The Secret Life of Grief

I am grieving.  I have been in the mode of grief for almost a year.  It's not something you can see by looking at me.  It's not even something you'll hear in most of the conversations I have.  But it's there. I feel it.  It takes up space in my life. In my body. In my heart. Grief has kept my heart softer, more open.  Grief has slowed me down, caused me to pause more often, to reflect on things I would otherwise hurry past.  Grief has unlocked memories from my earliest childhood. Grief has sharpened my senses and caused me to feel more deeply. Grief is a burden that at times feels like I can barely carry.  It has been a constant companion and an unyielding teacher.

Since being thrust into this grieving process, I have been interested in what those who have walked this path before me have discovered.  Stephen Colbert spoke vulnerably about his loss.  When Colbert, the youngest of eleven children, was ten years old, his father took two of his older brothers up to New England for boarding school.  Their flight went down and all three perished. Four decades later, the loss is still with him, but it has changed:

"...it's not as keen.  Well, it's not as present, how about that? It's just as keen but not

as present.  But it will always accept the invitation.  Grief will always accept

the invitation to appear.  It's got plenty of time for you....

The interesting thing about grief, I think, is that it is its own size.  It is not the

size of you.  It is its own size.  And grief comes to you.  You know what I mean?

I've always liked that phrase "He was visited by grief," because that's really what

it is.  Grief is its own thing.  It's not like it's in me and I'm going to deal with it. 

It's a thing, and you have to be okay with its presence.  If you try to ignore it, it 

will be like a wolf at your door."

I am being visited by grief.  It's not a living part of me, but grief is here.  It's pressing in, it is it's own size.  It is it's own entity and it is with me.

Vicki Harrison, who was visited by grief when the man she loved was killed while riding his motorcycle, wrote:

"...it's really exhausting.  I'm trying, still, to keep track of that one thing a day that makes me smile, is the best part, but even that's difficult right now.  I think I did it for Monday and Tuesday, and I think I have one for today.  But I am just so damn sad right now....

Grief is like the ocean, it comes in waves, ebbing and flowing.  
Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming.  
All we can do is learn to swim...."

I am learning that grief takes time.  Sometimes, when I am in the midst of it, surrounded by it, I wish I could hurry it, fix it, comfort myself and make it go away....feel something else besides that pain in my chest, but grief takes time.

As the year has marched on grief has taken different forms in the changing seasons.  As the temperature has dropped, the leaves have turned and December approaches I am surprised at how the memories that weren't as acute in the heat of July become sharp once again.  Memories that were in the back of my mind are now in the forefront.  I was driving in the car the other day and the memory of calling my Grandfather, my mom's dad, and telling him that she was gone played out scene by scene.  About a month ago, I was helping my youngest daughter with her hair as she was getting ready for school.  She said, "Mom, I've been thinking a lot about Grandma lately and I just feel sad." She told me that in her choir class at school they had started singing Christmas songs to prepare for the holiday performances and the first day all she could do was to keep breathing and not cry.

Last year at this time we had just returned from a family trip to Disneyland with my siblings and my mom.  She was a trooper.  She spent a week walking around several theme parks in Southern California with her kids and her grand-kids.  Then she was off to South Carolina to spend Thanksgiving with my brother and his family.  None of us could guess as December came and we celebrated the holidays that it would be the last time.  That she would not be with us to usher in the New Year.

Grief is, as Colbert says, a thing.  Right now it is an acute thing.  There has not been a day that I don't think about her, about that day, about how I am changed and how certain days are gone forever. Someday, I trust, that sifting through these memories will not be quite as painful as it is now.

I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye

A little over a month ago my mom passed away unexpectedly. It was December 30, 2014. She was planning to have a sleepover with her grandkids that night. It was just a regular day and I had no idea the twist that was about to happen. I called my mom from work at 2:00 to tell her that my kids would be a little late for the sleepover. Just 15 minutes late. We talked on the phone for 5-10 minutes about nothing in particular. I had no idea that by 3:00pm she would be found unconscious in her home by my younger brother.  He called 911 but she never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead at 3:54pm.
My mom and I had a complicated relationship. We didn't always see eye to eye. We had our ups and downs but over the past two years we were making peace with each other and learning to see past our differences. I don't have regrets about the path our relationship took. It was what it was.
As I left the hospital and was driving home the words of the song from Les Miserables came to my mind: "to love another person is to see the face of God".  I believe that it is easy to love somebody when they are lovely. But to have love for somebody who has let you down, hurt you, disappointed you and fallen short of who you wanted them to be...who you needed them to be...well I think that is Godly. It is Godly because it is so much bigger than me, than her, than what was and what wasn't. And I can accept that. My mom didn't have an easy life.  She did the best she could, but was hurt by many things...mostly my dad and the loss of what she hoped to have. And as the saying goes "hurt people, hurt people."
Thomas Merton in his book No Man is an Island says "The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image.  If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them."
It has been a long and difficult month since her passing. I have found that sadness is a familiar companion. There's a game I find myself playing. I pretend that I can replay special days of my life. Certain characteristics show through as I flip through my favorite memories of my mom....the image of her walking towards me with a chair to join me on the sideline of my girls soccer game. Her recounting endless details of a story that aren't all that important. Her curiosity and love of learning. Watching her write in her journal or talking about books we both had read. It is so easy for me to play back some of my fondest memories. When I play this game, it reminds me that no matter how good those memories were, certain moments are gone forever. When I was a girl, I watched my mom and adopted the bits and pieces of her that fit me.  The talks and struggles we have had through this journey of our lives together have a great deal to do with the values I cherish as an adult and the person I have become. I truly believe that nothing in this life is wasted. Leaving the hospital that night, I felt like I could let go of so much and walk away with the memories I choose to keep of her.
Love is complicated, and yet our job is to love others without stopping to question whether or not they are worthy of that love. It's not our judgment to make. What we are asked to do is to love. To soften ourselves, our hurts and disappointments and to love. It is a life saving pursuit.
I love you mom!