Category: grief journey

October 13th

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Well it is again that time of year when I am brought to my knees with vivid memories of that horrific day back in 2006 when I said goodbye to my world. My daughter Brittany died after suffering a seizure at our home. While she was no stranger to seizures, she had been doing well on medication with the exception of the last 12 months of her life. Being a nurse I think either prepared me for what I knew clinically would happen over that long 12 hour night. Understanding the story the monitors where telling me. That she was struggling to stay alive. Her body was not responding to the medications and she was entering multi-system shutdown.

As her heart failed, mine began to break. I will never be able to remove that moment at 6:55 am when one of her nurses was on top of her in the bed performing CPR. The fourth and final round of CPR while other medical personnel surrounded her bed providing all the necessary means to revive her one last time. The previous three attempts had been successful but not without taking a toll on her body. This time seemed different. The monitors did not lie. We all knew it was too late – her body was telling us it had nothing left. The nurse and my eyes met and instinctively I knew it was futile. It was time to call it off – to stop the assault that was happening to her and let her go.

I try not to go back to this dark place very often. It’s one of the darkest places I can be and it takes my breath aware every time I do. It’s painful beyond words to speak it. To this day I can only write about it. And I don’t write about every detail because it is just too much to acknowledge. But trust me when I say I would not wish this experience on any one. Watching the life of your only child being taken from you is beyond comprehension. The agony of it all is too much even today to linger on.

In seven years I have come far in my journey to recover from the loss of my daughter Brittany. It’s a process that will take my lifetime to heal. I’ll never be over her death – just so we set the record straight here. You never get over a death – you just continue to heal. I think we all have a choice to move forward and make something good happen out of the horrible loss, but understand it is not easy and takes the strength of many to support and love when there are times when it doesn’t seem possible to take another breath or to go on one more day. I am blessed beyond measure to have a strong support group that are my closest friends. They know when I need to have some time alone, when I need prayer, when I need them to hug me and make me laugh. God truly blessed me with such great friends.

As October 13th approaches please take a moment and look up to the sky and thank God for your loved ones – whether they have crossed over or still living. We are all better people for having our loved ones and I know for sure my daughter would be very proud of who I am today.

Until next time,

M

Conversations

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I have been reluctant to write about the topic of “conversations I have with myself” for fear some might not understand or make inferences to something they do not understand. The conversations I have with myself about my grief are sometimes enlightening, profound and quite frankly – scary. I hope you can understand then my reservations about posting such personal thoughts. But wait I think you may know me by now and have come to understand I don’t hold much back when it comes to my thoughts and feelings. But I think even this topic could raise a few eyebrows.

I’ve even thought of creating a random Tumblr account and posting my inner most thoughts – but even that seems a bit daunting. Would anyone read it and better yet, would anyone care. I don’t know. As I peruse blogs I find such random topics and wonder what actually drives people to blog at all. Is it a need to be heard or a need to vent? I think maybe both. For me personally, it’s a need to vent the pain of loss that pursues me daily and a desire to help others.

Conversations I have with myself are like mini movies in my head. You know like reading a script and I’m the only actor in the movie. Reminds me of the play I saw on Broadway – 700 Sundays by Billy Crystal. He does the whole play by himself. Replaying life for the audience. I think my blog is a lot like that. I wonder if it’s run its course. Have I said all there is to say about grief. What it was then is how it is now. No one understands it. This topic has always been between me and God. In the early days the conversations I had with God, were dynamic and gut-wrenching. Things have changed. I am not sure what to do next. Nothing feels right. The conversations are gray and vague with no real purpose. I have lost my vision.

So what do I do next? Does it matter? If I listen to myself, those conversations in my head, I’d leave it be and let the blog go on to live where old blogs die. But there is a dynamic pull to keep it going. I just know I feel restless and there is a need for change. The one thing I am completely sure of and that is this: Grief has changed me. Grief has become a permanent resident in my life and covers my heart like a scar that covers an open sore. It’s hardened my heart. I’m not sure that is reversible. So perhaps that is where this blog goes from here. From acute to chronic. Finding a way to live again in a meaningful way. Sorting through the conversations in my head that tell me it’s too hard. Yeah I think I might have told you this was a little scary and I’m not gonna lie – it’s a tough way to exist. What has worked thus far is no longer an option, I have to find a way through this fog and make sense of who I am going forward because who I am now – is not who I thought I’d be.

Until next time

m

Picture

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I’d paint a picture for you

But you wouldn’t understand

The colors are absent and the pattern is vague

The concept is hard to see; and you can’t

Wrap your head around it;

The thought of it you can’t imagine.

Picture dropping a family heirloom,

One that was valued at a gazillion dollars.

And you come home one day and it

Lay before you shattered into a million

Pieces

But you wouldn’t understand

The pieces are just part of something

You cannot see; a vision of what was once

A form that brought beauty to one’s eye.

