Category: grief journey

Four years ago….

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Original Post November 2006

NOTE: This is a dark look inside my heart which is broken and laying before all to see.Image

According to the bible it’s ok to grieve. That you must go through the process and feel every, painful, lonely, empty, broken, worthless, and words I can’t even bare to describe, feeling in order to move forward.

How can we be excepted to weep freely, not holding it in and function on a daily basis? Better yet, how can you weep freely with joyful assurance that God is with us. Really. I tried that – it didn’t work so well. I read where you are not suppose to weep like one who has no hope. Again, I’d like to challenge that one.

I’m already tired of the “time will heal”, it’s gonna take more time – I QUIT!!!!!

There will never be a time when life will be ok. I don’t have any other children. I don’t have a boyfriend or spouse. I have many wonderful friends who are being so supportive – but my empty heart is because I no longer have a child that loves me unconditionally. That says she loves me with that great smile – it always made me feel like I could do anything. Now – I hear nothing but my own negative thoughts guided by the Devil.

It’s funny how you always feel the Devil around – but you don’t feel God that way. Why is that? These questions I will be looking into more. I have daily, hourly conversations with God about this – he’s yet to reply. I’m praying, I’m reading the bible and other materials. I’m watching biblical shows and listening to biblical music – yet still my thoughts run rampant thru the valley of darkness. When can I expect some light? I need some light. I need it soon.

I know this all sounds dark – it is. I’m in one of my darkest hours. I will be praying for God to show me something that I can hang onto. I need that now.

Please continue to pray for me while I battle this out. I expect to come out much stronger, but with less of a love for life. For my reason to love life is gone.

until later,

mal Image

So that was a glimpse of where I stood four years ago – just a few weeks after the death of my daughter. As I read back through that post I saw several things. One was a mother in deep anguish over the loss of her daughter. I saw a woman of faith reaching out to feel, smell, touch, sense God’s presence. But I also saw someone who even in the midst of such suffering could tell that there was hope.

I’m not exactly sure where or how I made it through some of those first few weeks. I do know that God was present. He had to be, because I couldn’t see beyond the tears that fell constantly. My vision clouded by pain and sorrow. On some days I wasn’t sure God was even listening. But in looking back over some of my posts from that time, I know for sure He was there lifting me up. Carrying me through that valley of darkness.

Now as I move through this time of year I am reminded of how far I have come. This on-line blog/journal has been my life line, my constant reminder of hope. It has shown me over and over how far I have come in just four short years. But I am also reminded that I still have that empty space. That hole in my heart. I don’t think that will ever change. I know that because when I allow myself to go there – it’s painful.

The loss is still profound in my life. Make no mistake. I’m not saying it’s all good now, because it is not. It’s just better. I feel it’s like “coasting” through life and every now and again, I hit a pot hole “painful moment” or a brick wall “grief like no other” and then I am reminded I have to stay true to what I know and believe has got me this far and that is my faith.

Until next time,

m

 

 

 

November Blahs

Grief Blessings3 Comments
Brittany just weeks before her death.

November is upon us and again I enter another month of what I call the dark days. November is tough for me because it’s the beginning of the holiday season. When families come together and celebrate families. A time to be grateful for our country and its founding fathers and a time to be thankful we are still here to see the wonders of what we have been able to live through and survive as a country.

Now I can link you to several blogs about the horrific conditions in some other countries where things are horribly worse. But this blog is about grief, gratitude, blessings in the midst of that. So I am very mindful that there are much worse things  than what I have experienced. But again that is not what this blog is about. It’s about life-changing, life-altering devastation. And the means by which you can and will survive it.

It is also about how you can help someone else in need. Someone who has suffered a loss that has changed them, changed their life – and it’s our job to validate that change and speak to that change in a way that is not disrespectful of their loss. It has always been my goal from the beginning of this blog that it would be of help to someone. Whether it be the person who has lost or the support system who is helping them move through the process of grief.

