A Caregiver Still

Caregiver still: 

so many wonderful people, close and long time friends, acquaintances through familiar circles, and people barely known except to distance reach of social media, all caring people who shared a moment of my grief, concern, and provided comfort during sorrow. Thank you all, truly, your love brought me through the first days of darkness. 

many now wish to know how I am, am I taking care of myself, allowing myself the time to grieve, and making room to heal. The answer to these questions is yes, and those close to me at home are making sure this is so. But it doesn't answer how I am, not really and certainly not honestly. I'm not sure if this is something to share, if a stoic approach is best or just a front to keep me from pouring my heart to the emptiness of a page, perhaps my words will fill a similar void within me. I have no idea, none, but what I do is write, keeping true to a promise I made to myself, that I would never censor the urge to share whatever words appear, honoring my commitment to the page, to my creative heart, to what the moment holds for me.

so how am I? 

lonely, I'm lonely, and scared of the comfort that I find here, deep within myself, hidden. I'm lonely. That's the answer, it's honest, and it's not how I feel, more than a mood, heavier than grief. It's a loneliness cloaked against me, but now worn down to the bone, no longer a momentary wear, but constant in its cover. I'm lonely, haunted by care that's no longer given, by a deeper care no longer available to me. I've lost something, not just my father, and not only the routine we shared, something, and I'm unable to say exactly what it is, some essence gone now, central to my being. 

and that's how I am, for now.

everything changes and this certainly will too - and I am grateful to all who reach out, I appreciate your concern, your care. In writing this I come to the place I so often do while writing openly of my experiences. I arrive to the bare essentials of the moment, a confrontation that eases to awareness, more acceptance now, allowed. There is nothing for me to change, no void that isn't already filled by attention to what's present. My role is to not make any of this wrong, to befriend myself through troubled times, and simply be true to the exactness of what I'm feeling, to not wish a single thought away. So I sit with what's present, I write whatever words words appear. I tend to myself...

a caregiver still. 

~

Peace, Eric