Category: grief journey

Grief Hits Hard

Grief Blessings2 Comments

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

Grief Blessings3 Comments

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

Grief Blessings3 Comments

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

20121004-230458.jpg

Tears Flow – Pain Breaks – Joy Awaits

Grief Blessings4 Comments

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

The Broken Pieces

Grief Blessings3 Comments

It seems that this time of year always brings memories, good and bad about my sweet Brittany. I don’t know maybe it’s because I’m more in tune to the feelings that come with this season of grief. Or maybe it’s Brit’s way of connecting with me. All I know is that some days it’s so incredibly painful to feel the emptiness and other days I’m so grateful I had nearly 18 years with her.

As I was filing my old passport I found myself reminiscing about our vacations because on pages throughout my old passport are stamps from various places we visited. Those are such great memories. Going to Paris and showing her some of the many wonderful things about art and culture – she enjoyed Paris a lot.

Mexico, Cancun really, we vacationed there often. Taking turns between Cancun and St. Pete, where we have family. The stamps in the passport represent a life past. Going to St. Pete recently and staying in the same house where I stayed with Brittany for many years always brings some great memories, but also at the same time sad ones, as it was always fun to go to the beach with her. She loved the beach so much. I found during my visit in June that I couldn’t go back to the beach where we loved to hang out. It was just to painful of a memory to bear.

 In placing the old passport in a file, I came across her death certificate. Of all the things I have in that file, that was the one thing that stood out. Why. I just looked at the envelope never taking the certificate out because that represents what is real. And my friends what is real some days is just too hard to think about. So I put it back, but not without a look upward to God and praying please take this pain away.

Perhaps now would be a good time to take the remaining items I have and put them all in one place hidden away only to be seen when there is intention behind it. That time is coming, the day when I get out her things and grieve over her absence like it all happened yesterday. It’s what I do. It’s how I handle my grief this time of year. Her absence in my life is profoundly palpable. I tend to cry more often, sigh more often and withdraw more often. It’s the dark time….

Brittany looking back at me annoyed by my wanting to take her picture.

 

Now I will leave you with one of my favorite photos of her. It captures her beauty and it is one that will be forever etched upon my heart.

My beautiful daughter Brittany Anne Boothe - RIP

 

 until next time,

m

A Beautiful Space

Grief BlessingsLeave a comment

A Beautiful Space

When such beauty captivates a person
it can take them to a place within their mind;
a place that is not visited often, because
a beauty this rare doesn’t
come around often in a lifetime.

The mind captivates this beauty and
places it in a space
that allows a person to experience,
taste, feel and enjoy
such breath-taking beauty.
It can be re-lived over and over
until a time when it no longer
is fantasy but a reality.

by

Malissa Moss

Reminders

Her life was my purpose. In forgetting her I begin to lose myself.

Grief BlessingsLeave a comment

As I ponder my next blog topic I felt the need to write. As some of you may realize I am entering the “dark times” as I’ve so fondly called it. The dark times I have come to know oh so well are the months from September through December. Every August I get the since that the dark times are almost here.

I begin to notice subtle changes in my mood. I become more withdrawn, less social because I don’t want to see all the reminders of what I have lost. When I see a woman out in public having dinner or shopping and she is with her mother – I am reminded that my mother is no longer here with me. When I see a woman out in public having dinner or shopping and she is with her daughter – I am reminded that  my daughter is no longer here with me. And when I see women together out in public with young children, I am reminded that I have lost so much.

I keep a picture of my mother on my dresser. It’s one of my favorites. It is from a family picnic from long ago. It is a four-generation picture of my great grandmother Lovina, my grandmother Martha, my mother Judie and me. I treasure it for it reminds me of the great women I have had in my life that are now gone. The sorrow of their absence in my life overwhelms me.

I also keep pictures of my sweet girl Brittany. I have them at work, and pretty much in every room in my home. I had once entertained the thought of removing them because seeing them brought such pain, more pain than joy. But I have now come to a place that I can see them and smile. But this time of year it’s more difficult to hide the pain. More difficult to smile. Because the emptiness is so very present.

I have saved some very special treasures that I keep in a cloth covered storage box that is about 3 feet long by 2 feet wide. It contains some great memories of my daughter. I have her American Girl doll from our trip to Chicago that we made one summer with another mom and her two daughters. It was a fun time. The doll she picked was the one where they designed it to look like her. So yeah it reminds me of her. I placed Brittany’s christening dress on the doll and laid her upon Brittany’s baby blanket which my mom began to crochet before her death. The one I found sitting behind her chair after her funeral. I finished it just in time to bring Brittany home again.