The holidays are a very hard time for us grievers. I find I get very melancholy this time of year. I get moody and sometimes withdrawn because I don’t want to impose my grief onto others. But for me November is a tough month. It comes on the heels of October, the month of her death and it ends on her birthday. Sigh. She would be turning 22 on this November 30th. It’s hard for me to some days imagine what she would look like now. How much more beautiful she would have become had her light not been snuffed out by Epilepsy.

So if I seem a little distant – do not worry. It’s normal this time of year for me to take a step back and spend time alone. It’s how I process such a loss as mine. The emptiness in my heart, forever void and painfully exists to remind me of what a great woman I know she would have become and the great young woman she was. God gave me such a gift and I am forever grateful for his blessing called Brittany.

until next time

m

The Ugly Truth About Grief

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And I’ll be alright
And I’ll love again
And the wounds will mend
I’m bruised but not broken
And the pain will fade
I’ll get back my feet
It’s not the end of me
My heart is still open
I’m bruised but not broken

words by Joss Stone

It occurred to me that grief has a way of creeping into one’s life from many sources. Pain can be caused by so many and yet often it is not the intention of the person it’s coming from. But when that person knows they are responsible for it – it hurts more. Intention is a significant part of how we deal with one another each and every day. It’s easy to forgive the unintentional behavior. But for behavior or actions that come from intention the forgiveness comes more slowly.

During my life I have seen the many faces of grief. They have looked at me from many people and many situations. Some intentional and some not. The pain inflicted is still the same. The wounds remain sensitive although the healing has taken place. When wounds are “touched” they bleed, they open and they cause grief.

I have overcome many wounds and I have succumbed to many “touches” of those wounds either intentionally or not. At times, I have bled until I cannot bleed anymore. I have cried until I cannot cry anymore. I have forgiven and I will continue to – but just know rubbing salt in anyone’s wounds can bring more profound pain because it is intentional. Be careful my friends not to go down that slippery slope of being caught in the net of someone whose intentions are not good. It will bring you pain and sorrow. It will open “old” wounds and create some “new” wounds.

The unintentional pain is often through words spoken. I’m not saying you have to walk on egg shells around someone who has lost someone or is grieving over something or someone, but what I am saying is that being mindful of how or what you say in the company of that person is respectful. I have found over the past four years that some of the comments made by a few people have rubbed me the wrong way. I had to check myself to make sure I wasn’t being overly sensitive. Because a person going through such a significant loss as mine can be overly sensitive at times. I’m not denying that. But comments like “I hate my children” or “I can’t wait for them to go off to college” makes me want to just cringe.

I know those are unintentional comments because they don’t mean them. But for me I want to just shake them and say “count your blessings you still  have  your children” “get on your knees and be thankful you still have them” because I don’t. Another example is when there is a wedding, or grandchildren born, or college graduations – they are a part of everyday and everyone’s life – but mine. I have come to understand that and I have come to terms with it. But when it is constantly talked about in front me, it’s a bit much. Don’t get me wrong I am very happy for my friends whose kids have gone on to graduate from college, get married or have kids of their own. I get that. Just asking not to talk about it incessantly in front of me. I assume that perhaps why I have many new friends. Friends that are more like me. Single, no kids and no prospects in the future.

It’s another form of grief, the ugly truth about grief – one loss = many losses.

until next time

m

The Path of Least Resistance

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“When your life is on course with its purpose, you are your most powerful.” —  Oprah

 

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.

In retrospect I guess it’s what we all do as grievers, we move through our journey at different speeds. Traveling along the path of either “least resistance” or worst a powerful resistance. I can see times when I moved along the path of least resistance and when I did I found that I coped better with life. That the joy could return to my life. For me that was a true gift. No one could  have told me that I would ever see joy again in the early days, weeks and months after Brittany’s death.

