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

Mother’s Day

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This will be my Second Mother’s Day since my only child, Brittany past away. I am finding it even harder than the First Mother’s Day.

I lost my mom September 16, 1988, a few months shy of the birth of my daughter Brittany. It was such a long time ago. I don’t remember much about that time, other than I was so struck with grief that I didn’t eat much or even say much for two months. I just sat in my babies nursery rocking in my rocker and staring blindly into space. Then my OB said I needed to get ready for my baby and I needed to quite thinking about my mom and start thinking about my baby. So I did.

It took five years to come to terms with my mothers death. Thanks to Hope Edleman’s book Motherless Daughters. I also became busy taking care of my daughter who’d been diagnosed with Epilepsy. She’d had a viral fever when she was 11 months old and nearly died. The Epilepsy was thought to have been caused by that fever.

I also lost my grandmother during this five year period as well. You know, I never gave my grandmother’s grief over losing her daughter much thought back then. So after losing the only other female role model in my life, I threw myself into raising my daughte, who had some delays from the Epilepsy.

I was going through nursing school at the time of my grandmother’s death. It was a very stressful time for me. We moved away to another state and just when you have all your child’s doctors and school stuff organized – ya gotta go and do it all over again. I don’t think her father really ever got how difficult it was to manage her healthcare.

At age 10 my daughter was diagnosed with Crohns Disease. And she also had a grand mal seizure too. Don’t you just wonder – “what’s next”? – How much dreadful crap does a person have to take? I know I asked it every day – but more to the point – why did my daughter have to suffer so much?

Then just when things looked like they were going well – BAM – another blow! She begins having odd seizures – ones we’ve never seen before. After approximately one year of doctors not listening, many appointments, failed treatments – my daughter dies of an epileptic seizure. Yes IT Does Happen!

Now I live with the reality of Mother’s Day – my mom is gone, my grandmother is gone and my daughter is gone. How does someone get through something like this?

I pray every day that God shows me why I am still here – seriously I don’t get it. I don’t like it much! In fact, I pray that I go sooner than later. What is really ironic is that everyday I live with pain in my body and somedays it’s hard to get up and go to work. But I do. However, the pain in my heart – that’s what is hard to live with.

Too Damn Bad

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This is not going to go over well with some people – but too damn bad! This is how I feel!

It’s not ok

It’s not ok to not talk about her
I’m sorry if it makes you feel
uncomfortable – would you want
to walk in my shoes? I’d gladly
give them to you.

I know I’d get them back in a
flash – it’s too hard. You can’t
even imagine how hard. You think
you know – but unless you have
had a huge hole in your heart
ripped out in a flash – YOU DON”T
EVEN COME CLOSE TO KNOWING!

But what hurts more – is ignoring me.
Ignoring her – ignoring her life – her existence.
You know you do it because it makes
YOU feel better. But it keeps me from
healing. What you perceive as helping me,
is in fact hurting me.

What can you do you ask? Listen, learn and
acknowledge my grief. It’s real. It’s not going
to be easy. It’s not going away any time soon.
But most of all – don’t deny her life. You may have
not been a large part of her life, but she was a huge
part of mine. Blood is thicker than water.

I sit alone – today! In my grief, choked by pain!
But I will be OK – because I believe she is with me
every minute. God provides me enough GRACE to
get through every minute of every day. One Day At
A Time! But you could make it easier! But you do not.

m

I still find it difficult…

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I am not sure who will be reading this, but I have to write so here it goes…

I find it difficult to look at this flippin’ Christmas Tree. I put it up because that is what I’m suppose to do, right. I need to move forward, be glad, be grateful, be joyful – tis the season. It’s all crap!

I wrote some time ago about not feeling right in my new skin. I don’t know how to live this new life without her. I don’t know how NOT to be a mom. I don’t know how to look at her pictures and not feel the worse possible pain. I don’t know how to look forward to another day, because I don’t. I just want it all to go away. I don’t care if I am here tomorrow. What is the point?

