Good Mourning Grief

A blog about my adventures as a grief warrior

Month: April 2021

It’s OK To Be Broken

April 25, 2021 /

A girlfriend reminded me of something I told her.  I said, “I am broken.  I will always be broken. And I am trying to learn how to live broken.”  She brought it up in the context of us moving away from Zane’s childhood home and that this would be a good thing for me.  She said, “It’s time for you to heal, to move on”. 

We have all received the comments, “it’s time to move on” or “she wouldn’t want you to be sad” or my favorite, “I need you to be the same person you were before”-there’s a concept!

Although painful, I realize these types of comments come from the heart.  Friends and family care and they don’t want to see me hurting. They too miss Zane.  And they miss who I was before he was killed. None of us like change and death is the biggest change of them all.

What they don’t realize is that you can’t fix this.  Death has put us into a state of grief for the remainder of our days.  Some days will be better than others. Some days will bring laughter and joy…I look forward to that. Some days, actually a portion of every day, I am not ok. Something comes along and reminds me I am broken. Something shows up to remind me I am not, and cannot, be the same person I was.

The simple fact is we are broken. We can’t get over it or get past it.  We are broken.  What we do with our brokenness is what is important. How we bring daily practices and new ways of being into our lives is what will help soften our grief. But remove it?  Put it behind us?  That is not possible. Grief will always be a part of our new make-up. It is the other side of love and we have loved deep, therefore we will grieve deep.

And that’s ok. Grief is hard work and part of the work is accepting our brokenness. If you try to hide or fight it or ignore it, it will hit you harder and in many ways. By accepting it, I can face it and then I am able to explore ways that it will fit into my life such that I am not a blubbery angry mess every hour.

When something is broken and you glue the pieces back together, it is not the same as the original beautiful piece. With care and love and time, it can take a different, but still beautiful shape.  Friends and family need to give us patience, and a lot of it, as we redefine ourselves to accommodate our grief and develop into a person that carries brokenness with individual style and grace.

Things We Leave Behind

April 18, 2021 /

As the process of moving continues, my heart becomes heavier. The work seems endless, a purging of decades of items purchased or given that has filled three levels to the ceiling.  Only a third can come with me. And that might be too much. And with each long day done, I crawl into bed hoping that what I have had to leave behind will not come back to haunt me. This is especially true with Zane’s things.

Clearing out his room was by far the hardest room to do.  I would only be able to tolerate a short time, a few things to sort before the memories of these belongings and what they meant to him would bring me to my knees in tears. With that, I would close the door to his room and come back another time.

In the end, I have a box of games and books and leisure items that I will share with his friends. I have packed all his clothes and will decide another time what the fate of each piece will be.  Some will be shared, some will be made into pillows or a quilt or maybe another bear.  (My memory bear, made out of one of his favorite hoodies, is a treasured piece that sits on my bed). I threw out or donated his toys he kept from his childhood; well, a box of favorites is coming with me. I am taking his desk and his bed, hoping it will fit in my tiny new abode. We packed his collection of wines to enjoy with family and friends on special occasions. His room is now ‘staged’ to sell. He would be pleased how tidy it is.

His bathroom was even harder than his bedroom.  I left that to last.  Opening his drawer to find his toothbrush and hair brush, waiting there for him to wake up and use them. His box of contact lenses; he had just renewed his prescription. His cologne and deodorant; I closed my eyes, sprayed it into the air to smell how he would smell after a shower. His daily routine in this bathroom; I can hear him singing in the shower. I can see him rubbing the hair crème between his hands and placing it perfectly to shape his hair. He spent more time on his hair than I did on mine! None of his personal hygiene items will be taken with me. There is a sad finality around this. Packing up his stuff drives home the fact that he will not be stopping by to pick them up.  I will not be helping move them over to his new place. This is it. And that takes a lot of energy.

