Marbles and Grief

I felt the grief take over me.  It was the first time or it felt like it.  It feels like the first time every time.  Maybe because it’s new, maybe because it’s different every time. A friend shared with me a beautiful story of small objects that now have symbolic meaning to him because of certain experiences he’s had. He placed these objects together and took a picture to have it all in one place to remember.

One object was a marble.  I asked him why, curious at his choice.  His answer was equally curious and endearing. It was the reminder to him to add to those close to him in life. It was to help him to be there for those that he loves.  It helps him remember to do things that put a marble in their jar.  He said he specifically does it for his kids and their mother. 

That’s beautiful I thought. What an awesome person. Everyone should have people like this in their lives, at last one anyway. His experience was wonderful, amazing, beautiful and worthy of all the good things of life.  He put marbles in the jars of others, especially the mother of his kids, and they’re not even together anymore. It symbolizes what he does now and maybe what he should have done then.  That is beautiful. 

I began to think about my days. I thought of all the things I’d done recently.  I thought about how I run all day. I don’t mean or want to. I’m not trying to prove anything.  I put marbles in the jars of others all day. As a mom of 4, I’m doing things for everyone all the time.  I thought of all the marbles I’d been giving out.

I’m doing the work I do, taking care of our home, and handling all the people involved in all those things. It is a lot.  It’s more than one person is meant to do but I lost the other person who does those other things and things still need to be done.  I symbolically put a marble in a jar for every one of those I love in my life.

I have put a lot of marbles in a lot of jars. I was pleased at my natural giving. I wasn’t in that lovely story, as fabulous as it is and was, so I put myself in that story, just for a moment. What it showed me, even in how beautiful it is, was also pain. I don’t have a special someone to put marbles back in my jar. That pain, my pain showed me how much it hurt to not be a part of a story like that for me.

There were no marbles that got put in my jar today.  I suddenly felt very empty. In fact, I can’t remember the last marble put in my jar. I want someone to put marbles in my jar; someone that is concerned about me and mine and just naturally fills me up this way.

I felt the loss of not having the father of my kids, to put marbles in my jar.  I want someone to help me, to love me, to support me.  That’s when the pain hit me hard, so deep in my belly and my chest that I started to cry. It hurt so much to realize how empty my jar felt in that moment. 

To feel the pain of doing so much for so many and then the feeling that there is no one to do anything for me, to put marbles in my jar, just show me love.  That’s how I felt in this supposed to be beautifully endearing moment. I cried and cried and cried. With my whole body I shook as I cried and felt as though the pain would rip my being apart.  In that moment I wondered how can this small wonderful thought hurt so much?

I finally stopped crying and started breathing.  I bought a ticket to Les Miserables.  I wanted to go alone and experience the feelings of it.  I wanted to sit alone and cry in the injustice and ridiculously unnecessary pain. I planned to wallow in this classic piece with so much symbolism and timeless reality woven into the songs and story. At least that’s where my thoughts started.

There’s not even anyone I can sit with in my pity party at this musical, I complained to myself. I almost frantically combed my mind for way to get a symbolic marble from anywhere. I don’t need to be marbleless until or unless remarried. We all need marbles, sometimes more needful than others and from all different sources. I instantly began thinking of who to share my night out with because although I wanted to finish this life lesson quickly, no one really truly wants to be alone all the time.

I went through all my acquaintances, neighbors, friends and family in my mind. It’s not that no one would be willing to go with me, nor that no one cares about me; in fact I am incredibly blessed by those I have around me in my life. Wonderful people are not a one size fits all though.

It had to be someone whose personality and energy would hold space for me right now to be where I was without needing anything from me in the same moment. It needed to be someone who would not try to make it better, nor take in my toxic sadness but somehow simultaneously let me be, not hold me to any of it later and in some way give way for me to be in a different place after and all without a hint of judgement.

I reached a thought, there’s one person who I would want to go with in this particular scenario.  I can be miserable with this friend and it won’t affect her nor create anything worse and it would be ok on all those levels. It would be easy and take no energy from me. I asked her, I bought another ticket and then I explained my missing marbles. She listened.

Now I have something to look forward to even in this misery place that is passing through.  I have a marble already put in my jar because she heard me and one that will be put in my jar when we watch the musical.  I finally went to sleep.  The next day I felt better. Thanks for the beautiful things you do.  Even when it can hurt to see, that’s all the more reason to keep doing beautiful things.