The Purple Gorilla

I received an email from Becoming Whole last night. She sent me the most amazing poem. She said "Hey Beautiful Mess-- I'm not sure that this is the kind of thing that you like, but I thought of this poem the other day, when you wrote about your grief for your mom.. I have found it very meaningful. Here's the link.
~Becoming Whole" I read the poem, which I'll copy and paste, and got all teary eyed. The poem is outstanding and it really is true. Let me know what you think.....

Grief

by Matthew Dickman May 5, 2008

When grief comes to you as a purple gorilla

you must count yourself lucky.

You must offer her what’s left

of your dinner, the book you were trying to finish

you must put aside,

and make her a place to sit at the foot of your bed,

her eyes moving from the clock

to the television and back again.

I am not afraid. She has been here before

and now I can recognize her gait

as she approaches the house.

Some nights, when I know she’s coming,

I unlock the door, lie down on my back,

and count her steps

from the street to the porch.

Tonight she brings a pencil and a ream of paper,

tells me to write down

everyone I have ever known,

and we separate them between the living and the dead

so she can pick each name at random.

I play her favorite Willie Nelson album

because she misses Texas

but I don’t ask why.

She hums a little,

the way my brother does when he gardens.

We sit for an hour

while she tells me how unreasonable I’ve been,

crying in the checkout line,

refusing to eat, refusing to shower,

all the smoking and all the drinking.

Eventually she puts one of her heavy

purple arms around me, leans

her head against mine,

and all of a sudden things are feeling romantic.

So I tell her,

things are feeling romantic.

She pulls another name, this time

from the dead,

and turns to me in that way that parents do

so you feel embarrassed or ashamed of something.

Romantic? she says,

reading the name out loud, slowly,

so I am aware of each syllable, each vowel

wrapping around the bones like new muscle,

the sound of that person’s body

and how reckless it is,

how careless that his name is in one pile and not the other.

Every time I read it, my breath catches in my throat when the name is pulled from the "dead pile" and my eyes get watery when the gorilla is coming up the porch and each step is being counted. That's exactly how I felt when grief would rear it's ugly head, except I wasn't happy about grief's return. I was terrified! I would do everything in my power to stop grief from coming into my room and sit with me. Grief was my enemy. And by making grief my enemy, by not accepting this beautiful purple gorilla as my friend, I made things worse for myself.

Last night the purple gorilla became friends. I can't say she and I are best friends, but we got to know each other pretty well last night. I was laying on my husband and he was being so sweet that I lost control over my emotions. He said to me "you can cry if you need too". I told him it was too late, I already started. He let me soak his shirt *again* and said all the right things. Eventually the cries got deeper and harder to hold in and I was sobbing.

I was trying to explain how much I want the pain to go away. How I'm exhausted from grief. I know why I'm so exhausted, I'm not doing everything I can to feel the pain. I'm still blocking it until it becomes too much for me to bear. It's a vicious circle. I'm not running as far as I was, but I still am running. He then said something that made sense and just "clicked". I know it isn't the first time I've heard it, but sometimes you have to hear something a few times before it "clicks" for you. He said to me "you don't want that pain to go away because that pain how much love you HAVE for your mom". And he is right. My mom was and is a huge part of my life. The relationship we have and had as a family isn't the same as most. When I was 18 and got chickenpox, I slept in bed with my parents. See? That's not normal! It's just the type of family we were and are. The love us four have for each other is boundless. It's almost like that clique of people at your school you wanted to be friends with. It's not that we are cool, per se, it's just that we love each other, A LOT.

Anyway, an hour later, I stopped crying. I cried for ONE! HOUR! I don't even think I cried that much the day she passed away or at the funeral. Although, I think we opened up the floodgates, because I've only been up for and hour and a half and have cried a few times already. One time while I was making coffee this morning and the rest while I'm typing this. It's really hard to give myself up and make friend with my purple gorilla, but it's time. It's time her and I got to know each other a little bit better. I've been running away from this beautiful creature for far to long. She and my mom deserve better.

I'm not weak because I'm crying. I'm not any less of a person because I miss my mom. I will not beat myself up because it's been three years and "I need to get over it already". The pain is real. The pain is physical and I will treat myself as if I'm physically hurt. I will be nice and I will be gentle to myself. I will, also, ask that others do the same. I will not push my friends and family away, I will draw them closer.