Now it is just a mess on the floor.

That is my heart…..

Malissa Moss

Chronic Sorrow

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Chronic sorrow is the periodic recurrence of permanent, pervasive sadness or other grief related feelings associated with a significant loss. (Eakes GG, 1998).

I have often wondered about how long sorrow would hold up residence in my heart. Since the death of my daughter seven years ago I can say with the utmost certainty that it will always be a part of who I am. Sorrow has taken up permanent residence in my heart. Specifically over the space where my lovely daughter holds a forever spot. Scared by loss, and maybe a little broken, but my heart still beats on. It still feels love. It still leaps for joy when something or someone brings happiness into my life.

I have come to understand that sorrow and happiness can live harmoniously in one space if, and only if, they are both respected. Given their time to be heard. Chronic sorrow seems like a disease, but really it’s just a label for a mother’s broken heart. I wouldn’t say that I have a pervasive sadness about me. It’s more like moments in time that I reflect on a life once known, and a time that some days I’d love to hear her voice or her funny laugh, but pervasive sadness – I don’t think so.

Do I think pervasive sadness happens to some? Absolutely and that breaks my heart for them. I understand how it can happen. I do believe if I had not fought hard to come out of the fog of sorrow and into a life that I can bring light to my daughter’s memory – I too would have fallen into this pervasive sadness. So if you find yourself there – seek help. Talk to a professional, write it out – do something. The best years after loss can come but its hard work. At times can be exhausting. But with a lot of support, faith and love you can make it to a space where the sadness and sorrow take their rightful place but does not permeate your soul.

I’m a living testimony that while I have lost much, I want to live on doing the work I was made to do. I want to fulfill my destiny. Just like my sweet Brittany. She is the light that shines brightly and keeps reminding me that I have to stay focused on the good in the world. That is my prayer for you.

Until next time,

M

Peaceful Breathing

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Tennessee

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.

Until next time,

M

Grief Exposed

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Last night I as I attempted to sleep thoughts of my journey played out in my head keeping me from a restful sleep. I said to myself – “you should get up and write” but I finally succumbed to the exhaustion and fell asleep. I don’t recall what it was specifically that I was dreaming about and that annoys me. I feel like at times I dream of things that have a message. But last night it was more like a restlessness that I cannot pinpoint. I cannot identify readily as this or that. It is just simply the restlessness that comes with grief.

I am coming into the dark days but it is a bit early just yet. I usually experience the dark days  beginning in September and it usually  lasts until the new year. With each year that has passed since my Brittany’s untimely death, I have called the days leading up to her death as the dark days. I have included the holidays for they have lost their luster for me. Can’t get that back. In fact, the meaning for many celebratory things have left me with a void that I cannot fill. I can only live in the moment and I cannot find the hutzpah to look into the future. Life for me is simply this….fill my day with busyness. Distractions work well.

Pondering on a past life that I longed for so long was ripped from me and in the wake of that,  I was not left with much to rebuild on. Not sure what the message is for me. I have resolved that I cannot figure it out and that I have to be ok with that. But haven’t quite got a grip on that yet. I still question “why me” a lot. I can look back over my life and say “why me” so many times that one might imagine any normal person would have gone berserk by now. I keep the faith that one day it will all become clear to me. Why so much has been taken from me. Why didn’t I get what they have. When I say “they”, I say all those who continue to enjoy their children, see them grow, graduate, marry and have children. My arms ache for the loss of so much. I cannot put it into words how profoundly empty that feels.

I hope that some day it will perhaps make more sense, but for now I am at a loss, my broken heart profoundly exposed and my sorrow spills over into a river of tears. I wrote today this which pretty much sums up my sorrow….

“Sometimes I just want to go back because going forwards means the distance between me and you fades and all I’m left with is the faint hint of who you were in my life.”

Until next time,

m

A Mother’s Grief

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Found this poem and wanted to share with you because it says the words we so often want to say but don’t.

A Mother’s Grief

You ask me how I’m feeling,
but do you really want to know?
The moment I try telling you
You say you have to go

How can I tell you,
what it’s been like for me
I am haunted, I am broken
By things that you don’t see

You ask me how I’m holding up,
but do you really care?
The moment I start to speak my heart,
You start squirming in your chair.

Because I am so lonely,
you see, friends no longer come around,
I’ll take the words I want to say
And quietly choke them down.

Everyone avoids me now,
I guess they don’t know what to say
They told me I’ll be there for you,
then turned and walked away.

Call me if you need me,
that’s what everybody said,
But how can I call and scream
into the phone,
My God, my child is dead?

No one will let me
say the words I need to say
Why does a mothers grief
scare everyone away?

I am tired of pretending
my heart hammers in my chest,
I say things to make you comfortable,
but my soul finds no rest.

