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For Those Who Are “Still” Grieving

How to create space for your feelings when you are still grieving because "Time heals all wounds" is too simplistic. Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms

People are generous with their kind words immediately after you have lost a loved one. Despite death being a inevitable part of everyone’s life, people often feel awkward about what to say; but at least the time and space provided by social norms are there to encourage them.

Unfortunately that window for condolences closes up fairly quickly, and the awkwardness morphs into the fear that they will upset you if they mention your loved one. You are now left with your own awkwardness surrounding how to talk about your grief, how to bring it up. Maybe a prescribed period for wearing black back in the day wasn’t such a bad idea. Black arm bands or those silicone bracelets could work nowadays. It just seems like we could use something to indicate “handle with care.”

“Time heals all wounds” is not so much a falsehood, as it is too simplistic. Yes, the hurt scabs over, and the pain dulls, but the loss is healed with a scar. A scar that tugs and throbs predictably, yet can grab you unexpectedly .

The holidays and anniversaries with their brightness and intensity serve to highlight the voids . . . voids you can often avoid staring into on a day-to-day basis once your grief scar has formed.

“My mom should be here baking cookies with my kids. She always had the patience to make cut-outs.”

“This is where my son’s stocking should be hanging.”

“My father always lit the candles.”

And while you can predict the holidays are going to be tinged with blue, it’s often the little things that surprisingly leave you with the most intensely hollow longing. To prepare for my college freshman daughter’s homecoming for winter break, I was changing her sheets, even though she had only slept in her bed a couple of nights over Thanksgiving and changing sheets is one of the household chores I inexplicably hate the most. I mean, there are so many tasks that are so much worse. Scrubbing toilets anyone?

But as I was grumbling at myself for performing this largely unnecessary task at 11:30 PM, I was overcome. I sank right down on the floor among the pillows and stuffed animals as tears slid down my cheeks. Changing sheets was my mother’s love language of comfort. Sick with a fever? Clean sheets. Home from college, just had a baby, recovering from surgery? Clean sheets. Facing my fourth Christmas without her, I was unconsciously following her script for loving, and grieving anew that she would never give this “love letter” to me again.

Rest assured, you are not the only one “still” grieving. You are not the only one who knows how grief and joy can snuggle side by side, neither diminishing the impact of the other. You certainly aren’t the only one who understands the bitter truth about how time actually heal wounds.

Since I know I’m not alone, this holiday season I am going to reach out to others to give them a space to share. The internet isn’t only about political rants and cat videos. It’s for connecting. I encourage you to try a post as simple as “I miss the way my mother descended on my house a couple of days before Christmas with a cooler bursting with pure deliciousness and a trunk brimming with presents. I miss the way Aunt Ruth delighted us with the latest musical holiday toy from Hallmark each year. What do you miss about your loved ones?” My friend Meredith of The Mom of the Year did this sort of thing in a Facebook group we share, and the resulting comments were uplifting. She is my inspiration.

Follow Meredith’s lead and don’t be afraid to create the space you need for your grief. You never know who you will help as you help yourself.

For Those Who Are "Still" Grieving at Christmas. How to create space for your feelings when you are still grieving because "Time heals all wounds" is too simplistic. Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms

For those who are “still” grieving this holiday season, a way to create space for your feelings.

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-Ellen

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Statement of Faith

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Statement of Faith--How a mother's faith can continue to guide even after she is gone. Spring is here at last with its bright skies and inspiration. |Grief and Healing| Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms

My youngest daughter is going through Confirmation class, although class feels like an inadequate term for it. As Presbyterians, during this process spanning several months, young people explore their faith journey and articulate their faith in Christ through study, service, and reflective time.

This weekend was her overnight retreat and my task was to write a love letter expressing my adoration and appreciation for her, my hopes and dreams for her future, and what my faith has meant to me. This alone is enough to make any mother of a 14-year-old girl sink more than a little bit into snuffly nostalgia.

I had that and more. I felt like a bandage was being ripped off– millimeter by excruciatingly slow millimeter—painfully exposing to the air my grief over my mother’s death. Two years ago, my oldest daughter was confirmed and it was the last time my mother spent the weekend at my house to celebrate yet another milestone. She never missed one. Preparing for my mother’s visits was an integral part of every holiday and celebration—something I have missed with every fiber of my heart. I keep her purse on the bench by the back door where she would always leave it because I cannot bear to do anything else with it.

It took me three days to get far enough past the tears to compose the letter, but I did, and I, in turn, brought my daughter to tears . . . and annoyance. I knew they read the letters in private at the retreat and I knew it would pull at her heartstrings, so I wanted to temper that. In an attempt to make her laugh I filled her letter with confetti. However, she opened it in the sanctuary and my shining star had to spend a good chunk of her time scraping up pesky, tiny stars from under the pews. Laughter or annoyance—whatever—I took her through a gamut of emotions and she felt my presence through her tears.

