Author: Grief Blessings

Why as a human race do we find pleasure in tearing people down and little pleasure in lifting people up. It appears that we are more entertained by the “gotcha moments” than helping lift a spirit with a small gesture like a smile or a cup of coffee. I know we are better than that, we come from a great legacy that only instructed us to love. Yet we (including myself) find even that hard to do. 

This does NOT mean we shouldn’t hold people accountable for their actions. But it is in the way we lead and love that can make all the difference.

I pledge to do better and I hope others do as well.

#dotherightthing #loveNOThate #liftUPnotDown

I was reminded today while watching a show on spirituality that I had forgotten a very important aspect of my continued journey on healing. The letting go of who I was. Letting go of who I had become, letting go of what I thought I was to become, and letting go of the life I had come to know and love.

In order to find who I am to become I have to let go of who I had become. For they cannot exist at the same time, in the same space if I am to move forward. Saying that sounds strange, believing in it even stranger. For so long I lived for my daughter. I gave her every part of me. I had to. At least I felt I had to. I don’t know if it was guilt because she became ill at an early age and I wasn’t able to get her the help fast enough to avoid the neurological deficits that were to come or because it was the lack of attention I received as a child. Or was it that I had waited so long to have a child and so grateful to have a child, that I gave all of me to her. I also lost my mother while pregnant with Brittany and maybe the unconscious me was holding on for dear life trying to make sure I didn’t lose her. In the end I did. I lost everything.

In giving everything I had – I lost myself somewhere along the line. I forgot what it was like to just be me. I forgot me. I was living a life that I thought I was suppose to be living. Maybe I was – for that time. Now is the time I have to let that life go. Can I be real here and tell you that the thought of letting that life go and starting over is daunting to me. It takes me to places you don’t want to know. But that was yesterday. Today I realized that it’s time to become the person I was meant to be. It doesn’t mean I am forgetting who I was or that I am forgetting my beautiful sweet Brittany – it just means I’m letting go.

It will be an adventure I’m sure. And those of you who know me, you know you better hold on – in the words of Betty Davis – “It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.” Those of you who don’t know me or know me that well – you will see some incredible things happen – and it will all be because God has given me such strength to persevere and to keep going that I have to do something with it. I can’t hold onto it another minute. The expression of love and desire to help others is where I see myself going and I can’t wait to see what God has in store for me.
until next time

m
*originally posted in 2009

As we close 2016 I am struggling to come up with something positive to say. Unfortunately I am not feeling so positive about 2017. I’m concerned for our country and where we may end up with this new administration. I’m concerned for healthcare and what may happen to many who rely on the Affordable Care Act. I understand all too well how healthcare can be difficult to understand and navigate and that healthcare can destroy families.

Of course, none of which I have any control over. I have figured out over these many years that I can control only what I do and say or think. I can do the very best that I can do to:

• uplift those in need
• offer a hand to those who need support
• love those who feel unloved
• support the causes that are dear to my heart
• comfort those who grieve
• create opportunity that promotes positive change
• exude gratitude
• pray
• meditate
• exercise

Being part of the mourning mother’s club I’ve learned that our world is always complicated and it’s hard to navigate around any given minute, hour or day. But when we put others first and we walk in love; accept others; serve those in need; we begin to mend our broken hearts. Notice I don’t say heal but rather mend. A scar that will forever hold the place where our child, our old life lived before their death. It’s a sacred place that only we and our God understands and loves.

It’s a choice each day to look forward and not behind. Grief is hard work and it can be exhausting, but the reward is that love will sprout in another place and joy can return. You just have to be open and willing to take that first step forward.

Happy New Year

Until next time,

M

Twenty-Eight years ago I gave birth to what would be my only child. Seventeen year’s later just one month shy of her eighteenth birthday she returned to heaven.

On this day, November 30th I sit and wonder who she might have become. A fashion designer, a teacher, a poet, an artist. I can only dream of that now. I have some idea because I knew her passions and what she believed in. She believed in the basic right of a human being regardless of ethnicity or religion. She did not see color. We raised her that way. She championed those who were disabled. She would put herself out there in a public way just to make a stranger feel welcome. I should of known that would have been my daughter in her teen years because as a five year old she would stand at the end of our driveway and using her Fisher Price Sing-a-Long she would put in her favorite cassette tape “Lift Jesus Up” and would sing her heart out to anyone passing by. That was her true spirit. 

