In the Matrix

In the last four to six weeks I have been attempting to try to reemerge into the world I live in.   I never know at what point I will be propelled, there is no way to predict every trigger or thought that reminds me of the person I’ve lost.  I can try and avoid the obvious ones like that’s why I avoided may high school graduations this summer, but I cannot avoid every memory.  I have decided that I am going to have to let it happen and its ok if others around me are uncomfortable for a few minutes while I wipe my eyes.   I think it’s healthier to have an emotion, feel it and acknowledge it.

My family has always enjoyed professional soccer games.   Last week we went and I enjoyed the distraction and craziness of the Timbers Army.  Somewhere in the middle of the match as I was walking to the restroom and I saw a father carrying two of his daughters through the crowd.   Being a father of four, my husband always had sets of two in his arms.  Watching him hold his girls I was propelled back in time imagining my husband carrying our two oldest hiking or trying to leave some overly expensive amusement park.     I spent a few minutes feeling that emotion, shed a few tears and collected myself to move back to my current reality.

Not only do I get propelled by triggers through my daily life, I also find that I live in some sort of Matrix of my own reality.  Luckily I have noticed this in others going through loss.  It is like living in two worlds, one is in your head and the other reality everyone else lives in.  I have had such difficulty getting daily tasks done.  Its like I am on A.D.D. overload at home, I move from thing to thing and wonder what I actually accomplished for the day.  I kept thinking I have a glitch, like an old black and white T.V.  Maybe someone just smack the side of me so I can stop jumping from one reality to the other so quickly anyway.

I sat in the Timbers game later that evening, right after they scored, watching the green and yellow smoke pile around me.   For a brief moment my vision narrowed and it felt like time had stood still.  I was watching the event for a few seconds as if I was not there.   I had been thinking about my Matrix analogy and how it can be hard to be present at the moment at all times.   I’d like to think of heaven as its own matrix and maybe my glitches are moments I am keeping in touch with my loved one.  If that is the case, if I am walking in two realities for a while, then it doesn’t matter if the cobwebs get dusted or the floor gets moped.  Maybe it is part of the healing process being in two worlds at once, your head in the clouds so to speak.  I had one mother who had lost her daughter a few years earlier say to me that you will walk with one foot in each world at least for the first year or so.   So the next time you see a glassy-eyed grief survivor, you can recognize them as a Matrix dweller.  Know they might be here and they might be somewhere else.  (It’s like the moment of awareness when Neo realizes that Trinity is also from the Matrix) and if you are with someone and they have a moment that propelled into grief, know this is normal, (at least I hope it is!)  let them feel it without being embarrassed, knowing  that these moments are just reminder of the love that they will forever carry.