The Environment of Companionship

Like the layers of an onion, working my way through the stages of grief started with surface things. I was able to soften the wounding effects of seeing shared things, by removing some, rearranging others. Always there’s a niggling sense of betrayal in these symbols of trying to move on when he’s not. That back and forth is a stage unto itself. But as the layers get deeper the body takes the brunt of suffering while day to day life is lived out buried in my work, walking with my neighbor and getting through the holidays, another layer of its own. The here and now is my refuge. I find pleasure in nature, satisfaction over seeing my feelings expressed on paper for giving me a glimpse of a stage I feel without words. I’ve appreciated my time with other people but coming home with so much to tell is hard. Six months in and this stage of loss is realizing that the more profound grief is the loss of that whole background of companionship. Surrounding me even when I wasn’t home, having someone to share whatever happens with creates a psychic environment that enfolded me wherever I was. The atmosphere of my inner world has suffered a cataclysm. The structures created by shared habits and routine are gone. The connective tissue between inner and outer environments are the patterns that characterize any couple. The antenna that pick up their interests has no one to transmit back the who, where or what they might have liked to know. The fact that it’s taken me so long to understand this is likely because its so unconscious and built in while living it. I offer it now so readers might think about and appreciate the inner environment created by people they care about, having their presence in the world. When there is a web of interlaced activity, it travels with us, an invisible personal nest of ongoing interaction. The living presence of someone behind the scenes in life is part of inner consciousness, something to be appreciated. Coming to terms with each stage as I pel them away is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The challenge to find it in myself to face the many facets of this shift is a human aspect of the reaching that characterizes the life force in all forms. Most obvious in plants that stretch toward light, we extend our being in more metaphoric ways and borrow the metaphors of plants as keep trying to find the cracks in he concrete .