Good Mourning Grief

A blog about my adventures as a grief warrior

Month: January 2021

Distracting Grief with On-Line Learning

January 25, 2021 /

Nature is a great teacher we do not pay attention to enough. In the cold winter months, nature appears to do very little, hibernating and resting, preparing for the coming of the warm spring.  For those of us living in colder temperatures, this is a good month to snuggle inside.  Although with current times we have been snuggling alone for too long, which makes one feel restless.    

Maybe this is a time to think about, dare I say dream about, something we have always wanted to try.  Is there a hobby you have always wanted to take up or something you wanted to learn? Maybe you could learn a new language or take a course in self-discovery or how to paint. The internet is filled with courses available for every interest and most of them are free or affordable.

 For those of us grieving, on-line learning can be doable.  It doesn’t require going out into the public and the energy it takes to make small talk.  On-line courses are usually self paced so you can learn when you feel up to it. They are usually short in length.  They usually have a forum to share if you so choose through a Face Book group or comment section giving you the option to be social.  It is a comfortable way to try new things without a major commitment.

I have taken two courses. One introduced me to a group of like minded people who I engage with over social media. The other was a 7-day clutter challenge.  Each day you learned of a possibility of why we hang on to our stuff. It introduced a sort of spiritual help to assist in looking into the emotion or belief of these hesitations, all designed to help one declutter better. Beyond the usual does it have value, is it beautiful, and is it meaningful measure to keep or chuck, this course instructed you to meditate before beginning. The meditation had you visualize being in the room and gazing upon each individual item and remembering where it came from, and noticing that immediate reaction to it.  Does it give you energy when you think of it or take away energy? If it takes away, get rid of it. Zane’s room was on this list.  His whole room gives me sweet memories and a bittersweet energy so it stays just as it is. The bonus of this course was that my husband got involved and decided to take the initiative for his areas of the home.  Who knew there was carpet in his home office? And it has become (a new) habit for him to put away his clothes.  Bonus!

These quick courses are a distraction from grief.  They are a topic of personal interest and require a short attention span.  I feel productive that I have accomplished something of interest to me. So, while it is cold and blowing outside, I snuggle into a cozy chair with my lap top and take in my lesson of the day. This gives me energy that I can use or store away for a future sunny day. It also gives my grief a break.  And that is good mourning.

A Dose of Disbelief

January 18, 2021 /

The first year I was totally numb from the shock of what happened.  The second year I found much more painful, much more ‘real’ as the shock softened.  Then, the magic of disbelief set in. You will be told that time will soften your grief and that with time you will be able to accept things and learn to live with your new normal.  Broken but put back together in some emotional way to be a different person who is still capable of living life to its fullest.  And although I do believe there is truth to this, I find that this advice makes us hurry, makes us judge how well we are healing.  It makes us feel guilty that we are not moving fast enough.  And it brings on feelings of fear; we don’t want to move away from our loved ones. It brings on guilt, how can I be happy without my loved one? It brings on a new pain, realizing the eternal impact that this death has in our life.

This is why disbelief feels therapeutic. When our hearts cannot face the reality for one more second, disbelief can set in to comfort us.  How many have said, “I am waiting for him to come home” or “I believe I will see her on some busy street. “ Our brain knows better. But our heart beats with this incredibly strong hope that this is not the plan for us.  At one time, our heart believed in Santa and the Easter Bunny.  Our heart believes in love, in a higher power.  Our hearts believe in what we cannot see or explain so why can’t my heart believe that my loved one is not truly gone from this life?

Disbelief lives within our hearts as a sort of morphine that flows through us when the memory becomes unbearable. We use it to keep from screaming out in pain.  We use it to feel only what we can bear to feel for that moment. Disbelief can support our grief by reminding us that we don’t have to fully accept our grief today.  We can take our time.  We can go at a pace that is slow.

It is obvious that disbelief does not change how things are.  Because we live with BIG grief, we can learn to use our emotions as tools to help us cope and disbelief works a bit like Advil. It can bring temporary relief.  And like any other ‘medication’, it should not be overused.  Disbelief is a coping tool, not a solution.

I use disbelief on days that I am exhausted or that my grief has crippled me and taken my strength away.  I say out loud, “he’ll be back”.  Or I look into the mirror and whisper, “don’t go there today…”  And then I plod on, numbed by the disbelief that I am living the unimaginable and with that, I get through another day.

