Category: grief journey

As I was listening to a speaker recently I was reminded of a time back in my life when I thought my life was an accident or a “series of unfortunate events” so to speak. I mean really when your father leaves your family, a mother and 6 children and chooses not to be involved in their lives – well it changes the way you think about yourself.

That was at age 6. The first real memory I have of thinking my life wasn’t going well. My family’s life wasn’t going well. But we persevered, one of the traits my mother taught me over and over and over again. One that I learned very well. And it served me very well. But it also limited my life on so many levels.

You see perseverance is good when you have your head on straight. But when you have so much self-doubt and lack of self-confidence; perseverance can be a bad thing. The choices you make are usually not the best ones – but persevere you do. And you keep persevering all the while for the wrong reasons.

Why wouldn’t you – it was all you knew to do. It was all you felt you were worth. As it turned out – my mom’s strength was the very thing that catapulted me out of a huge series of unfortunate events that led me to moving away from my family and what I knew to be true.

But guess what – all that baggage – it comes with you. You drag it everywhere you go. Every place you move and you hand it over to everyone you meet. Imagine slugging around 5 pieces of luggage, your briefcase, your handbag and throw in for good measure a 12-lb bowling ball and bag – and there you go. A baggage-carrying heap of pain and sorrow.

So what does a person do with all that? Well I’ll go over that on part 2. In the meantime be thinking about all your baggage and imagine what it would feel like to set it all down and rest….

until next time

m

What does substance have to do with grief? For me substance looks like a measure of how meaningful my life has become. Does it fit well with how I see the world. My world. Does my life matter? Do I have a purpose?

As I look back over the past 3 years and pick out the parts of my life that I’d say have substance – I’d say it all focuses around my faith in God. For without God – I’d have no substance. All that I am is for God. I am made by God and I am constantly being renewed by God. The substance that exists within me is created by my faith that God is good.

Even though my life has been filled with grief and sorrow. I can still see the substance. The “meat and potatoes” if you will of my life. What makes me unique! Having substance creates a way for you to see the value of your existence. So by looking at my life over the years I can see how the substance waned at times; often to the point of such emptiness.

That emptiness kept me from experiencing God. God has and always will be right next to me. It has always been my choice to see Him – to feel Him – to know that He is God. Those times when I was at the lowest point is when God would send someone into my life that would direct me, nurture me, love me despite my pain.

A person who would walk with me during my battles. Those friendships are at the very core of my belief that God brings people in and out of your life for a reason and for a season. The hard part is letting go. Moving on. Forging ahead even when the path looks dark and scary.

I’ve had many people who have come along side of me during the past 3 years. Warriors we like to call them. God warriors. They do God’s work. Help build up His children. Then we in return become warriors for others. That is the way it works. It a cycle that needs to keep happening in our walk with God. Ever evolving into a life of substance.

A life that creates joy and love. Peace and harmony. Think about it in your own life. Ask yourself this question: – Do you have substance? What are you made of? Are you walking in love? Are you a God warrior?

until next time,

m

“Once I realized that the numbness I felt was an avoidance of dealing with the fear of moving on. I was able to see the wall in front of me begin to fade. And the path that revealed itself beyond the wall became inviting.”

So now as I enter the next phase of my life – I am working on the “believing” that there is a possibility that I can have a purpose. That there is a reason I’m here and that it matters that my energy exists. So where do we go from here.

That wall of fear I’ve talked about earlier and in the quote above has begun to crack. My view has become clearer about my future. I’m still unsure of what is to come, but the one thing I know is this: God is in control and I am just along for the ride.

Fear paralyzes us to the point of numbness and takes us to a place that no one should go. No one wants to go – but we go anyway.  It holds us down and keeps us from experiencing what life has to offer.  These things I know, these things I’ve experienced – yet it has been the biggest thing I’ve had to overcome. Understanding what fear can do to your progress when you are trying to find your way out of a very cloudy and dark place – a place called grief.

What I have come to understand is this – life is for the taking. You must stand up and dust yourself off and hold your head up high. Take control of what you can and give up what you cannot control. Know that it is not the disasters in your life that pull you down, but it is your response to them that can make or break you. You can’t always control what goes on around you, but you can control how you respond to what happens.

You see – life happens. The world goes on. And we grievers, we have to move on too. I’m not saying we forget – we just have to clutch to our heart the memories and the lessons our loved ones have taught us and take that first step into our next adventure. To move toward the life God intended for us to have. To make a difference in the world. No matter where we are or what we have – what matters is that we take action.

“Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.” ― Mother Teresa

One of the most if influential women of our time, Mother Teresa – she said it well – smile. It’s an action of love. Pay it forward my dear friends. Give a gift that we all have, but so often do not share – then and only then will you understand why you are here on this earth.

Until next time

M

“Until the moment when they said “her heart cannot take any more” while a PICU nurse was on top of my daughter performing CPR, looking in her eyes and knowing I was about to lose my daughter – at that moment I chose to believe.” – excerpt from Being Real – Part 2

In the months after my daughter’s death, I found myself wandering around in my life with a numbness that I just couldn’t seem to shake. My faith in God, my belief that God was going to get me through it was kept me going. It kept me alive. It was my decision to believe that saved my life.

