How I am is Relative

An often heard question has been on my mind lately--the one Chantel wrote about recently: How are you? I have two responses to that every time someone asks me. First, there's a certain deliberateness with which they speak, a slight inflection in their voices that isn't there when they're saying, How are ya? "How are you?" are the first words to remind me that someone loves me. Someone is reaching out and genuinely wants to know how I am and I'm touched by that, even more now that the funeral is over and most people are getting back to their normal lives. But the question always takes me by surprise, maybe because I'm functioning so much on auto-pilot. It's like a little shake of my body that says, Hey, your son died and how do you feel now? The second response to the question "How are you?" provides a brief window of opportunity to stop and do an emotional/mental check in--healthy for someone who is determined to do the work of grieving no matter how difficult, and I know that the person who has just asked the question is waiting for a real answer from me which prompts me to stop and consider. But the answer is more important to me than to them, because it keeps me in the experience of grieving and hopefully moving forward. What surprises me is how suddenly I go from thinking I'm fine to crying deeply--like the flip of a light switch. Isn't the answer to the question, "How are you?" relative to what life is dishing out at the moment? If judging by what I'm doing or not doing, I probably appear to be doing well: I don't stay in bed. I don't hang around in my pajamas, although I wouldn't hesitate to do that for one day if that's what I needed. (So far, I haven't needed to.) I'm not binge eating, drinking, or playing hours of mindless computer games to 'numb out,' and I'm not putting Brandon up on a pedestal as a guy who was the perfect son. He wasn't. In addition to daily activities and being Grammy, what I am doing is a lot of writing, a lot of crying, talking about him when the opportunity presents itself, and googling Brandon's name, (you get a different list if you google 'Brandon S Dayley or Brandon Scott Dayley compared to Brandon Dayley). What I've come to realize over the past week is that those who check in with me help to keep the grieving process moving forward, but nothing makes the pain go away, and no remembrance of the difficult times make the sorrow lessen either. Just like the birth of a new baby doesn't 'make up' for the infant who died, there's no earthly happiness that can compensate for the hole in my soul either. The only way over grief is through it--and that's fodder for a later post because 'getting over it' is a myth. Getting through it is what I'm attempting to do and honestly, it still sucks out loud and probably will for a long time. There's no timed grieving process that I have to adhere to, no right way to do it, no goal in mind and for that I'm thankful. I'm taking it one day, sometimes one hour, at a time. Keep asking me how I'm doing. I need your love and I welcome your concern. Just don't be surprised when I answer truthfully: not very well.