It wasn’t to be for her. God had other plans. Not sure I will ever understand that but I’ve handed that over to God a long time ago. Otherwise I’d have never survived her death. I have learned to live my life like I think she would have – full out enjoying life and not really caring what other people think. Just to be free to help others and to lift those up who can’t lift themselves up.

I have very big shoes to fill and when I feel down or sad, I know I get this gentle nudge from her saying “not now mom – there is work to do” “love your life and spread that love around”. That is what I hear her saying to me. It doesn’t help my loneliness for her, but it does give me the strength I need to keep marching forward. One foot in front of the other and when I get that tap on the shoulder or that whisper in my ear – I know she is guiding me to my next adventure.

I am blessed to have been her mother. And for that reason my pain is great. But the equalizer is love and when you have love in your life – it softens the blow of loss and it keeps me from sinking too far into the abyss called sorrow. I miss her more that any words on paper could describe but until I find a way to translate it – I’ll just keep blogging.

Until next time,

M

I think about my late daughter almost every day. Sometimes it is a fleeting memory and sometimes it is a story in my memory bank about something she did. Either way, she is in my thoughts daily. 10 years has not created the distance from my heart to hers. She lives in me every day and I would not want it any other way. The things I miss about her….

The incredible way she made people laugh

Her love of God 

Her steadfast belief that she could do ANYTHING

Her fun spirit that cheered me up on days when I did not want to be cheered up

Her hugs

Her voice

Her calling my name “mom”

Her resilient attitude to get up every day and face whatever came her way

Her singing in the shower

Her goofy look at things

Her dedication to uplifting people who were bullied

Her smile

Her love

Her

Until next 

M

My mom was my best friend. She molded me into the woman I am today. She believed in me, believed I could achieve anything I put my mind to. She was my cheerleader right up to the moment I sat on her death bed, seven months pregnant, and understanding that she was dying. Her hospice nurse said she could see the love and special connection I had with my mom which was vastly different from the estranged relationship I had with my dad. She had me come out of the room and told me I needed to tell her it was ok to die. I’m like how does someone tell their mom it’s ok to die. I was broken. Yet I did what she told me and within the hour – she was gone. Gone from my life forever. I almost went into labor at that moment.

When my daughter was born, i missed having my mom there. I never thought I’d go through the birth of my first and only child without my mom right by my side. From the birth, we had problem after problem. I needed my mom more than ever. I lived in a place far away from home. Little to no support rendered me helpless and I had to remember all the comfort and words my mom taught me about being stronger than your circumstance. I dealt with what seemed like a constant barrage of problems with Brittany’s health. She was born with a malformed hip socket and had to wear four diapers until she was four months old. Then we had to manage her colic which was exhausting. Many nights driving around in the car at 2 am in the morning trying to get her to sleep. Again I missed my mom’s advice and support. A girl just needs her mamma.

Then while in nursing school, my daughter was diagnosed with Epilepsy. That changed my world. Again I needed my mom, yet had only memories of supportive conversations we had over the years to overcome various hurdles. Over the next 12 years Brittany was diagnosed with even more devastating Epilepsy and Crohn’s disease. Again and again I missed my mom’s advice and love. In looking back, I’m not sure how I survived all that. Those years were the worst without my mom.

But the worst time of all was the 12 hours of torture while I watched my daughter’s decline after a life changing episode of Status Elipticus that caused complete organ failure. She died within 12 hours of being admitted. I needed my mom more than ever. How does a mother of a child who died work through this grief without her own mom – i am not sure. I was raised to be a strong woman. Thank God for that. I think sometimes my mom raised me the way she did to prepare me for what I would have to endure as an adult and parent.

A girl always needs her mamma. RIP Mom 9-16-88.

Until next time,

M

Last week was the 28th year angel anniversary of my mom’s death. I just can’t fathom that she has been gone that long. It seems so surreal to me that I’ve been through so much without her about as long as I have been with her. I was 31 when she died. I think that will be a milestone much like the one I experienced when I turned 48, the age she was when she died.

The sorrow just never goes away. It just sits in the shadows waiting for the right moment to express itself. Which is usually not the right moment. There really never is a “right moment to fall apart or cry or to just be sad. It’s never convenient to openly weep over the loss. Or to explain that the reason you’re having a bad day. But it is the burden we have. I don’t expense anyone to understand it. But I’d hope that at some point I don’t have to explain it or hide it.

