Grief Speaks

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.

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Family

In the midst of loss we search for the reasons why we must suffer and grieve. While quietly observing family talk and family moments that are meaningful I get a reminder that it is in those moments that we can remember our loved ones with a grateful heart that they touched our lives in such a way that we are able to laugh and connect with those of us who remain.

New connections made by old connections lead to chances to see God’s purpose in why things happen the way they do. No we may not have the answers to why we experience loss, but if we are still enough in his presence we may see the purpose – to help us reconnect, to love, to support, to lift up those family members that were once a great part of our life.

Life is a gift.

Blessings

M

New Grief Revisits Old Grief

My aunt died this week and I have had a much harder time than I anticipated. It has brought back some fresh feelings about my daughter’s death that I thought I’d dealt with.  Like why do I feel like my life has been a constant journey uphill and against a headwind of 60+ mph.

New Grief takes you back to places you don’t want to go. It makes you remember the moment you lost your loved one and it takes a accumulative toll over time.

No one really understands that – except God. I get a great deal of comfort from knowing my troubles here on earth will seem distant and unimaginable once I see the face of God. The one thing that I say to people and they get a little wacky is that I’m ready now.

When life doesn’t make sense and you try to live a new life you don’t know how to live. You live a day-to-day existence that is just too much to bare.

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