Daily Grief Reading

January 10, 2021 /

I like to choose a book at the beginning of each year that will bring hope in a daily reading format. Last year I chose “Grief Day by Day” by Jan Warner. The simple practices and daily guidance for living with loss (as the front cover says) broke the year into weeks, each with a theme that was relative and insightful. 

It begins with what are the stages of grief and covers topics from emotions to coping strategies to reflections of where do we go from here.

I looked to each morning with anticipation, reading about common feelings and ideas to support my grief. The quotes from different people reminded me of the community that I am a part of.  Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, quoted on Day one, “The reality is that you will grieve forever.” Ouch. Her quote continues to say, “You will heal and you will rebuild…” which offers hope that we will someday be able to live with our grief. 

Some of the days I laughed at the relevance. Patton Oswalt (week 33) tells us “It is not a ‘healing journey. It’s a ‘numb slog’…if they call it a ‘healing journey,’ it’s just a day of you eating Wheat Thins for breakfast in your underwear, you’re like ‘I guess I’m f-king up my healing journey.’ But if they would say you’re going to have a ‘numb slog,’ you could say ‘oh, I’m nailing it.”

This book gets us. Each week ends with an exercise on ‘becoming a grief whisperer’. One of my favorite exercises was from week 36, “Crazy things Grievers Do”, which gave me permission to buy Zane presents. With that in mind, this year I filled his Christmas stocking, to which I gave out the items I bought to family members.  Among the items was a book of a favorite poet I gave to his dad, a gift certificate to a favorite watering hole given to his sister and a candle that sits in his room. I enjoyed doing it.  It made it feel less lonely somehow to see his stocking filled, rather than empty, and hanging next to the other stockings.  The joy felt by the sharing of some things that Zane loved was good mourning.

In the epilogue of this book, Jan writes;

“When someone you love dies, you are left to do all your own stunts.  Where once you had love and support, now you have absence and longing.  Grief work is finding the ways in which love and support still exist.  Eternal missing is eternal love.”

Jan considers herself a fellow grief warrior and believes “that love triumphs over death, if we let it.”

This was a great resource over the last 52 weeks and one that is worth reading over again.

The Goal to Move Forward

January 3, 2021 /

Long ago, I remember telling Zane that I had failed achieving my goals I had set for that year. He asked to see them and I handed him 3 pages. He playfully shook the pages in front of my face and said, “no one has this many goals, mom, this is why you fail”. Then, as he read my long list, he crossed off all the goals I had written that were totally out of my control.  At the end, I had a few goals and, in fact, had achieved them. His ability to help me keep things in check was a blessing I truly miss.

Each year, including this one, I think of that lesson he taught me as I ponder what I want to accomplish in the New Year. I also take into account a piece of advice from my sister.  “When writing out your goals, remember to include how you want to feel this year. If you want to feel adventurous, make sure your goals include things that will bring you that emotion.”  

Grief should then make goal setting simple.  The goal is to live each day and feel less sad. But somehow it doesn’t feel that simple. To mourn, to move forward with our grief, we need more than this. We need to answer the ‘how’ we do this.

As I read the posts from fellow grief warriors of the worry and fear of moving into a New Year without their loved one, there appear common denominators.  We are afraid to live the first year without them being a part of that. We are afraid that people will forget our loved one. We worry about how we are coping, or not coping. We worry that this pain continues to borough into our souls. We worry if we have the strength of continuing to achieve the simple goal of facing each new day.

Perhaps in these worries and fears, come possibilities for our goals. What if our goals included a way or two that we will honor our loved one this year? What if our goals included how we will say their name throughout the year? What if our goals included something we promise to do to care for ourselves? What if our goals included a plan to implement on days that are too dark to be alone? What if our goals included learning or trying new ways of connecting to our loved one? (Yes, that is a thing!)

I believe goals are important even when we are grieving. Goals help remind us what it is we are striving for, what is important to us. Goals outline possible ways to get there, the ‘how’ do we do this. Without them we become reactive rather than proactive. Even with grief, we know we must move forward. Slowly, stopping to rest, but yes, facing forward and finding ways to bring our pain and our memories with us. So how do you want to move forward with your grief?  The answers can bring you good mourning.

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