Category: grief journey

Sunday

What it feels like to have Mother’s Day in my face.

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It’s raining today – AGAIN! Seems as though we’ve had our fair share of rain this month. I don’t know about you, but I’m quite tired of it all. I’m believing for some sunshine linked by several days of continued sunshine.

Now that my taxes are done, and oh did I owe, I’m getting back to finishing my book. I don’t have much left to do. But it does seem a bit disorganized and needs some polishing. Writing has never been one of my fortes but after much prodding by my peeps (friends who have read my blogs over the past two years) I have decided to pursue it.

Some days you just have to pull yourself up and push on. Even when it doesn’t feel good at all. But I’m a believing person and know God has not set me upon this earth do live a dull and meaningless life. Even considering the great loss of my only child.

The next few weeks you may find my writing here a bit dark. Mother’s Day is coming and it’s not usually a good time for me. Many of you know that I lost my mother when I was 7 months pregnant with Brittany. My mom was only 48 when she died from Breast Cancer. Five years later, my grandmother died of Congestive Heart Failure. Then losing my daughter nailed it shut my ever celebrating Mother’s Day again.

I don’t want to take away anyones love of Mother’s Day – but just know there are some of us out here that wish it would just go by and never breathe it’s breath of heartache over my life again. But it’s all around – you know – every store, every TV show and even in church. I go to church regularly because it’s how I get spiritually fed, however, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are not Sundays I attend church. I choose to stay out of the public on those days, not because I am a recluse, but because I’m tired of having those holidays shoved down my throat.

It’s a painful reminder of what I have lost or been without for so long. For my dear friends and family the magnitude of many losses have profoundly changed who I am as a person. I will forever be different and you will have to learn to be OK with it. I don’t like it much either but it is my reality.

I choose to do a lot of positive things to counteract my losses, but it doesn’t take them away. It doesn’t soften the blow, it doesn’t decrease my pain – it only creates noise in my life to take up the quiet that drives me crazy. When it’s too quiet – I weep.

More on that later.

until next time

mercedes

Mother’s Day is Coming – Blah!

But I can’t imagine living a life without hope. Can you?

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I am reposting this Mother’s Day note because this is the season of grief that I am in now….. Mother’s day to me has become the worst holiday of them all. It has become meaningless in the face of tragic loss and a fragmented life left in it’s wake. But once it passes – I will again see the beauty of life and all it has to offer….but until then I cry, I weep, I mourn and I do it without shame or without regret for it is my journey to healing…

 

When you lose your only child, and your mother, and your grandmother – Mother’s Day becomes a day you dread more than any other. Over the past three years since my daughter’s death, I have come to dread this day over her “angel” day, her birthday or any other holiday.

The one thing I know for sure is I am so very grateful it comes on the heels of Easter. It is because of the Resurrection of Jesus that I can continue to breathe and move forward without my baby. My hope is in the Lord and that I will see her again very soon. What a joyous occasion that will be.

I know that for some unbelievers this concept can be a stretch. But just let me say that I would rather believe in God and have his love and compassion keep me filled with love and hope than to not believe and feel my life had been wasted. My hope in the Resurrection rests firmly on my beliefs that Brittany is with God now and one day I will be reunited with her. That is how I get through each and every day.

Does that make going through the remainder of my days filled with emptiness any easier. Sometimes. But I can’t imagine living a life without hope. Can you?

Blessings

Mercedes

Grief Speaks

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As I continue my journey of healing, I have come to know the many voices grief speaks. First it doesn’t have a voice. It first presents itself as a lump in your throat. I remember thinking I must be getting a cold or food was getting stuck in my throat, when really it was my pain that was getting stuck. The grief couldn’t get out, wasn’t being heard, stuffed out, stuffed back.

Now, after over 2 years, it’s been heard, felt, ignored but it’s still there, just not so “vocal” these days. It’s more like a whisper that I hear when I see something or someone that looks like my daughter, or mom. And quietly my grief speaks to me trying to remind me that I have grief in my soul. My soul has to be heard. It has to have a voice.

The one thing I know is grief must speak and it must be heard. If you don’t have someone who you can trust to listen, find someone. It is crucial to your healing.

m

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