Category: The Ups and Downs of Life

A Community of Brokenness

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Chapter 13 – A Community of Brokenness
by – Jerry Sitser

My viewpoint of this authors words and experience in comparison to my loss and my life. Nothing more…..

I could seriously stop after the first paragraph because it is where I am today and where I appear to be stuck. You see when you have lost, you have lost hard, lost much, lost hope, lost love, lost joy, lost self. So when the author says “Loss is also a solitary experience. …like physical pain, we know it is real only because we experience it uniquely within ourselves. When a person says, ‘You just don’t know what I have gone through and how much I have suffered,’ we must acknowledge that he or she is entirely correct. We do not know and cannot know.”

For me that is one of the hardest things to understand both from the griever’s perspective and the very people who try to help. I find myself getting very irritated when someone “assumes” they know my pain. They cannot. Loss is so unique to each and every person. It begins way before the loss and flows through into the loss and breaks open after the loss and sometimes, the pieces are hard to put back together.

I find it hard to explain that this is something I have to face alone. Because I experienced my loss alone. It was mine to experience, not that I wanted it, but it was mine. I know it well, I’ve experienced numerous times, each uniquely different and devastating in their own ways. There is though a fine line between working through the loss alone and being alone. But it’s in the finding of the right people to be alone with that creates much angst for me.

Sharing my pain, my loss, my experience is hard to do. I find it makes me uncomfortable to have people share in what I find revolting to experience. Why on earth would I want to share it. I don’t even want it. But over the years I have shared it and I still find it uncomfortable, in fact, sometimes it’s  harder to face.

Interestingly enough people have helped me more than I could ever have imagined. Came to my rescue when I was at the bottom of my pain and lifted me up. My family came when I needed them. A few people knew instinctively when to call and when to just “show up” at the door. Those were the times when, as I look back, were the most critical to my recovery during those early months.

But there were others in my life that chose to stay away. I imagine for various reasons, I mean really why would you want to face mortality in the face of people you love while you watch them react to the very thing you don’t want to think about. As a griever you feel like you have “leprosy” as the people begin to stay away. Fall out of your life – creating more loss – more pain. Not intentional by any means, but the damage is staggering.

The community of brokenness comes from so many sources during times of loss. Loss is universal as Sittser explains. It happens. It’s inevitable. I know my community came from some unlikely sources and from places I didn’t expect. Some come because they have lost something at some point. Some come and go and stay just long enough to make  a difference. I felt a sense of calm much like the eye of a hurricane. Just hanging on the edge of insanity – life out of control and just waiting for me to burst.

I’m thankful for that community who chose to serve and stand by me during that time. I couldn’t have made it through those early months and years without them. But now I find I’m back in familiar, yet unwanted territory. You see my friends, my loss of Brittany left me blind-sided. It took the wind out of my sails. It blew a hole so large in my life that I felt the value of my life had been sucked out and into the hurricane of grief. That feeling is still present today. It wanes. It pounds. It crashes.

Sittser touches on a subject very close to my heart and that is this….the fear of loss again creates a dilemma for him and it does for me. The problem of choosing to love again is that the choice of love means living under the constant threat of further loss. And that is where I stand today. I can’t seem to move beyond that space. You know that space I’ve written about before.

“The space where I exist and the space where I want to be is paper thin.” – Malissa Moss

I feel I’m at a crossroads so to speak with moving forward or remaining frozen in time without hope. I know in mind that love is good. But my reality is I know love is loss.

I can read all day, Sittser reminds me of so many things I try very hard to believe, to live, to embrace – loss increases our capacity to love says Sittser, but it also increases the sorrow and suffering when loss happens again, and it will. Choosing to love again brings me such anxiety as I know it will also bring loss and more grief. I am not so sure I am ready for that. But I also know I am human and need love to survive.

until next time,

m

The Amputation of the Familiar Self

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Continuing my series on blogging through Jerry Sittsers’ book “a Grace Disguised”. As we take a look at Chapter 6, I am reminded of my own journey and just how far I have come in four short years.

