Grief has made me a liar

Grief has made me a liar.

In all my life I have hated lying.
It’s one of those hot-button-immediately-raise-my-ire things.
It’s nothing short of rude behavior.
I cannot tolerate rude behavior.

And yet, now.
Grief has made me a liar.

I answer that I am “alright” or “ok” when asked how I am doing.
Knowing full well that I am NOT “alright” or even just “ok”.

I have asked so many times, “How are you doing?” or “How was your day?” when truth be told, it was a such a deep moment of grief that I while I cared for someone, I really didn’t care about how they were doing or how their day was - not in that moment.
I just wanted my husband back - to ask him how he was doing, or how his day was going.

I have wished a gazillion times that I could just be honest.

To tell the truth about how hard it is to crawl awake in the morning and face another day without him.
To tell the truth about how difficult it is to figure out what clothes to wear, then to go thru the task of getting dressed and fixing my hair.
To tell the truth in the struggles of eating. Finding something to eat that didn’t make me break down into sobs because it was one of Rick’s favorite foods. Finding something to drink that didn’t set off waves of nausea because I could no longer get him a glass of anything to drink.

I wish that my honesty would have been met with compassion, openness and acceptance.

However, I learned early in this walk that 99% of those who ask, are just being pleasant - and they don’t want to hear more than “alright” or “ok”.
Just an exchange of pleasantries.

But you know, I get it.
Grief is heavy.
Grief is messy.
Grief is ugly.

I also get that it’s easier to push away someone else’s grief than it is to embrace that person who is grieving.
Because if we embrace someone who is grieving, that means we must feel the grief.
Grief is not easy.
Grief is not warm fuzzies.
Grief is not pretty.

So, yes, grief has made me a liar.
And I resent that.