Author: Grief Blessings

Trying to discover why I'm here and where I'm going. Finding out that today is all we have - tomorrow is not guaranteed. So live like today

Emotional Wailings

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I’ve been sick for the past few days with what appears to be the flu. I think the word flu is an umbrella term for the medical community to give license to say “we don’t know what the hell is wrong with you”. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of having my square-shaped head pounded into a round-shaped hole. In other words – “medical treatment in a box” – if you have this and or this you must have that. NOT! I think I’m going to search out a naturalist for a physician. No one seems to get it that we are all different and we react differently to the environment.

I could write for days about this, but then I’d just be more pissed off and that will not lead to a positive outcome. So I’ll write about what I do know for sure…grief.

Easter has come and gone and it has left a mark on me that it has done on every Easter since the passing of my daughter Brittany in October of 2006. Easter has become a holiday for which has so much more depth for me than in the past. Maybe it’s because of my increasing faith in Jesus. Or maybe it’s because of my increasing faith period. But I do know that it is the hope of the resurrection that keeps me going in this otherwise, painful existence. The hope of seeing my baby again. The hope of seeing all those who have passed – so many to mention here. The cries of my family members who have gone before me ring in my ears somedays to the point that I beg for silence. The grief I have is far and wide. It has no boundries. It permeates my soul to its very core.

Because of Easter I can celebrate the resurrection. Because of Easter I can continue to live in the hope of seeing my baby again. This is why I am still alive.

Until next time,

mercedes

Mother’s Day is Coming – Blah!

But I can’t imagine living a life without hope. Can you?

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I am reposting this Mother’s Day note because this is the season of grief that I am in now….. Mother’s day to me has become the worst holiday of them all. It has become meaningless in the face of tragic loss and a fragmented life left in it’s wake. But once it passes – I will again see the beauty of life and all it has to offer….but until then I cry, I weep, I mourn and I do it without shame or without regret for it is my journey to healing…

 

When you lose your only child, and your mother, and your grandmother – Mother’s Day becomes a day you dread more than any other. Over the past three years since my daughter’s death, I have come to dread this day over her “angel” day, her birthday or any other holiday.

The one thing I know for sure is I am so very grateful it comes on the heels of Easter. It is because of the Resurrection of Jesus that I can continue to breathe and move forward without my baby. My hope is in the Lord and that I will see her again very soon. What a joyous occasion that will be.

I know that for some unbelievers this concept can be a stretch. But just let me say that I would rather believe in God and have his love and compassion keep me filled with love and hope than to not believe and feel my life had been wasted. My hope in the Resurrection rests firmly on my beliefs that Brittany is with God now and one day I will be reunited with her. That is how I get through each and every day.

Does that make going through the remainder of my days filled with emptiness any easier. Sometimes. But I can’t imagine living a life without hope. Can you?

Blessings

Mercedes

Broken Heart

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Today I am working on my daughter’s memorial dedication at her high school and I just began to sob at how I miss her so. Today I feel so broken-hearted. It’s a pain I cannot describe. But the best I can do is compare it to the feeling one might have when they are having a heart attack.

Two students from her high school interviewed me so they could prepare a story that will coincide with the dedication ceremony. The third question was the one that got me. I began sobbing on the phone and apologized to the students – they were very understanding. The question was what legacy did I feel I wanted the students at the school to know that Brittany left. That was a powerful question and it just took my breath away.

I will write about it next time.

My Dreams

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When I was a liittle girl I always believed I was destined to do something significant in the world. I remember in middle school and high school using a sketch book and drawing ball gowns. I was fascinated by ball gowns. Maybe that had something to do with my love of Cinderella.

But as life’s tragedies struck my family beginning at age 6 for me when my father left us, my mom and 6 children under the age of 7 to take care of our selves. In order to deal with my emotions I would draw and fantasize about what I would be when I grew up. But somehow I knew it was going to be something big.

But life has a way of turning a sharp left when you wanted to go right. If I were to sit down today and draw the path way my life has taken over the past 40 years – well I’m afraid it would look like a triange gone bad.

I’m a strong person, but strong people can only do so much. Without my faith in God, I’m certain I wouldn’t have made it this far. Today, I have been reminded again that just when I think I’m in the clear and things are looking up, I am shocked back into my reality that life just hasn’t nor will it ever be easy.

Those of you who have it easy – consider yourself very lucky. For some reason I have been chosen to go through bad times over and over and over again. I always come out a better person, but it certainly has taken it’s toll on this body.

I am looking forward to the day when God calls me home and I can no longer deal with the cruel people of this world.

m

Grief Speaks

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As I continue my journey of healing, I have come to know the many voices grief speaks. First it doesn’t have a voice. It first presents itself as a lump in your throat. I remember thinking I must be getting a cold or food was getting stuck in my throat, when really it was my pain that was getting stuck. The grief couldn’t get out, wasn’t being heard, stuffed out, stuffed back.

Now, after over 2 years, it’s been heard, felt, ignored but it’s still there, just not so “vocal” these days. It’s more like a whisper that I hear when I see something or someone that looks like my daughter, or mom. And quietly my grief speaks to me trying to remind me that I have grief in my soul. My soul has to be heard. It has to have a voice.

The one thing I know is grief must speak and it must be heard. If you don’t have someone who you can trust to listen, find someone. It is crucial to your healing.

m

Family

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In the midst of loss we search for the reasons why we must suffer and grieve. While quietly observing family talk and family moments that are meaningful I get a reminder that it is in those moments that we can remember our loved ones with a grateful heart that they touched our lives in such a way that we are able to laugh and connect with those of us who remain.

New connections made by old connections lead to chances to see God’s purpose in why things happen the way they do. No we may not have the answers to why we experience loss, but if we are still enough in his presence we may see the purpose – to help us reconnect, to love, to support, to lift up those family members that were once a great part of our life.

Life is a gift.

Blessings

M

New Grief Revisits Old Grief

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My aunt died this week and I have had a much harder time than I anticipated. It has brought back some fresh feelings about my daughter’s death that I thought I’d dealt with.  Like why do I feel like my life has been a constant journey uphill and against a headwind of 60+ mph.

New Grief takes you back to places you don’t want to go. It makes you remember the moment you lost your loved one and it takes a accumulative toll over time.

No one really understands that – except God. I get a great deal of comfort from knowing my troubles here on earth will seem distant and unimaginable once I see the face of God. The one thing that I say to people and they get a little wacky is that I’m ready now.

When life doesn’t make sense and you try to live a new life you don’t know how to live. You live a day-to-day existence that is just too much to bare.

Grief

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Grief permates your very existence. It stays with you always. When you heart has been torn out and you don’t feel like it will ever heal. Then…God works on you and you feel better. Then another death comes and you relive it all over again. I liken it to a vary large pile up on a freeway of cars. One on top of the other. Eventually the weight becomes too difficult to sustain. Today is one of those days. I’ve had them before and they come again.

The thing that I know now that I didn’t know during previous loses is that I know where to go get my strength to make it through one more day.  But it still hurts, it still creates a heaviness to my soul that makes me so very tired.

Comfort

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October 13th 2006 I started a journey that I never would have imagined I travel. But it has been during this journey that I have written, cried, screamed, loved, felt like dying and through that I have evolved to seeing the blessings. It is my hope that this can be a place you find words of comfort, words that resonate with your moment in time or a learning spot for how to support someone on this journey of grief.