I’ve lost everything. Not much else matters. I keep trying because I have to you know. Not because I want to. Everything I do is because I have to. People say to me they don’t know how I get through every day.

Well…..you see what I choose for you to see. Otherwise you’d all be running the other direction. This grief is scary, painful, dreadful, ugly and it zaps you of every bit of energy and drains your soul. Don’t see the point in taking everyone else with me.

Here is something else to ponder…I hear so much about depression and how counseling may help with sorting it all out… PLEASE! This is just like all the other things we try to do to FIX our lives – medicate the pain. You can’t medicate this type of pain – I’ve tried. The only cure is for it to have not happened at all.

This loss has done me in. I’ve lost so much over my 50 years, but this one has slammed me to the ground so hard I still can’t catch my breath. There is no pill or shrink that can fix that.

Only God can if he chooses. I’ve stopped asking.

until another time
m

One Year Later

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I miss her so much I can’t begin to express!

Since You’ve Been Gone

My finest accomplishment is you
Yet I only have memories to
help me through.

Every minute of every day I long
to see you again, but I must wait
because I haven’t had my swan song.

No one else knows my pain,
the hole in my heart that
will forever remain.

I have so much to give yet,
I don’t know where to begin.
This life I live now; not
comfortable in my new skin.

Since you’ve been gone,
I wander about my life
not knowing how to go on.

I pray every day for guidance,
but mostly I pray that God
is enjoying you now – you
deserve to be free from this life.

I stay not because I choose, but
because ending it would not
honor your memory.

I long to see you again, soon
my dear daughter, very soon.

love
mom

What tomorrow means to me

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Today I attended a rare family reunion for my family. We don’t really do them much any more – mostly I believe because since my mother has passed away, there is no one willing to be responsible to keep it going. But perhaps my coming home stirred up some interest to get something organized. Give credit to two of my brothers they managed to pull it off and it was well attended. Even by some of the older generation.

On the other hand, it was emotional for me to be there and seeing all the kids and teens and not seeing my girl too. She should have been there. I needed her there.

I recently saw a card I had sent my grand mother when my mother died. I’d always called my mom my “touchstone”. I kept grounded and connected to my mom in a way that you can’t explain. When my mom died I assigned that responsibility to my grandmother. Which she loved to accept. Then she passed away 5 years later and my daughter took on that role once she got older. My touchstone no longer exists. I don’t have anyone close that qualifies for that role excepted maybe my brother Gary – we do have a strong connection, but we don’t see each other that much.

I still am struggling on what’s so important about me continuing to live. I see how easy it’s been for my friends and family to move on inspite of her dying. I’m sure that will happen just as well if I’m gone. I am not saying no one cares – it’s just they have their own lives to live and their own families. I may have come to a point where I have done all I can and it’s time for me to go as well. Until I find that reason to fulfill my desire to make a difference – my days here are numbered.

I know it must be difficult for many to grasp this type of pain, but it’s so powerful that I just want to lie down on my bed in my comfortable pjs in my comfortable bed and never wake up. When I say these things to people – they get made at me and tell me to stop saying it, but my friends and family have shown me that life will go on whether I’m here or not. It seems pretty easy for them.

One brother today told me he didn’t know what to say or do – I said that the thing I missed most was being told “I love You” and feeling my daughters arms wrapped around me or my mom’s for that matter. It’s a natural thing to want love and to be loved – so much so that you feel it deeply.

So if anyone wants to know what they can do for me – I need to matter – I need to be told I’m loved and I need a hug that lasts longer than 2 secs. That may help keep me going.

Tommorrow marks the 19th anniversary date of my mother’s passing from breast cancer. I miss her so much. It’s been so long since I’ve heard her voice that I don’t think I can remember it. But when I break out her memory box and open up her perfume – oh – it takes me right back where she was when she was living.

until

mercedes

Entry for September 03, 2007

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Hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend.