How can I tell you things
that are too sad to be told,
of the helplessness of holding a child
who in your arms grows cold?

Maybe you can tell me,
How should one behave,
who’s had to follow their child’s casket,
watched it perched above a grave?

You cannot imagine
what it was like for me that day
to place a final kiss upon that box,
and have to turn and walk away.

If you really love me,
and I believe you do,
if you really want to help me,
here is what I need from you.

Sit down beside me,
reach out and take my hand,
Say “My friend, I’ve come to listen,
I want to understand.”

Just hold my hand and listen
that’s all you need to do,
And if by chance I shed a tear,
it’s alright if you do to.

I swear that I’ll remember
till the day I’m very old,
the friend who sat and held my hand
and let me bare my soul.

~ Kelly Cummings

Peace vs Turbulence

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“Even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead.” – Frederick Buechner

 

The lack of finality in what I assumed would be a life with my daughter, has left me feeling a little sad these days. As graduations are celebrated this time of  year, I am quickly taken back to a time when I envisioned my Brittany walking up to get her diploma. Yet what happened in reality is that myself along with her father walked up to receive an “honorary” diploma because Brittany died before her graduation. It is not suppose to be that way.

I also envisioned Brittany living out a life that may not have been what most parents hope for. Her disability would have had an impact on her life; however I also know she wouldn’t have let that stop her from accomplishing anything she wanted to do. Despite multiple setbacks and roadblocks Brittany lived a life that no one could deny wasn’t filled with joy and happiness. She took full advantage of the life given to her not knowing her days would be very short.

I have learned a great deal from how Brittany lived her life. I think it some ways she made peace with her illness. I know she would question why God chose her to let her have epilepsy and crohn’s disease, however those moments of feeling sorry for herself were short-lived. She made peace with what had been given her despite the many periods of her life that were turbulent. Even in her last remaining months one would have not known she was getting progressively worse. She refused to let it get her down.

So when I look at how her death and the absence of her in my life, I have to look at how she managed her day-to-day life and understand that by making peace with what happened I have an opportunity to make something good out of it. To pursue a life with peace that can lead to happiness. As I sit here writing this, I still find that to be a concept hard to visualize. Happiness after such devastating loss. Multiple losses each individually impacting my life differently. It will always be a work in progress for me. A couple of steps forward a one back. That is how grief works.

I want to walk out of my door each and every day with a smile on my face and to experience life full out just like Brittany did. I talk to her a lot about that. I pray often that she helps to guide me there. To this place of peace, even in the midst of turbulence, to find a place each day when I can look back at my day and know I took every opportunity to experience life fully. That is one of the many ways I can honor her life. She did it so well.

Loss can be transformative. It can be life giving. It can help us move forward. That transformation begins with acceptance and ends with peace. A journey that will likely take the majority of my life but I am determined to find a way there.  The path to peace should be our desire for it will allow us to grow into our new destiny for the journey that lies ahead.

Until next time,

m

Surviving Loss

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DSC_0050

Over the past four years since my daughter’s death, I have found that healing comes when I have moved with it, leaned into it and accepted it. I know this because when I have chosen at times to fight it, to avoid it or be angry about it, my healing became stagnant as if I’d taken the wrong turn. – from my blog in 2010

 

The past few months I have spent a considerable amount of time avoiding this blog. While I admit I’ve been distracted, I have been fully aware that I was avoiding writing. Why? I’m not exactly sure – but I believe it had something to do with feeling stuck.

Getting stuck is normal when on this journey, and what I find most interesting those periods where I am I stuck in my grief is when something profound is about to happen. I posted the quote above as a reminder to myself and any of you who find yourselves stuck on your journey.

I found thoughts running through my mind that my writing no longer came easily as it did in the early years since Brittany’s passing. Now it is more thoughtful, I have to concentrate on staying on topic. I even struggle to find a topic I can write about. But that is not what this about. This blog has never been about finding a topic to write about – it’s always been about writing my deepest thoughts about loss. Finding a creative outlet for the pain that gripped my heart – an outlet that would not only help me, but help others along the way.

I have been praying for a while now that I would find the courage to write again. I wanted to know if my writing was helping others. Today I read a post from a follower and it solidified for me that indeed my journey, my pain, my sorrow sketched out before you in this blog, dripping with tears of grief, is helping someone. That snapped in me to understand that my journey is evolving. It’s no longer just about me.

Those of you who take the time to read my blog – I am honored. For those of you who take the time to comment and share your stories with me – I am privileged. Thank you for your support and your time – it is so very valuable to me as a writer and as a mother who struggles daily with the loss of her only child.

Until next time,

M

In The Mirror

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In the mirror I see something you don’t see
In the mirror I find something you can’t find
In the mirror I get lost in the image before me
In the mirror I am lost in who I used to be.

m