The following paragraph on page 81 really spoke to me and summed it up about how it feels to have lost someone and what remains in the wake of loss:

“I still think of myself as a husband to Lynda, as a father to Diana Jane, and as a son to Grace. But the people who defined me that way, who played the role opposite me as wife, daughter and mother, are no longer there. The self I once was, this familiar self, cries out for them, like nerves still telling me that I have a leg or an arm, though only a stump remains.” – Jerry Sittser

For me that excerpt from chapter six accurately describes my pain, my loss and my sorrow. Those words capture the essence of the loss of my mother and my daughter. Even as the years pass, 22 of them since my mother passed away, I still feel as if a part of me is missing. And this description, these words by the author gave me something I had not been able to obtain before. His words allowed to me to read out loud something my heart and soul had been searching to say, that I, mother and daughter experienced a profound loss and will never be the same.

My identity was taken from me. The role as the only daughter removed from my future. The role as the mother of a wonderful young woman shattered as I watched her die. For months I wandered about wondering who I was or what was I going to do. Sure I was a nurse and I had that identity and loved being a nurse. But being a mother was something I had wanted to be for as long as I can remember. The one thing that meant more to me than anything else I did – gone in 12 hours.

I remember it was about the fifth year after my mother’s death that I found a book that truly helped me move passed the wall that had become my familiar friend. The wall of anger. The book was by Hope Edelman and it was titled “Motherless Daughters”. The book literally fell off the shelf at Barnes & Noble and I picked it up and began to read story after story of woman, like me, who had lost their mothers too soon. At critical points in their lives. I was pregnant with Brittany when my mother died. A time when I truly needed her and I felt cut off “amputated” from her mid way through my pregnancy and during my seventh month, had to bury her.

In the weeks and months after my daughter’s death I found myself asking do I really want this life? Do I really want to participate in the future? I was so confused about who I was and who I was going to be – it was exhausting. I was drained mentally and physically from the challenge of just existing. The day-to-day life without Brittany was distasteful to me. It brought no joy, no laughter and certainly wasn’t pleasing to even think about. But I continued to live on despite my thoughts trying to rationalize why.

Sittser describes later on in the chapter the phantom pains amputees often feel as if their body still believes that the limb that is now gone still exists. similarly those who’ve lost a loved one the “phantom pains” of the former life are everywhere. Even despite my removal of many of the things that reminded me of Brittany – her absence in the house was very palpable. No matter what I did to put it out of my mind, even for the smallest of time, I could not remove the one thing that remained – my heart ached every time I saw her picture. I longed for her presence. I wanted so much to feel her hug hear her laughter.

Loss has become a part of who I am. It is part of my story. Although it has been tough, I have managed to move towards a new identity. However, I believe I will always be Brittany’s mom, Judie’s daughter. But in order for me to continue the healing process, note I said continue because grief is a journey; I have to create a new identity. One that will allow me to acknowledge who I was, the life I had, yet move towards a new life, a new identity.

There is one relationship that I do have that continues to be the focal point in my journey and that is my relationship with God. Although it has been riddled with anger, sadness, pain, sorrow and even joy, this loss, these losses, have pushed me to God, like Sitser, even when I didn’t want it. My faith has been my saving grace. God has been my comfort and my strength throughout it all.

Recently God reminded me of my purpose now by placing a young man next to me on a plane as I was returning home from a business trip. This young man, dressed in his Army uniform seemed somewhat restless. So after a few minutes I decided to engage him in some light conversation. After a few minutes, I mentioned that my “late” daughter’s boyfriend had just joined the National Guard. He asked how long they had been together, I’m thinking he didn’t hear the “late” part. As I told him that Brittany had died a few years ago – he politely apologized but the look on his face told me he had a story. And I was right.

He began to tell me that his baby son had died two weeks earlier. He shared with me his story and my heart broke for him. His loss so fresh, so apparent as he talked about what happened. I asked him if he was a faithful person. He answered, “you mean religious?”, I said no I mean are you faithful? Do you believe in God? He said “yes”, but I don’t believe things happen for a reason. At that moment I knew God had placed me there to show him another way to see it.