I had a very nice time at my friends house. It was quiet and their backyard is amazing. It was like going out into the country, but without leaving the city. I had a chance to do a lot of thinking and a lot of “soul purging” otherwise known as crying. It was very cleansing to my soul and my heart.

I realized I’m not going to make things better by being sad. It won’t bring her back and I need to move on. It doesn’t do justice or honor what she achieved in her life by stopping mine. That doesn’t mean it hurts any less. Her absence is hard to bare, but I know God has a plan for me and I must begin to pursue what that is (when I find out).

What I want people to know, my family and friends included, is that even though life has gone on and everyone is busy doing whatever it was they were doing before she died – my life will NEVER be the same. I just can’t stop feeling the emptiness that exists every DAY – day after DAY!

It’s not just going to magically disappear. It’s going to take a very long time and that’s ok. Please don’t expect me to go on with life as if nothing’s changed, because it’s changed drastically for me. I have to have time to find out who I am now and what my purpose is. I’m not who I was 11 months ago. That person is gone. A lot of things have changed about me and inside of me. My beliefs, my desires, what moves me now, what I love, what I don’t – so on and so on.

Please be patient with me while I’m on this new journey of discovering what God has in store for me.

Blessings

Mercedes

Reflections of my journey!

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I awoke at 4:30 am with my brain racing with thoughts about the “hows and whys” of my existence. I couldn’t go back to sleep – I felt compelled to get up and write…. So here it goes!

Lately I’ve been reading some of Brit’s writings in the last year of her life. How strangely parallel our thoughts are now. I used to think “how can she feel that way” as I read her soul being poured out onto paper. Now I know, because I too feel those things that she wrote about.

Mostly she wrote about why she was created. What was her purpose in life? Why didn’t anyone love her (she meant boys). Now I can look back at these questions and know that her reason for existence, her purpose in life and the lack of love where all fulfilled. I hope she knew that in the end. I know God has told her so.

As for me, I have been reviewing (with so much sadness) my writings over the past 10 months and I see how far I’ve transitioned from the initial shock of losing her to the resolution of her absence.

But, the one thing I know for sure, all the things I’ve written or felt are still just as painful today. It’s just that I see it all differently. My questions haven’t been answered. The hole in my heart hasn’t been healed. I’ve yet to understand my purpose. So where does that leave me today?

I ask God in my prayers to give me a reason to get up and go on another day. To make my life meaningful. To help me understand why I’m here. I figured out I don’t know how to listen to God. I can’t tell when it’s Him leading me or me leading me. All I know is that when I think it’s me leading me – I usually go down the wrong path. Try things that aren’t successful. That brings me to a whole other area of my life. All those wrong paths. Too many to go into. Yes, I know they have taught me alot, but those paths have also caused so much grief. More than one should have to bear in a lifetime. We’ll leave that for another day!

I will wait, some days patiently and other days not so patiently, for guidance from God. While I wait, I try and finish some un-finished business. You know get my ducks in a row so to speak. Finish some projects I’ve started. Seems like a good idea. Pass the painful time that I live daily.

Resolution – how does it feel? Empty. Sorrowful. Um – can’t say happy, glad, joyful – those are feelings I can easily portray, but don’t know well. Emptiness, pain and sorrow – I know them well, but don’t feel I portray them well. What you see is not what is real. You see what I choose for you to see. Plain and simple. I care for you all too much for you to see the real anguish that exists to my very soul. Oh it’s easier to get up every day – but what you don’t understand is that the emptiness is still present – every time I look at her picture I am reminded of what I have lost. I know I have gained so much by having her in my life.

But my question is: How do I take that knowledge and make a new life? Right now it’s very hard to see my life without her. But I keep trying. I keep waiting. The cost of all of this on my body and my soul – well it’s – I can’t even put it into words – that’s how hard this all is.

until next time,

mercedes