Friday, April 2, 2010

Dilemma

Sometimes it seems like the only way to find relief at this point is to let go of some of the closeness Millie and I shared.  The memories are so raw.  Within days of her death, I started to feel like I couldn't wait to be able to look at pictures of her and remember the times we were happiest.  But right now my mind is flooded either with memories immediately surrounding her death--e.g., the last time I saw her alive, or the feel of her lifeless body--or with good memories that, because they are good, remind me of everything I've lost.  So it's hard not to fight to block any and all memories.  As I said in an earlier post, I take comfort in Ruby because she represents my future.  But one thing that makes this so hard is that I don't want that.  I don't want to pull away from my memories of Millie.  I don't want to ever be less close to her than I was a day before she died.  It's a terrible, terrifying dilemma:  do I choose to focus on what I've lost, or do I choose to loose even more by letting go of all I have left?
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2 comments:

  1. linds-eApril 3, 2010 at 7:36 AM

    What if you scheduled a small amount of time each day (3-5 minutes, timed) to write down 1 memory of Millie. This time would be a space without judgement about anything you are feeling so what you write might be positive and it might be negative. You might need to get some of the recent stuff out before you can get to the good memories. When the timer dings, give yourself permission to pull back away from the memories. Over the next few weeks, this would allow you to compile a history of your relationship with Millie that will never fade because it is written down. This could also take the form of a scrapbook.

    I know when my horse HiCo died, I was really haunted by the hurty memories of the end, for a long long time. In fact, that's kindof what all my paintings in college were about. Now I have a few memories of the good stuff, but what I've realized is that it's the stuff that I talked about, the memories I rehearsed in my head. I wish I had written more down.

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  2. hiker108April 3, 2010 at 7:01 PM

    I have always thought that the timeless beach was a comfort.

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