Ugh. I’m not sure where to start here today. This writing thing isn’t getting any easier with time. It keeps me raw. I’m so fortunate that I no longer have to function in social or business situations. I no longer have to work everyday. It’s the lifestyle I’ve wanted all of my adult life…I’m living the dream. Ha.

I like to think I’m pretty self aware. Three people close to me to have directly said to me, “you are not as self aware as you think you are.” These occurrences were separate and years apart. THEY brought the subject up. One of these people was a former husband, one was someone I almost married, and the other was my sister. As it happens, I am no longer in contact with any of them. They are all blatant narcissists. Undiagnosed, of course, because narcissists don’t do therapy (let alone introspection), two are covert and one overt. We got along fine as long as I was in people pleasing mode and they were in control. So pardon me if their opinion of me doesn’t matter a rat’s ass.

I repeat, I like to think I’m pretty self aware. I’m aware enough to know that this is a life-long process and that it is humbling. We all have blind spots in our self awareness. We all have an unconscious. If we didn’t we would be enlightened, and while I’m sure there are enlightened people around, I do not personally know any of them. The rest of us are all in the ‘I coulda had a V-8’ school of human experience.

At the moment, I am doing well, other than being quite concerned about a few people I’m close to. These three people, who I am in regular contact with, are all dealing with the aftermath of the recent natural disasters. My son’s father lost his home in hurricane Helene and hasn’t been able to even begin to think about rebuilding or moving on since Milton hit. He won’t have a home again for some months. But he and his partner are safe and have a temporary place to live.

The other, a dear friend, is ill with RSV and has only yesterday been able to get to a doctor in Florida. She spent days in bed with no power, food or drinking water. No one could get to her because the roads were blocked by downed trees and power lines. At least now she has medicine and can hopefully make a fast recovery.

The third person I am concerned about is my son. Here, in NW lower Michigan, where we have not had severe weather. Because he is going through what I can only call a dark night of the soul, and it is a direct result of the recent hurricanes. He was sick worrying about his Dad. He felt utterly helpless. Then a friend and fellow carpenter reached out to him. A few local men were getting together to travel down to North Carolina and work for a volunteer agency, helping to clean up and rebuild. Could he please join them?

Now, my son is a genius (identified early in his school career by doctors, not just because I think so.) But he is also an empath. He would have to give this request a great deal of thought. He knew that he would have to “go into warrior mode,” and put up a shield. Through this agency and men he knows who were already down there, he was seeing a gruesome picture of death and devastation – far beyond what the nightly news was reporting. Could he keep it together and be useful was his concern. He decided he would volunteer, filled out the requisite paperwork, and began pulling his gear together. I was just trying not to panic.

It seemed to actually be helping him mentally. At least he had a goal, a focus. As he said, a channel for his grief. But it was not to be. He got news last night that the government was shutting down all volunteer operations and moving the military in. And his grief has increased. He is back to feeling absolutely helpless.

Now, between you and I, hearing him talk to me last night was triggering. But I was determined to listen and not respond; to let him talk it through. I trust him. I trust his genius to take him where he needs to go. I also know how to identify when I am being triggered and why. And I can tell you exactly what I saw in my head: I am 16 years old. I am laying on the carpet of my bedroom in front of a small television set. I am watching the Vietnam war. I see a Vietnamese child running naked on fire. I keep having to run to the bathroom to vomit.

It was the first time in my sheltered childhood that I had witnessed trauma. I had not yet lost anyone near to me. I still had four grandparents and two great-grandparents, and all of my immediate family. They would face death shortly thereafter, but at the time I was entirely unaware of our fragility.

I also trust what my son was telling me, and I know he wasn’t sharing all he knew. I know the worst of any human suffering never makes the television reports. The advertisers don’t like it. And from the perspective of age I now can know that my son is grieving deeper traumas than the obvious. Helpless is the very definition of grief. Like any of us who are given the great privilege of time, he will come to terms with his smallness, his vulnerability, his place within the world. He says he doesn’t know what to do with all of this anger and grief. He doesn’t know how to switch it off, how to go back to functioning fully. How to return to life.

All I can say to him is that life will never be the same again. I tell him he’ll come though it, but he won’t ever be the same. One day perhaps I will tell him my stories. I will remind him what he faced when diagnosed with cancer in his early twenties. But not today. I cannot help him today; I can only listen and trust. Author Elizabeth Gilbert says, “you can’t avoid grief. It knows your home address.” So it would seem.