At the times when I saw myself struggling to breathe, to move, to exist – those were the times when I chose the road of powerful resistance. Perhaps believing that if I fought it, her death, the feelings that came from seeing her die would somehow leave me. The nightmares that ensued for months and months just kept pursing me night after night during those times. But as I began to see that I was creating the atmosphere of resistance to something that was out of my control, I was able to let it go.

In letting go, I was able to follow a path that led me to a place of acceptance of what had occurred. Now I’m not saying that I it made all the pain go away; but I am saying that it created an outlet for my pain. Fighting something that  you  have no control over is exhausting. Trust me when I say I found myself tired and at the end of the day unable to do anything.  Always in a constant battle with what had happened right before me on October 13th, 2006 made it virtually impossible to see that it was all out of my control.

Once I gave up the fight and began to follow the path of least resistance I was able to release my pain and use my energy to help others. I believe following the path of least resistance allows you, me, anyone who is grieving to allow the ebbs and flows of sorrow come and go with little or no resistance, thereby allowing yourself to release it and in doing so you create a place that allows healing to begin.

until next time

m

Sudden Separation

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With the sudden separation of accidental death, you were wrenched apart,
and the numbness, confusion, alienation, depression and “walking dead” feelings
that you have now are the result of not being able to assemble a
whole person out of the fragments left behind. – Deepak

 

The above quote from Deepak  Chopra in an article I read recently on Oprah.com really validated on of the many things I’ve spoken about over the past four years about the grief from a single mother’s perspective. Although I don’t necessarily agree with all of his comments he made to this mother, I do feel he has been able to describe in words what I feel I have yet to do.

http://www.oprah.com/spirit/The-Spiritual-Side-of-Grief-Ask-Deepak

The link above is there for your reference to the story of a mother, a single mother of an only child, who dies suddenly. Her story is the one closest to mine that I’ve found that speaks to some of the issues I’ve dealt with or still continue dealing with. I would encourage you to read it and if it resonates with you because you are at that place, try some of his ideas. I plan to.

Although I’m in a place of healing now, it’s going to be a life-long journey and one that I prefer to have God on my side or better yet at my side carrying me when I need to be carried, nudging me when I need to be nudged and lifting me up when I fall down. And finally bringing people into my life that will support me and validate me where I am and not where they want me to be. That is how the healing begins and will continue to flow.

until next time

m

 

 

Grief Hits Hard

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A few days ago I was having a conversation with a dear friend and the topic of grief came up. It just so happens she has had to travel down that long road called grief too. So just with that alone we are “sisters” in grief. We know without saying it; we understand without giving it words; and we feel it because it permates our very soul and oozes out of our pores.

As we talked it became clear that through our conversation about how grief has treated us over the years, even though the circumstances are vastly different, there is an underlying tone of familarity – that is this…..

Grief hits hard, it’s unfair, it makes “low blows” and it doesn’t care when or how it just shows up.

 

After spending some time reflecting about each other’s experiences we hugged and went on our way. I thought to myself “isn’t it ironic that people come into our lives for a season for a reason” and I was just thinking that she was doing that for me. This is what grievers do best – we validate one another through our stories, our feelings and our sorrow. It is real to us – even though our experiences may be very different – the sting of grief is very much the same.

Later the next day this same friend came back to me and said she’d been thinking about what we had talked about. And what I’m about to share with you now my dear friends is what is so badly needed for people who support someone who is grieving, no matter where they are in the process. When you lose someone, especially a child, an only child – it changes your destiny. What I mean is for me my chance to  see my daughter get married has been taken from me. To see my daughter have her own children and for me to become a grandmother – all taken from me. Her death has placed me on a course that I would have never dreamed possible. No one would.

