Grief’s Scabs

Grief’s Scabs

Grief forms scabs as you go through the painful process of healing. When you pick at scabs it hurts. My first experience with scab picking was when I took a bag of my husband’s shoes to Goodwill. As I handed over the bag complete with brand new boots he never got to wear, I felt a pang of grief I hadn’t expected. As another part of my husband disappeared from my life, I felt the loss- a brief shooting pain that stopped as I drove away.

The second time was deeper and unexpected. I had found some more old financial files and was shredding them. Noting his careful notes on each file brought a pang of grief. It didn’t matter that some of the files went back thirteen years. The more recent, in the past year when my husband needed to label everything even to the point of redundancy, brought fresh waves of grief as tears flowed along with the grinding sound of the shredder. I was glad when I finished.

It felt good to cry and yet it made me wonder- will I always cry like this? Each time I clean out some of his things I feel like I’m losing a part of him and yet I know I don’t need these reminders.

My husband’s father did some things similar when my husband’s mother died. We never understood it back then. I do now.

I’m realizing that while experiencing pain is normal and necessary, so is the cleansing act of getting rid of some unnecessary reminders of the past so I can move forward. I’m just not sure what that will look like. Until then, I guess, I’ll keep picking at the scabs, slowly though, so that the new skin of my life is healing underneath the scabs of grief.