As I explained to him my thoughts on loss and how it changes us, how our loved ones were here, even for a short time, to show us the way. They were sent here to move us along the path of life. To show us compassion, gratitude and what it means to forgive. These lessons we may have not been able to learn if it weren’t for the loss of someone we loved. After our long discussion – he looked at me and said “thank you” and then we sat quietly for the rest of the trip. Just as we arrived, I leaned over to him and said “I’ll be praying for  you and your son Nick”. And went on my way.

My new identity is to help others who have suffered a loss. I am a living testimony that you can survive a tragic loss and continue on. Even though some days are still rough, I am creating a new life. I can look back over my shoulder and see my mom and Brittany smiling at me and I know that they are proud of me and how far I have come. Then I look ahead and see that I am continuing my journey into the future.

until next time,

m

The Silent Scream of Pain

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* Continuing through “a grace disguised” by Jerry Sittser

Chapter Four

The Silent Scream of Pain

In this chapter the author talks about the experience of pain one can experience with loss. The words “unspeakable” “unbearable” were just a few he uses to describe the pain felt by those who’ve lost a loved one. I know that pain.

Interestingly enough he goes on to reflect what pain means. The value of it, if one could find that unfathomable. The following quote puts it  into perspective and gives one some type of rationale behind why pain is experienced due to loss.

“What is true of the body is true in the soul. The pain of loss is severe because the pleasure of life is so great; it demonstrates the supreme value of what is lost.”

  

How we go about dealing with our pain is a whole different story. I found myself identifying a great deal with his examples of how we face our pain, or how we don’t. Just yesterday, Christmas, I found myself in a familiar place – avoidance. I tend to do one of two things: I either put on a happy face and pretend it’s all ok; or I withdraw into my “space” and avoid personal contact as to avoid anyone seeing my pain.

I have found over these past four years is that the pain has to be heard, faced, dealt with and acknowledged. While I understand this to be true, it’s harder to live it. To share this pain is one of the most difficult things I have experienced. Perhaps it’s because I don’t want anyone else to know how bad it hurts. Sometimes it’s because I don’t want to seem vulnerable. That could be a whole other chapter all by itself.

Another way of dealing with pain is by “drowning it” by indulging in various types of activities. For example grief and pain have many friends and for me the worst was the loneliness. The author speaks of watching endless hours of television during the hours of 10pm to 2 am for about two months. This was the time when he missed his wife the most. I found ways of avoiding that loneliness, I buried myself in my work and church. But in the darkness of the night – the loneliness returned.

I slept on the couch for three months after Brittany died because I couldn’t bring myself to pass by her room to get to mine. The nightly routine was I would pass by her room and say good night before I shut my own bedroom door. Just that simple action and memory was profoundly devastating to me. I could hardly breathe. But one day I had to face it. I could no longer sleep on the couch. What I was facing was more than just a ritual – it truly meant I had to face that she was gone. That she wasn’t coming back.

The author does speak to the problem of addiction and how it can occur after someone experiences a loss. Finding ways to avoid, derail, bypass the pain – problem is, it’s still waiting there behind all that avoidance.

“Loss disrupts and destroys the orderliness and familiarity of their world. They feel such desperation and disorientation in the face of this obliteration of order that they go berserk on binges. They saturate their senses with anything that will satisfy them in the moment because they cannot bear to think about the long-term consequences of loss.”

That quote was never more true for me than the first six months of journey. Once I returned to work, I put everything into it. It was an exhausting time and my body paid dearly for it. I found some sense of relief from the relentless attack on my heart while at work. It was once I pulled into the driveway at my home, the one I shared with my daughter, that the pain came crashing back. I had no place to hide.