And I gave her a good story because “thanks a lot for the glitter bomb,” were her first words when I saw her. Her next words were to remind me that she needed to find a Bible verse to center her Statement of Faith around.

I immediately turned to my mother’s Bible because she was a verse highlighting maestro. As I opened the zippered cover, an index card fluttered to the floor. On it was the date June 29, 2013 and this verse: “Christ gives me the strength to face anything,” (Philippians 4:13).

June 29, 2013 was the date she was killed in the car accident.

My entire week crashed down on me and I headed out the door to take a walk. My feet led me to a familiar four-mile country road circuit, the first mile of which I allowed myself an ugly, wailing weep like I had not allowed myself in almost a year.

But after a mile, I was done. I had sobbed my way through those four miles, and more, many times immediately after my mom’s death, but one mile was enough this time. I don’t think the hole in my heart is any shallower, but I am able to bounce up from the bottom of it faster.

Those tears worked to clear a space for appreciation. For one, I have not had a new reason to grieve in the past two years; I have been given room to heal. As this thought entered my head, I was actually able to look around and see the field filled with robins–the first I had seen of the season–the ground barely clear from the recent spring snowstorm, the swan song of a brutal winter.

And I was able to appreciate that even though it has been almost two years since I have felt my mom’s arms around me, I could still feel her touch. Her love and faith were still powerful enough to reach and soothe two generations of the people she loved the most. What greater example of a Statement of Faith could my daughter or I ask for?

–Ellen

Inspiration: How a mother’s faith can continue to guide even after she is gone.

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Grief is an Independent Variable

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This was my first year without a birthday cake. My mom wasn’t here to bake it for me and no one else thought to fill the void. My mother was killed in a car accident this past June. She was the passenger in a car where the driver made a fatal mistake that touched four lives, but only took hers.

And the birthday cake is only the latest in a long line of “firsts” that continues to deepen and widen the void in my life.

There were no “Happy First Day of School” cards for my children. She commemorated everything with a note or a call to let us know we were always in her heart and on her mind.

There was no one to hand out Halloween candy during our neighborhood festivities. She took great joy in this and celebrated in costume.

There was no sous chef by my side as I prepared Thanksgiving dinner. She would have known how to get the potatoes going without blow by blow instructions.

There was no one in the rocking chair watching my children open their gifts on Christmas morning. She was joy personified during this holiest of seasons.

There was no one here to enjoy December 26^th with us, one of my most favorite days of the year because I can finally slow down to smell the proverbial roses. She always liked to stay in her pajamas with us as we sat back to enjoy all of the blessings at hand.

And there was no cake.

My mom was eighty. She was spry and active. She was a guiding light in so many people’s lives. I know because the friends and family who streamed through non-stop for two hours during her viewing told me so. And I know because she was a beacon in my life.

It’s true; we had started to make plans for elder care. There were decisions to be made; health could fail at any time. But in one swift motion, I was no longer among the ranks of women sandwiched between caring for their aging parents and their children. Now I was, am, an open-faced sandwich – exposed, unprotected, unshielded, but also freed from the toil of caring for a loved one.

But it is hard to find comfort in that.

People frequently commented and still do:

“You’re lucky you’ll never have to watch your mother’s health fail or her mind go.”

“She’s lucky it was quick and she never had to lose her independence.”

“You’re lucky you had her for that long.”

“She’s lucky she was really living until the very end.”

I must admit, “lucky” does not describe how I feel as I suffer this season of “firsts” without my mother.

I know people mean well, but it would be so much easier on my heart if they “did” well. A simple, “I’ve been thinking about you and your mother, how are you doing?” would suffice.

See, grief is an independent variable. My grief is not lessened or heightened by a list highlighting all of the horrendous things I have avoided. Not suffering other tragedies and heartaches does not lessen this one. Unfortunately, there is enough room in this big, wide world for all grief to exist simultaneously, side by side.

What I can feel is blessed.

When I woke up trembling from the horror of what must have been my mother’s final moments, I remembered the book on my shelf, “To Heaven and Back,” lent to me months before by a good friend. In this book, the author recounted how she was lifted away and spared the pain of her accident and I felt soothed.

When my cousins and aunts stepped in immediately to help with my mother’s services, I did not feel the sting of being an only child so acutely. My family and friends continue to hold me close and lift me up.

When two separate people recounted to me they had seen her the day before she died and she had told them, “If the Lord calls me home tomorrow, I’m ready;” I knew my mother was with our Savior.

Maybe I am lucky in a sense; lucky that so much love and faith can nestle in the void with my grief.

-Ellen

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