Tissue box

After the sudden passing of my youngest sister and then within months, my husband passed as well, I was carrying around tissue boxes everywhere I went. I began to measure my grief progress by how many boxes I had. The green boxes were for why me,  the blue boxes from my hysterical anger episodes, the pink boxes represented how many times I cried because I loved then both so much and happy memories. My purple boxes were for the times I cried because I felt sorry for myself.  Other colors and patterns were for the sudden outbursts, television commercials, "just checking on  you" phone calls, anniversaries, birthdays and holidays. I kept the empty boxes stacked in a corner in my bedroom. They reminded me of how much I had cried and in a way I was looking for the boxes to decrease which to me, would mean I was progressing in my grief journey.

A very good friend of mine lost her husband about a year after I lost mine. She told me that she gained some inspiration from my tissue boxes. She took her empty boxes and filled them with words written on scraps of paper. Feeling words. Every time she cried, she would write down the word associated with that emotional cleanse. She did this every day for a year. At the end of the year, she took all the words out and divided them. She was shocked to see how many words that represented anger there were. Dispair, Disgust, Frustated, Pissed off, and Really fucking pissed off were just a few of the words she had in that pile. It made sense to me, a "seasoned" widow. My first year was filled with day after day of "why me, why my family" and "what the hell did I do to deserve this??" I felt so guilty for being angry. My friend said that she was inspired by my story of what I was doing to move through the grieving process. I was flattered and still am humbled that my insane way of attempting to deal with my emotional rollercoaster of a life inspired ANYONE.

During the second year, my friend continues to use her tissue box. She tells me that she has already seen a difference in how many happy words she is adding to the box. Now she uses colored paper. She tells me that her pink paper- representing love and happy memories is getting low in the box while the blue (anger) and green (worry, wonder and what the hell am I gonna do now) piles get used, but not as much.

I shared this story with someone I trust very much and told her that maybe I would try writing the emotion I was feeling and the memory or event that caused it. After a year, I would take them out and examine them.

It has been 2 1/2 years since my husband was called home and almost 3 for my sister. I am very vested in making this journey  one that is not just healing, but a learning one as well.