I think when people think of loss they relate possibly to a grandparent or an aunt or uncle. But you can in no way compare the loss of a child, an only child to any other type – as it changes your life’s path so much so – it’s often hard to find your way. The road seems clouded by pain and the journey is very tiring most days. Especially on the days when a friend is about to become a grandmother or a family member is celebrating a graduation or a birthday. Those days are hard because they have been taken from me. From those of us who suffer silently feeling guilty  becasuse we still grieve. Not just the loss of our child, but the loss of who we were to be.

It’s taken me four years to understand that I don’t have to fake it anymore. I don’t have to apologize for the way I feel anymore. It’s ok. I’m moving on, and I’m making a new life for myself. A new journey. But please don’t pretend my loss, your loss or a friends loss of this magnatude didn’t happen. Because the memories will remain both the good and the bad. The dreams lost and the plans cancelled. But love and understanding can conquer it all. You just have to reach out and validate those people who you know who have lost someone. To realize that their memories are still clear to them. And they want, they need to talk about them. For they, their loved one is real to them – even now.

That friend, when she came back she said the very thing I just wrote – “It just occured to me that what you said yesterday about your future – it’s so true – yet many don’t get that”. Truest statement yet to the understanding of the profound loss I continue to feel every single day.

Until next time

m

 

Breath-taking love and heart-breaking pain

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It took me a while to name this blog post. I already had in mind what I was going to write about, but most of the time the title isn’t a problem. It’s not about creating a show stopping headline – it’s about creating a message that reaches out and grabs the very person who needs to read this.

Four years tonight I sat in a PICU watching my sweet baby, who was almost 18 years old, lie quietly in a bed on a ventilator after suffering from a grand mal seizure. I wonder some days if I had known what was going to happen 11 hours later, would I  have handled things differently. I don’t know. But what I do know is that it wasn’t in my control. God was in charge of this outcome.

As I sat there watching her, I remember thinking how are we gonna get out of this one girl. I talked to her constantly, hoping by some miracle that she would respond. It was so hard to sit and wait. To sit and watch and feel helpless. This child of mine, who I loved with such joy, who struggled her way into this world, was now struggling to stay in it. I would every so often sweep her long red hair away from her face and tell her a story about when she was young. Some of the things she would say hoping for some kind of response. There was none.

After a short while things turned ugly and she took a drastic turn for the worse. A code was called and we were told we probably will want to wait outside the door. The nurse in me wanted to stay, but the mother in me knew I had to wait and let them do their work. I couldn’t watch what I knew was about to happen. It’s a hard thing for the body to go through when it is being resuscitated. Hell it’s hard on everyone involved. So as a parent – I don’t recommend watching – it’s a traumatic event and one that you can never totally shut out of your mind.

They managed to get her back and then I took my place again at her bedside and just stroked her arm and head the way a mother would pray for a miracle. Praying she would awake from her coma and say “mom I want to go home”.  After hours and hours of sitting and watching machines make endless amounts of noise. She would move and then the nurses would come in and make her more comfortable.

Then again she became unstable and a code was called again. And again we were shuttled out of the room. This time it took a little more time, a little more medication and a little more of my little girl. I know that because I’m a nurse. Then I really began to pray. This had been the 3rd code of the night. Things weren’t looking too good and I had a bad feeling in my gut that told me what I didn’t want to face. The probability that she wouldn’t come out of this alive.

As a parent, or even better as a mother the love a mother is capable of is incredible. It’s like this vast amount of emotion welled up inside of your heart that bursts every time you see the life that was given to you for such a short time. People don’t get this type of love unless you’ve given birth. But I really don’t think parents get this unless they have lost a child. I call it “breath-taking love”. When I would look at Brittany sometimes I would just think to myself – “God she is just so beautiful and I’m so lucky she is mine”.

But in reality she really belonged to God, and he just gave her to me for a while to care for. To love endlessly and to mold her into the wonderfully funny young woman she grew into being. Without a doubt I couldn’t have been more proud to be her mother. She taught me so much about how people should be more accepting of others. How to pay it forward. How to not be judgmental towards others.  She truly blessed my life beyond measure.

