in our household. So I’ve take up the challenge of making sure I drink the good stuff when we are all in tears facing up to another milestone without Pete.

I’ve thrown money at practitioners of all types to see if that can help – psychologists, doctors, chemists, chiropractors - in an attempt to make sure that I can at least function physically and mentally.

There’s a remedial massage lady I found the week after Pete died and who had never dealt with tensed muscles like the ones she found in my neck and shoulders before.

I walked in to her on the day I had been at the funeral directors picking caskets, and service times, and writing death notices and I was so knotted up in my muscles I was light headed.

We’ve had a learning journey together on a weekly basis over the last 8 months as I challenge the strength of her hands, and she learns how emotion and grief impacts the musculoskeletal system of a human body.

We’ve also tried to solve some of my psychological issues in our weekly sessions. We’ve both used language unbecoming of a lady as we discuss the new reality of my world and my physical self and the people and events we’ve encountered along the way.

I’ve made my lovely psychologist lady swear, more than once, with the ridiculous reality of my world and the people and events we’ve encountered along the way.

I’ve made a child psychologist speechless as I seek solutions for an angry 7-year-old who takes all of frustrations of losing her Dad out on me and her siblings.

She has excellent solutions for the individual in question, but when queried about how I put that into place when I have three other children who are all struggling with their own levels of grief and lack of understanding of their new normal, she replied “well yes, there’s that …” and could offer no further help.

For the most part when it comes to dealing with what we are dealing with people go with either “good luck”, or “just keep doing what you’re doing”.

I’ve thrown money at things online (other than clothes and shoes) to get more storage in cloud form for photos we have found and never want to lose, to get access to Headspace and all its mediation downloads for the kids and I so we can sleep at night, to download songs that we heard over and over again from Pete’s iTunes list on our own devices.

I’ve tried working through grief by getting a job and getting out of the house every day.

I’ve tried being busy and doing all of the things we have always done because losing Pete shouldn’t mean we stop doing all of things, so the kids are still playing their sport and ballet and instruments.

I’ve tried stopping and going slowly when weekend activities allow, by calling into work and letting them know we aren’t functioning and just having a day at home together.

I’ve tried reading every book, every blog, every forum about grief and how to negotiate being a widow. A single parenting widow. Parenting grieving children. It’s all been helpful but none of them can help with getting four children through it. They can help if I have young children, or teenagers, or one or two kids … none of them help me with the massive task of getting four children who are all of those things through this… by myself, all the while working through it within my own self.

I’ve tried talking about it. Writing about it. Crying about it. Yelling about it. Not talking about it. Trying to ignore it. Embracing it completely.

None of it works.

I’m so completely sick of trying all of the things and none of it working. I’m exhausted from trying to fix all the damage Pete’s death has done to our little family unit and then having someone say "you should find time to walk, walking would really help .."

I'm so sick of it hurting. Of it hurting my family. Of hurting physically, emotionally, mentally.

I’ve never done anything in my life, every single day, for 8 months, and not felt like I’m getting any better at it.

As it turns out, grief is that thing. And nothing but time and love can heal the wound.

Not money. Not alcohol. Not things.

Time and love. But even then, no one is entirely sure it heals.

We have had so much love from people. With everything that I have tried personally, there has always been love and support. Friends and family to pick us up and carry us along. To support us. To do the things we need done. To just be there for us. That I feel like we should be dealing with this better. I feel guilty that with all of that spport we still have days that don't work.

And so now, my inner control freak is completely losing itself over the fact that I’m having to accept I am not going to be able to control this. No matter how hard I try. And I’m trying to be ok with that.

Finally, I am coming to the realisation that I actually can’t DO anything. I just have to endure it, to get through it.

It’s not an easy realisation for me to come to. Plenty of people around me saw this as the solution many months ago before I was ready to.

Every time I have a child screaming at me, or fall into bed with a messy house because the idea of housework is too hard, wake up to find we have no bread or milk in the house, I do feel like I’m failing at it all.

But then we have a cuddle, go to bed or just get lunch orders and then the next day comes along and we try again then.

Learning to let go is harder than I ever imagined. Not letting go of Pete – we’re not ever going to do that – but letting go of holding on to ALL the moving parts in our world.

There are so many moving parts in our new world. I have been desperately trying to make them all still function together cohesively.

For the most part, its worked. And I’m learning that in time, they’ll probably all come back into sync on their own.

Right now, I just need to let all the parts rattle around a bit and change their shape a bit to work out how they now fit.

And if there’s a part that doesn’t sync anymore or can't change its shape to fit into what we are now, it doesn’t need to be there.