Now i’m facing the dreaded angel date of my daughter’s passing – October 13, 2006. Wow 10 years since she left me. I just can’t even rationalize that timeframe. It just seems like  yesterday and then some days, i think because my life is so dramatically different, that it seems like a lifetime ago. I do feel like the gloomy times are coming and I feel a heavy pressure on my chest that tells me the time is coming. I don’t look forward to it but I’m glad when it’s over.

Weeping, grieving and downright suffering is never anything someone looks forward to. It shows up when it wants and it leaves when it wants. The only control I have is to hide it the best way I can – work. Stay busy and in the quiet darkness I cry out in my pain and ask God why. 10 years later I still ask why knowing I won’t get the answer. I still ask. The mother in me wants to know why my baby, why my daughter, why me. I miss her more than I could ever explain or share. Those of you who read this blog – you know. It’s not easy to live this life without your babies – but we do.

I miss my daughter and the life I had dreamed of. My journey wasn’t meant to be. Wrestling with that has been the hardest. Left with many questions, no answers and a very broken heart. My heart is still broken. It always will be. It has scared over and that place will never truly heal. Thankfully I have a life now where love grows in a new place and it helps soften the pain.

Until next time,

M

So I feel like I’m at this crossroad with my grief journey. I’ve been thinking a lot of about how I am doing today compared to where I was 6,7,8 or 9 years ago. When I was struggling to navigate my way through this horrific loss of my daughter. Within a few years after Brittany died I struggled to even look at anything of hers yet I’d spend hours longing for her while looking at her pictures on the wall. I would basically pine for her. I wanted to feel her hug again, I wanted to hear her voice again – her laugh. I wanted that so badly that I couldn’t see my way to the future without her.

Truly I did not want to go on. I struggled with eating, breathing and sleeping. Nothing made sense to me anymore. Everything I knew and felt was ripped from my heart and while a faithful person, I hung on to God’s word that I would see her again. For me that time couldn’t come soon enough.

Then life happened and I began to feel alive again. Surprisingly I began to feel moments of joy mixed with sadness. As time moved on the moments of joy began to overcome the moments of sadness. I began to allow people in my life again. I began to trust again that life could have some purpose.

So the crossroad today is that while trying to living a life that honors my daughter and hopefully help others, I am struggling with thinking about her. I avoid it now at all costs so I don’t have to feel that pain anymore. That pain that made it hard to breathe to sleep to eat isn’t something I want to feel anymore. Yet when I let it in, I begin to struggle with swallowing as my throat feels like it’s going to close up. Tears begin to well up in my eyes and my chest begins to hurt. I fight it with all of my might. I don’t want to feel it anymore. I’m tired of it.

I’ve grown very weary of grief. I’m tired of the struggle. It’s a full time job that I don’t want anymore. But the reality is I don’t have a choice. It happened to me. I can’t make it go away. No matter how hard I try, grief continues and pursues me with reckless abandon until I am slain with grief. I don’t like it. In fact, I hate it. It makes me angry still today. I’m tired of battling it.

I find with each phase of my journey I have to re-invent what my response is to the process. What used to work for me doesn’t work anymore. The problem is I had a lot of help getting to where I am today. Many authors and a few counselors and groups helped me mold my journey. I honestly did not think I needed that help anymore. I figured I knew it all. What I know to be true is the struggle with grief continues throughout our whole life and it comes in phases that will require work. That work will be different and may be different from what you’ve ever seen before.

I find that now I will need to do some difficult work to figure out where I go from here. What is it that I need to learn now? I’m not sure, but I need to do something and because I feel like my journey is at a crossroad that needs to mature into a different phase. I need to feed my soul with God’s word and of those authors who have gone before me and are still continuing to evolve their journey.

Those of us who have accepted this purpose have to continue our own internal work to evolve and grow into what our purpose is for this time in our lives. I don’t believe it is to stay the same but rather to evolve and grow as you do in your own life. I’m glad that I have been open to see that the change needs to happen and that I am willing to understand the gravity if I don’t. So hopefully in the coming weeks and months, the writing will become more clear and will offer some hope to some who are open to receive it.

until next time

M

I know that some days it’s hard to see the beauty that is in front of us

because the clouds of sorrow blind us to it.

But take a moment right now to stop take a deep breath and blow it out.

Take the time to breathe in life and breathe out sorrow. It can be done.

It takes practice, really a conscious effort, but with daily practice –

you will see with more clarity, feel with more depth

and live with more peace. – Mal Moss