At 6:55 am October 13th I said goodbye to the only thing that ever really mattered to me. My daughter died after complications from a seizure. I walked out a heart-broken mother. An empty shell of a person who has existed for 4 years in this life that I hadn’t planned on. That I would have never planned on.  My life ended on that day. The life I knew. The life I thought I’d have – all gone.

I miss my girl more than I can say. The words don’t even come close to the pain that will always be there deep within my heart from her absence. Some days it’s just plain hard to function. Some days it’s all I can do to just get through the day. My life has been so empty for so long. It’s hard to see the future some days. But I do feel something different now. Life is creeping back. My heart is healing, but the wound is still very raw and at times it feels like it’s going to kill me.

I feel I am capable of letting love back in my life, and back into my heart. I never imagined I’d be able to trust love again. For me love always meant loss of some kind. But I have a faith that is strong and I  believe in a God who wants more for me. Wants me to be who I am supposed to be now. To love again. To feel passionate about life again. To feel like I matter in this world.

So I am here and I am present and I am ready.

until next time

m

Thoughts and Feelings

Grief Blessings4 Comments

So yeah it’s October. Damn I hate this time of year. I have so many thoughts and feelings that come and go in my mind, so many that I don’t know if I can think straight. My mind is filled with so many memories. Times that I would give anything to have back. A life that I took for granted. A life I miss more than I can say.

So where do I go from there. I still don’t know. I’m still searching for that road, that idea, that concept….it’s still elusive to me.  As much as I think that for the most part I got this; I really don’t always. This is the time of year when my vulnerability shows. When the cracks begin to appear and my pain breaks through. This time of year I just can’t seem to hold it in any longer. It’s exhausting to keep it all in check.

Here is what I knew…. Four years ago I knew I had purpose. I knew that my daughter loved me unconditionally and made me the happiest person on earth. Even on the days when I thought I would go crazy when she’d act like the teenager she was, I knew my life was on the right track. That life with her, all be it crazy at times, was making me feel complete.

Then in 12 hours it was all over…..

Here is what I knew….One day your life is going along and the next day the rug gets pulled out from under you and you don’t even know who you are. You can’t figure out what to do next. You don’t know what to say, what to feel – because all you feel is a numbness that is all-consuming. You try to get through every minute because looking at your life by the hour seems to daunting.

Then the first year came and went…..

Here is what I knew….That first year was the worst. Nothing mattered. I couldn’t eat because I spent most of my waking hours choking back the pain. No way you can get food past that. I walked around with a lump in my throat that was a constant reminder of the pain that lie just beneath it. In looking back I was just existing because I had to but not because I wanted to. I was going through the motions of life because that is what I was told to do. It will get better they said.

Then the second year came and went…..

I started my life over so to speak and moved back to my hometown. Thinking that moving home would be a good thing because living in Michigan was so hard. It was if my old life was being thrown back in my face every single day. Every day that I drove up to the house where we lived, I would park my car in the drive and then break down and cry because I knew walking in that house would be another reminder that my life just plain sucked. But moving away proved not to be as healing as I had hoped.  I read that the 18th month – 24th month was a crucial time in a grievers life. I felt a sense of relief when I read that because I felt as if I was falling apart during that time. Just when I thought I was making progress – it all came crashing down.

Then the third year came and went…..

By now I have gotten into a routine. I call it a routine because in reality it is what my life has become – a routine. I get up and go to work and I come home and exist. I go to sleep and get up the next day and do it again. That is what my reality had become. The third year seemed to take a toll on me. I feel like the 3rd year aged me significantly. I remember looking in the mirror and thinking what the hell has happened to you? Who are you? I just didn’t know any more. The answers to all my questions still unanswered. The purpose in my life still yet to be determined. Or so I thought.

And now the fourth year is about to begin…..