I spent some time in the anger phase. It just so happened to be winter in Michigan and for those who know me know that this is not my favorite time of  year. It snows a lot in Michigan and I really don’t like snow. So when it snowed, I found myself outside shoveling, screaming at God and asking “why”. I’m sure my neighbors thought I’d gone off the deep end. But in looking back, it was a great time of healing for me. I was so angry at her doctors, her father, so many people who chose not to listen to me when I knew something wasn’t right with her.

Once I realized that the anger was just another way of dealing with the pain I was able to move on. So often people tend to get stuck in the anger phase of grief. As the author states “anger, like denial or bargaining or binges, is simply another way of deflecting the pain.” He goes on to say that pain will keep returning and will not let up until it has had it due time. I still find times I get angry, I go through the stages of grief over and over. I just don’t stay as long – I manage to go through them like a revolving door. I’ve learned to live with it.

At some point it becomes exhausting to fight it any longer. Yesterday I felt this disconnect and sense of nothingness. Devoid of emotion if you will. That is grief and pain knocking at the door. Over the years I’ve learned that I can’t run away from it. I have to let it have its moment and then in prayer I have to release it. It’s then and only then do I get some peace.

until next time,

m

As Time Passes

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As time passes I find I no longer look for those moments when I am overwhelmed with a wash of grief that suddenly comes over me and when I least expect it. I stopped expecting it a year or so ago. But funny thing – it still comes, it still stings and it still hurts just as badly.

As I wandered about my place today I couldn’t figure out why I was feeling disconnected, unmotivated to do anything, talk to anyone or spend time with anyone. I was upset with myself because it is not like me to be that way. Then tears filled my eyes and I felt as if I’d been stabbed in the heart by the sting of grief.

You see if you have never experienced it, you can’t even imagine it. But if you have experienced this type of grief – you know perfectly well what I’m saying. Try as you may to not think about it, dwell on it or give it any residence in your mind – it still shows up. It’s like a bad ache, an itch you can’t scratch, a feeling of gloom that comes over like a black cloud on a sunny day that brings a burst of rain so strong it blows you over and you are covered in tears like a watershed of rain.

The hard part is letting it happen. Letting the work of grief do it’s thing and then releasing it into the world giving it it’s due. Because I’ll tell you if you fight it will fight harder. I have found it’s easier to just let it happen. Let the pain come, the tears flow, the sorrow cry out in prayer to God because that is how it gets released.

I miss my daughter with every part of my being. More than I can ever share. More than I could ever write about. There is nothing that I could write that would describe the emptiness I have in my heart that will never be replaced. As this fifth Christmas comes to an end and the tears flow I am still thankful, still grateful and still hopeful for the future.

until next time

m

To Live and Mourn Simultaneously

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Continuing my journey as I blog through Jerry Sitter’s “a grace disguised”. Chapter Three: Darkness Closes In

I used the phrase “To Live and Mourn Simultaneously” for the title of this post because I truly think Sitter could have labeled this chapter that way. As we go through this chapter you will see why as I believe it became very apparent there is a theme in this chapter that will bring light on this very delicate topic.

“Sudden and tragic loss leads to terrible darkness. It is an inescapable as nightmares during a high fever. The darkness comes, no matter how hard we try to hold it off. However threatening, we must face it, and we must face it alone.”

Sitters speaks of the darkness that came over his life after the tragic loss of his mother, wife and daughter during an automobile accident that left him, and three children to live on with this burden of grief. I have related to this book on so many levels because I believe the author writes and believes what I feel and what I know to be true about grief. It validates if you will my own struggles with how I grieved and where I grieved.

The darkness is a topic I’ve written about before and it’s primarily because it’s a place I resided for a long time after Brittany’s death. In fact, it’s a place I’ve resided for a very long time. Throughout my life of what I’ve coined as “unfortunate events” I have found myself to become a familiar resident in the darkness.

When I say darkness, I don’t mean black, I mean like murky water – sometimes unable to see my way through to the light. To find any good in what has happened to me. However as Sitter reveals – darkness is unavoidable and necessary to face one’s grief. Because you really have to face it. You cannot put it off nor can you dismiss it away to face another day – it will haunt you and it will keep haunting you until you face it squarely and walk through it. This is what I know to be true.

