Elie's Expositions

A bereaved father blogging for catharsis... and for distraction. Accordingly, you'll see a diverse set of topics and posts here, from the affecting to the analytical to the absurd. Something for everyone, but all, at the core, meeting a personal need.


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Monday, December 05, 2005

Battles and Fronts

I had lunch on Thursday with my former boss, who was let go during the big wave of layoffs about three years ago. We've kept in touch on a regular basis since then (she is by far the best boss I've had in 20+ years here) and meet for lunch at the local kosher deli about once a month. After last week's meeting, I received an email from her which began:
Elie,

Was great to see you today. You looked and sounded so much better than the last time I saw you. What ever you are doing to keep the pain at bay, keep doing it!
Apparently, I am becoming rather talented at putting on a good front! Certainly, I don't feel a lot better than I did the last time we met; in fact, the past week or so has been unusually stressful, with a bunch of new problems to deal with on top of the unrelenting feelings of background - and often foreground - grief. As I noticed once before, my ability to cope with everyday challenges and ongoing life issues has been significantly weakened since the loss, and I often feel like I'm fighting a dozen losing battles at once. Yet nearly everybody - except for the inner circle who occasionally see me with my guard down - comes away thinking I'm doing so well. It's nothing but the extension, ad infinitum, of my auguished composure during Aaron's last days.

But I push away questions of how well this approach is truly working, or even whether it's in my own best interests. It's the only way I know how to survive right now. So I continue to "keep the pain at bay", because, as Carly Simon put it, "I haven'’t got time for the pain".

And when I truly feel the need to share at least some of its rawness, I blog about it - like I'm doing right now. As always, thanks for listening. I think I'm ready to go back to work on the next part of Aaron's story now...

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