The hardest thing I will be leaving behind is the imprinted energy of my son growing up and living in this home. I wish I could bottle the energy to open and breathe in his smell, to see his clothes on the floor or the school work scattered on his desk. I wish I could bottle the sound of his laughter as he beat the latest video game.  The emotions and the memories of my son’s life in this home now must reside in my heart.

Perhaps that is why the whole in our heart is so vast; there is a lifetime of photographic moments that fill it.

Choosing the Final Resting Spot

April 11, 2021 /

When my father was dying, we discussed where his final resting place might be.  We agreed it would be with me.  He wanted nothing fancy.  “Put me in a cardboard box and as long as you want me, I will know that I am traveling with you and Jon”. That was 25 years ago and he is still travelling with us.

Choosing your child’s final resting spot is a whole other level.  It is something we should not have to think about, but for the community I live in, it is an ugly reality. This past weekend, our friends invited us to be a part of placing their son in his ‘final resting spot’. It was an experience I was not ready for.

Every detail they agonized over.  Choices of what to place in the tomb with his urn were made. His father wore his son’s clothes and took his baseball cap off to place with the other beloved items.   My husband spoke, welcoming their friends and together we shared our love for their son and their grief.

It was much like a memorial until it was time to seal the tomb. I had no idea it would affect me in the way that it did.  Watching the men lining the top with a heavy bond and then placing the lid to seal the urn and his personal belongings into a place for eternity was heart wrenching. I thought of our sons’ urn at home. I thought of my father’s urn. I can hold or speak to their urn at any time; I can move them from room to room. They are mobile. The thought of having their urns anywhere but with me, seems incomprehensible. And although I truly respect their decision, a final resting spot is not something I had thought about until that afternoon; witnessing the urn placed in a beautiful memorial marble tomb that we will not be able to hold or touch again.  It was final, too final for me.

Each of us has our reasons for what we do. Our choices are made to assist us with what we need to mourn. Each of us is different, yet with a lot of similarities. We want to honor our child, protect our child, and do right by our child, even after death.

Our friends ensured each detail was about their son.  His final resting place is near a pond where he might want to have fished. He is positioned to be ‘looking’ west, towards home. And it has a beautiful bench to sit on. As difficult as it was for them to place their son in a final resting spot, they feel it will bring some peace to know that he is forever safe in a place where all his friends and family can visit. Which we will do.

Plan for no More

April 4, 2021 /

There is something about knowing it is your last time. As we continue to prep to sell our home, I realized that this Easter will be our last one here. Suddenly it becomes very nostalgic. Each thought around what to serve, how the table will look, what could we do extra consumes my thoughts.  And memories of Easters past come back to visit me.

We had years of egg hunts in this home, always ending up in the laundry room where the ‘big prize’ was hidden in the laundry chute. Friends and family would gather around our table, living out Zane’s definition of happiness; good food, good drink and good company.  We have been blessed.

I have kept our Easter traditions since the crash but with new twists. I make Easter bags to share with friends and family which now include a tube of bubbles to honor Zane. My daughter and I still dye eggs, with one, a bright blue for Zane. This ‘last time’ melancholy encourages me to look at this holiday and ask myself, what do I want this Easter to be? The last Easter in my children’s home.

We often say, “Oh, if only I had known it was the last time.  If only I had one more time.” Why don’t we treat each celebration, even each day, like it might be our last?  In the daily hustle, it is hard to slow down enough to think it might be the last time. We believe there will be more, many more, or at least one more.   But we have learned in the most tragic of ways and now we know better, there is never a guarantee for ‘One more’.

I encourage you this year, as holidays and special occasions arrive to treat them like the last time. Slow down to think about past times and traditions built around each one.  Consider ways to do things different or new or what might you always want the same. With each holiday, think of ways you can honor and include our children who are celebrating with us from a different realm. Acknowledging that each celebration may just be the last time does not have to be depressing. In fact, it can be the fuel to invite gratitude into our lives.  And that is good mourning.

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