Attending A Grief Support Group

March 27th Grief Support Group

This past Tuesday I attended the second grief support group. It's a writing group and we have exercises we

do in those two hours. It was a difficult session.


I've been in a constant state of yearning and aching.


It's not just centered in my mind or my heart though. The feelings of grief seem to be in 3 separate areas and

all have different feelings and all feelings seem to be creating a song of despair.


The first place anyone expects grief to occur is in the mind/brain. The memories, the longing to be reunited

and resume our habits and rituals together. The second place, the heart. One would expect the heart to hurt

when a loved one dies. I do feel the sensation of a breakage. I can even sense a crack in my heart.


The 3rd place, and the least talked about, which I find the most profound and unfamiliar: The body's sensation

of grief. This is the worst place for me personally. It's a feeling I've never, ever had in my life. As many books as

I have read, I've never come across these feelings described in any book. It's as if my cells are coming unglued.

As if I am in weightless space and so my cells feel as if they are separating and vibrating a little as they

separate. It's also a feeling of contraction, pulling under my skin at the same time. I'm observing that the skin

has a longing all it's own. It feels separate from my mind, thoughts, emotions and the aching in my heart.


I can only compare this body sensation to the curious state of childbirth. When I was a mother in the process of

giving birth, I was awestruck. How was it the body knew just what to do? To seize up and force contractions

where muscles would spasm/contract, pressing, pushing...on again, off again. And anyone who has been in the

process of birth knows how bizarre and fascinating it is that your body knows just what to do. And at the same

time....there is absolutely no way you can control it. You only work with it. Breathe when they tell you to breathe

a certain way, push hard when they tell you to push.





There is a deep yearning just under my skin and with every breath there is a yearning in and a yearning out.

The dictionary definition of yearning is simply: a longing for something, a thirst, ache, hunger, craving, desire,

a wish. It is the best word that I can use for the way I am feeling. At the same time I’m feeling things I don’t

have words to describe. I do believe there are words to better illustrate this aching, but they’re from other

worlds and we have no context on our earthly home and earthbound bodies to describe them. Our mouths

aren’t even able to form syllables to enunciate them…. For now I’m calling it, the Breath of Yearning.