My walk through the darkness has had some good days and some not so good days. In the early weeks and months after my daughter’s death darkness was a scary place. I wanted to run away from it. I wanted it to go away because I didn’t like what I saw or couldn’t see but only felt. The pain was so gut-wrenching that I felt I couldn’t bear it another moment more. But I did. And I still do today. It’s just different.

Sitters believes, as I do, that we have a choice in how we grieve. How we look at our journey and how we can exist in the darkness and still see the light. The power remains within us to take the walk in the right direction. To face the pain and the sorrow right where you are in that moment can bring you to a place where light begins to crack through and the life you see before you can and will be joyful. Just different.

I have to say that facing your grief in the darkness can be exhausting. I continue to fight exhaustion to this very day. Why? Because the battle isn’t over. My struggle, anyone’s struggle with loss lasts a lifetime. It’s not over in a year, a couple of years or a decade. The loss changes you. It re-molds who you are right down to your very core. Life looks different, it feels different and some days it just doesn’t feel right. But you keep moving forward because it’s the only way to let the light shine through.

Sittser says “loss itself does not have to be the defining moment of our lives”. He goes on to say, “the defining moment can be our response to the loss.” I am in total agreement with the author here. I have written about this numerous times and I stand by it – we have a choice. The choice we make during these moments in life, whether it is personal tragedy or horrific loss – will define our future. It will mold you into who you are to become. Because, as I’ve said before, you are never the same after a loss. No matter how hard your friends and family wish that you are that same person, you are not. You can not.

“I absorbed the loss into my life, like soil receives decaying matter, until it became a part of who I am. Sorrow took up permanent residence in my soul and enlarged it.”

That quote from Sitter really spoke to me as I have lived that and breathed that for the past four years. I have grown from my loss(s). I am a new person, one that sees life from a different perspective. The world didn’t stop revolving when I lost Brittany, although many times I wanted it to. Life kept moving on and I had to move with it or remain stuck in it. It was a choice I made then and I continue to make now. To live and to mourn simultaneously.

Until next time,

m

Chapter Two: Whose Loss Is Worse?

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Continuing the series…Blogging through “a Grace Disguised” by Jerry Sittser

Chapter Two: Whose Loss is Worse?

In this chapter Sittser tries to open our eyes to what loss is and how we often see a loss as worse or more catastrophic than the other. I found that in this chapter I really came to understand that my multiple losses, no matter the type, have been all different, have all changed me to who I am today. But to say that losing my only daughter has or has not been the worst is a conversation I’d like to debate with the author.

Sittser discusses the many types of loss one can experience over a lifetime. He reminds us as we read about an experience he had as a teen while traveling with his family and while they had stopped during their trip at a gas station he noticed two extremely mangled vehicles. The story told to him made him shiver. Two cars, nine teens playing chicken and nine lives were destroyed in a moment of foolishness.

Even in his own experience of losing his three loved ones in a horrible crash, he often heard from others how people would compare his loss to others. That his loss was the worst they had ever heard of. But Sittser believes, as I do, that a loss is a loss. It doesn’t matter how or why it happened and that no two losses can be compared. Each loss has its own significance. Each loss leaving behind in its wake a devastating and cumulative effect on those whose lives will never be the same.

Sittser speaks about the difference between a lingering loss and one that is quick and immediate. It made me think back to when Brittany was first diagnosed with Epilepsy. The loss I felt then because after doing some research and also having a brother wi th Epilepsy, I knew her life and our lives would not be the one I had forever created in my mind as a girl growing up. The perfect family. That vision, that dream broken, fractured like a mirror falling from the wall onto the floor – never again being whole.