I still don’t have any idea where I am going or how I will get there. So much has changed, but my heart still aches the same way. The pain that exists in my heart is just as strong today as it was on October 13th 2006. The reality of that day is still as palpable today. The emptiness of my life is so profound – it’s hard to breathe. Some days I let you all in just so you know it’s still real. It will always be a part of who I am.

I know that I am changing or maybe a better term would be “evolving”. Perhaps for the first time in my life I am becoming who I was meant to  be all along. And I do know that this change will be better for me, but I imagine there will be those who will not agree with that. But that will all work itself out eventually. One thing I know is that I have to figure that out first before anyone else can understand it.

until next time

m

The Long Goodbye

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This is the time of year when I find myself saying goodbye all over again to my late daughter Brittany. I call it the “long goodbye” because it just never seems to stop. Every October without fail it comes, the wave of opportunity to say goodbye all over again. Does it get any easier? Maybe, in a different way than you might imagine or that I could have ever imagined.

I think it gets easier because the distance from the event to now is creating some space for healing. But that moment, that one moment when it all floods back and I’m right back in that hospital room – it’s new, it’s fresh and it’s hurts so bad it takes my breath away.

But what is different is that it doesn’t last as long. I now consider myself an “experienced griever”. What I mean is you learn how to grieve and then you move on. Understanding that it comes and goes like the high tide. Ebbs and flows with the new moon. Just underneath the surface lurks the rip currents. Those are the times when the lights are dim and future doesn’t look so bright.

As an experienced griever, you know you have to be careful of those “rip currents”. You have to wear your life jacket out there in the water of grief. For me it’s God. Some times I feel as if I’m drowning in grief and I am reaching up out of the water stretching my hand up to God because I know He will save me. He will pull me from the depths of my despair.

Even knowing that, the long goodbye is a tough time. It’s a time of remembering her. Her hair, her laugh, her uncanny way of knowing just when her mom needed a hug or a laugh. The way she moved about the world faced with everyday challenges with a smile and a song in her heart. Yes indeed the long goodbye is rough. And it’s time again to remember and to reflect on the many great things I miss about my girl.

until next time,

m

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Tears Flow – Pain Breaks – Joy Awaits

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Tears flow so easily this time of year. Although tears can be healing they also allow the pain to
break through from a heart that is broken. But what I know to be true is joy awaits those
who chose to work through the pain, through the tears.

So often I find myself in situations where I am caught in a  moment of time that makes me yearn for the things I’ve lost.  The dreams unrealized. The future once believe now just a faint memory. And yet I can still see joy. It is always a choice to see joy and it also isn’t a choice to see pain and sorrow. That is the reality of life; a life spent making my way through tears, pain and sorrow.

Yet I am here today saying that I have found a little joy. Probably has always been there, just blinded by my own sorrow unable to see it, taste it, feel it or believe in it. The amazing joy found in one’s soul can be so healing.

Healing in a way that makes you believe in life again. That purpose is possible beyond my pain. A type of joy that makes you want to get up in the morning for the first time in many years and say “I’m happy to be alive”.

Who knows how long this joy will last. My guess is well I just don’t know. Even if it is for a short time, it has profoundly changed my life right now. So I’m gonna stay with right now. Because right now for the first time in my life I know who I am.

I know without a shadow of a doubt that I was put here for a purpose and to be who God intended me to be. I am a changed person because I understand that it is ok to be me. To know that my pain, my sorrow and my tears are part of who I am.

God has sent me many people during my journey through the dark times. I believe He will always have my back. And I believe in the simple, yet profound story that God is only about love. He is not about judging people; He is not about bringing about pain and sorrow; He is about healing. He is about love.

I choose to believe in the goodness of others. I choose to pay it forward when I can. I choose to believe that people should be kinder. I believe people should be more grateful. I believe we should all be more thankful.

Tomorrow is not a given. If you think it is… go back to the post that reads “The Saddest Day of My Life” and you’ll be forever changed.

untill next time

m