Numbness

I wrote a blog post during this journey about hitting the wall. At some point in your journey you come to a point where it seems as though you are not moving forward. It’s as if you have it a wall that is so hard to move over it. No matter where you turn, no matter where you go that wall keeps you from moving forward.

At some point I began to realize that the numbness I was experiencing was the avoidance I was allowing to happen. I was afraid of moving on. What possibly could be good about moving on in a life without my daughter. None of it made any sense to me at all. It seriously felt as if I had a lump in my throat and I couldn’t get rid of it. That lump in my throat was fear.

“Facing this fear has to be the first step in the recovery of grief. I hit the Wall of Fear and I hit it hard. So this meant I had to do some hard work. In fact, I’m still a work in progress, but with God’s help and the help of many friends, I have come a long way. But I have a long way to go. For grief stays with you forever. My daughter’s memory will be with me forever. The memory of that night however, I’d like to bury along with my fear.”

Once I realized that the numbness I felt was an avoidance of dealing with the fear of moving on. I was able to see the wall in front of me begin to fade. And the path that revealed itself beyond the wall became inviting. It was something I so wanted to do, but there was this one little problem. I always kept looking back and if you know anything about moving forward, looking back…well it’s just not a good idea.

to be continued….

Until next time,

m

Getting real with your grief is a necessary truth that has to be revealed for the growth and healing to start to mold the new you. The exciting thing is that even through the midst of your grief, wherever you are, a vision of what can be is possible. You can believe it possible, you can dream it possible, but it’s in the everyday hard work at chipping away and getting real that creates that new version of who you will become. – exerpt from previous blog post.

When I wrote the first part of Being Real I wasn’t sure where the story might go. The places I’d go and drag you along kicking and screaming. I needed some time to think about it and I realized that the message of hope for the grieving parent or any person who has faced grief, is that it is hard work. There is no escaping it. It takes you by the throat and drags you around until one day when you say “enough”!

Sometimes it’s easier to give in and just be down and out. Because truly you have every right to be. I mean your world has been turned upside down. The life rug has been pulled out from underneath you. What was is now gone and it all happened within a blink of an eye. So again sometimes it’s just easier to be sad.

But what I’m asking you to do is think “I can see joy” or “I can have hope” or “I can be happy again”. Agreeing with me will be the easiest part of this journey that I’m taking us on. However believing it, well that will be up to you. So that is where we will start. Belief.

Belief

Belief comes from faith, having a real faith that all things will work out for the good of everyone. Belief creates a space for you to exercise your faith in God to make things right in your world. Belief also requires that you give it all to God and stop trying to figure it all out. I wrote a post a few years ago about trying to figure it all out. That thinking is what keeps you from moving forward.

In John 11:25 we are reminded of how important it is to believe. “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.” What I took from this scripture is that even though everything around us is gone – keep believing in God. That God will make all things right. He will heal the broken-hearted. He will wipe away every tear.

In the hours after my daughter’s death, I would just look at her and say I can’t believe you are gone. My sweet baby and then I would look up to God and say “why” “how” “what”. Then God would send me such a peace that I cannot explain it. I mean really who can have such a peace when their only child has just died and who just hours before was as lively as could be. Then the unthinkable, the unimaginable happens – a seizure.

After many hours of treatment and several attempts at resuscitation, we were told she would be fine and by morning she would be ready to go home. The ups and downs of the worst 12 hours of my life just kept coming. Just when I could breathe again, more bad news. Until the moment when they said “her heart cannot take any more” while a PICU nurse was on top of my daughter performing CPR, looking in her eyes and knowing I was about to lose my daughter – at that moment I chose to believe.

to be continued…..

until next time.

m

Throughout this blog over the past 3 years I have talked about unmistakable grief and unexpected blessings. I named this blog about grief because I wanted anyone who read it to know that even though you are in the midst of unmistakable grief there are and can be unexpected blessings along your journey.

Sometimes the fog of grief keeps you from seeing the blessings that are surrounding you. The space that envelopes you into what I call the swirling cesspool of grief blinds you to the blessings. It deafens the sound that the blessing makes when it happens.

Yes, blessings make sounds, the sounds of joy when you realize that you are blessed because you have so much, despite feeling as if you have nothing. You see we forget that although we may have lost everything, our homes, our jobs, our loved ones we are still blessed.

We are blessed because we were given those things. Some people never get a home, or a job or experience the love of a child. We forget that it’s not all about us really. It’s about realizing that God gave us these beautiful gifts for a short time, not to have them taken away, but to realize that they were here to move us forward in our journey. The journey towards what God has in store for us.

What’s odd, is sometimes, I still am blinded by my own disbelief. My own fears. My own grief. So blinded that I cannot hear the voice of God speaking ever so clearly that His plan is for me to live a life of abundant blessings. My job is to only believe. To open my eyes and see the gifts that surround me daily.

Yes, my daughter died three short years ago. But she was a blessing to me. A gift from God. She was here to move me forward in the plan that God has for my life. That plan is still very unclear to me today. Yet I know, because I just know, something powerful is about to change. So powerful that even I won’t be able to contain my joy.

Until next time

m