Caring for Brittany over the nearly 18 years was a gradual type of loss, one that is a constant reminder of what will not be. The ebbs and flows of the many years brought moments of joy and sorrow. Disappointment after disappointment left me feeling as if I had smacked down by God for some reason unknown to me. I really felt for the longest time that God was punishing me for something I’d done in my past. To bring upon me such pain was so cruel. But I know now that is not the case. Loss is everywhere you look, and it is definitely not exclusive to just me.

Loss has been an unwelcome visitor throughout my entire life, yet I have learned that you can still get up and dust yourself off and move on. But the one thing I think is the hardest for people to understand is loss changes you. It has made me more sensitive to others who have experienced loss. Yet it has also made me less tolerant of people who don’t understand how blessed they are with what they have. For it can be taken in an instant. It pains me to see mothers and daughters fighting. I just want to say to them “stop it love each other for one day one of you will regret this moment for the rest of your lives”.

Sittser finishes his chapter with this thought and question:

“No one will ever know the pain I have experienced because it is my own, just as I will never know the pain you may have experienced. What good is it to compare? The right question to ask is “what meaning can be gained from suffering, and how can we grow through suffering?”

That is where the author plans to take us for the remainder of this book. I found this book to be extremely helpful in taking me to the next level of my journey in grief and it is my hope that if you are experiencing this journey along with me, you too, will find it helpful to move forward and grow through the experience.

until next time,

m

A Grace Disguised

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I’m so excited to blog through this next book “A Grace Disguised” by Jerry Sittser. As some of my dedicated readers know I have found it rare to find a book that can come close to seeing grief through my eyes. Although our experience of loss is not the same; for his is much more tragic, he chose the right words that so creatively and accurately describes my pain.

I hope you get something out of this series as I did reading his book. I highly recommend it to anyone who has suffered a loss for it offers hope, spiritual rebirth and a new-found belief that the soul can heal and grow through loss.

“The experience of loss does not have to be the defining moment of our lives. Instead, the defining moment can be our response to the loss. It is not what happens to us that matters so much as what happens in us.” – Jerry Sittser

In the beginning of the book the author writes about the previous edition and reflected back over the years of his experience. What I related to most was on page 19 of the book where he talks about writing. I believe as he does that writing about one’s experience, thoughts, feelings, emotions can be healing.

At times during my four years I felt as  if my writing would either make me or break me. In the early days the writing was so porous one could see my pain on the pages of my blog. I allowed many of my readers to “feel” my pain as much as I could. Not because I wanted to bring everyone else down; but to allow you to see that the clichés of the past needed to go about what grieving people need to do or should do. But to allow you to see what’s real about grief.

Sittser talks about being able to read his own journals and was able to see his journey and how far he’d come. How he had changed as a person. He believes as I do that the hope is that our words can bring help to others. But in no way does it diminish our own losses. That our losses are as real and horrible as they were the day they happened.

“The good that may come out of the loss does not erase it’s badness or excuse the wrong done. Nothing can do that.” – Jerry Sittser

So much of what the author writes about in this book has been very validating for me as someone who has suffered so many losses. So it is my hope that you, my dear and cherished followers and any of you who have come upon my blog for the first time, take a moment and reflect that even though our losses have been great. The power to heal resides within  us. It is how we live on that makes the difference between living or just existing.

until next time,

m

Seasons

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Seasons

by

Malissa Moss

As the sun sets in the west
the air is cool and crisp;
creating a sense that
it’s time to lie down and rest.

Oh my weary soul fights
back the sleep; for it is the
memories of seasons past
that keep coming back.

Fall comes and sorrow sets in
for it is the dark times that
prey upon me now. As the leaves
fall from the trees does my tears
fall from my face.

Winter comes and the snow falls
bringing holiday cheers and song
but in my heart there is no cheer
only a song of sorrow for a life lost.

Spring arrives as the birds sing of
joy to be warmed by the sun that
arises in the east. A time to see
growth and splendor beyond the pain.

Summer comes and goes so quick
as it brings back the sorrow again.
The cycle of my grief comes like
cycle of the seasons. Beginning with
Fall and ending with Summer.

the end

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

Grief Blessings1 Comment

“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