Some of the other things in the box are Brittany’s favorite blanket, her stuffed bear from Andy, her boyfriend at the time of her death and several photos. But the most difficult thing that box for me to see or hold are her glasses. Shortly after her death I picked them up and felt such a feeling of sorrow – it was unexplainable. All I knew is that I could somehow feel what she saw before she had her seizure. It was as if I could feel her pain or her aura before the seizure took her away from me. To this day I cannot pick them up without experiencing that horrible feeling.

I keep that box out of my sight for it brings more pain than joy – but on October 13th I open that box and let the sorrow take over – it is my way of letting the whole year of missing her flow out of me. I feel so alone during this time as I cannnot share it with anyone. No one can possibly understand this type of pain unless you’ve lived it. Yeah I can move on, I can work, I can laugh and enjoy life, but this small part of me – it’s never leaving. It’s always there and it’s always haunting me.

I have the most precious memory book I created that helped me throughout the first two years after her death. Don’t get me wrong it was so very painful to sit and look at pictures of her during such happy times. Knowing I’d never see her again. But I am so glad I took the time and created such a book. I can now look at it and share it with others in hopes that we don’t forget her. To my dying day I will not let her life be forgotten. Her life was my purpose. In forgetting her I begin to lose myself.

So my dear friends, the dark time is about to arrive and I ask you to pray for me, to love me and to understand that this to shall pass come January 1, 2011.

Until next time

m

Goodbye

Grief Blessings2 Comments

Well my friends we have reached the end of Traveling Light by Max Lucado. It’s been a great ride and I’m so very grateful you all came along with me. I hope you learned something with each post. I know I did. So as I write the conclusion I am reminded of what a gift life is and we waste so much time carrying around the burdens were never meant to carry.

 

The Conclusion

“Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give  you rest.” Matthew 11:28 NLT

I tell  you I found Lucado’s conclusion to be hilariously funny and emotionally challenging. Why? Well first off I so identified with his falling asleep during a visit to the Louvre in Paris. While I was in Paris in 1999 we weren’t able to make it to the Louvre, a bucket list item, but we did go to many places of interest. One place in particular was the Museum de Picasso. Brittany had fallen in love with Picasso many years before. I believe in large part because we had a table book of Picasso’s work in our living room for years.

As we walked in, she ran off in wide-eyed wonder to see what she could find. She took it all in calling my name every other second to come and see what she had found. In looking back I can see I did what I always do when I go sight-seeing. I look but I don’t see. What I mean is I can look at something and say “that’s beautiful” but I don’t really see it. I don’t spend the time to absorb its beauty. Basically I take a passing glance and keep moving on. But Brittany, she understood what it meant to just sit in awe of spectacular beauty. Oh how I was annoyed by that then.

Now I have slowed down a little and stop to say thank you to God for creating such a beautiful gift that we call earth. I stop now and have learned to appreciate the small things. To take in the breath-taking view that for so long I passed by. Just like my life. I’ve been in such a hurry to get somewhere I have managed to see my life flash before me and there are some great moments, however, there are more moments filled with pain and sorrow. And now I say enough to that.

Lucado has throughout his book referred to our “baggage” that we carry around. Carrying around our lives carrying yesterday’s disappointments, life’s pain, dissatisfaction and many more. Carrying all that baggage is something I know I’ve done all my life. It’s hard to let it go. I think in large part because I let it define who I am. Or who I thought I was. But I am beginning to see that Lucado is right when he says that carrying around all that baggage causes us to miss what God has to offer. That we should be wide-awake. That we are missing the magic of life.

So that takes us back to the original scripture that carried us this far:

The Lord is my shepherd
I shall not want
He makes me to lie down.
He leads me.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in the paths of righteousness.
His name’s sake.
He walks me through it.
He guides me.
His presence comforts me.
He is with me.
He has prepared a place for me in the presence of my enemies.
He anoints me.
My cup overflows.
He follows me.
I will dwell in the house of my Lord forever.

So my dear friends, put down your baggage and take a deep breath – take in all that is magical about life and let God overflow your cup. I know that today my cup is overflowing and I’m going to do what I can to enjoy every last drop.

until next time

m