Grief and farts

Today I was looking at other grief support pages and found the best quote I read in a long time. After a really bad day this made me laugh:

“Anne Enright has a great line about bereavement in The Gathering – your grief is comparable to your farts: Basically, you can happily dwell in your own, but, dear god, you want nothing to do with someone else’s.”

                                                                                                              – Orla Ryan

I guess because I am a mom of boys this talk of farts is funny to me.

Orla also wrote how when you are grieving it is ok to joke about it – you get a free pass.

You have to joke sometimes when you are overwhelmed with grief. Maybe someone else doesn’t get your sense of humor, and it may be as well they can’t, because they are not dealing with the load of stress that grief brings to understand the punchline.

Thank you to my family and friends that share in my grief. That let me talk about Nolan and how I miss him and my parents and other family members.

I am used to bodily functions in my line of work. I have checked poopy diapers, sniffed urine soaked diapers and been peed, pooped and barfed on by my patients.

So hanging out in a room smelling of farts is fine by me if it means I can cry and laugh and hug someone who also has deep grief like mine.