Grief

Grief permates your very existence. It stays with you always. When you heart has been torn out and you don’t feel like it will ever heal. Then…God works on you and you feel better. Then another death comes and you relive it all over again. I liken it to a vary large pile up on a freeway of cars. One on top of the other. Eventually the weight becomes too difficult to sustain. Today is one of those days. I’ve had them before and they come again.

The thing that I know now that I didn’t know during previous loses is that I know where to go get my strength to make it through one more day.  But it still hurts, it still creates a heaviness to my soul that makes me so very tired.

Comfort

October 13th 2006 I started a journey that I never would have imagined I travel. But it has been during this journey that I have written, cried, screamed, loved, felt like dying and through that I have evolved to seeing the blessings. It is my hope that this can be a place you find words of comfort, words that resonate with your moment in time or a learning spot for how to support someone on this journey of grief.

Mother’s Day

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

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…

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

One Year Later

I miss her so much I can’t begin to express!

Since You’ve Been Gone

My finest accomplishment is you
Yet I only have memories to
help me through.

Every minute of every day I long
to see you again, but I must wait
because I haven’t had my swan song.

No one else knows my pain,
the hole in my heart that
will forever remain.

I have so much to give yet,
I don’t know where to begin.
This life I live now; not
comfortable in my new skin.

Since you’ve been gone,
I wander about my life
not knowing how to go on.

I pray every day for guidance,
but mostly I pray that God
is enjoying you now – you
deserve to be free from this life.

I stay not because I choose, but
because ending it would not
honor your memory.

I long to see you again, soon
my dear daughter, very soon.

love
mom