Good Mourning Grief

A blog about my adventures as a grief warrior

Month: July 2022

The Physical Damage of Grief

July 31, 2022 /

At my annual doctor’s appointment, I was expecting the usual battery of tests and probes to be told I am ok. Living with chronic physical pain, I am used to “everything looks great” even though I don’t feel that way. But this year was different. When your doctor pulls up the stool, closer to you, and starts the conversation with “we have to count on diagnostic tests and when they fail us, we are all in pain…” What the hell?

According to this year’s blood and x-ray parade, it is confirmed I can add lupus, severe osteoarthritis and a cancer scare to my list of health ailments. Dear God. It is almost laughable. How do I go from ‘perfectly healthy’ to ‘this is worrisome’ in one year?  I call my trusted herbalist to chat with her about these new findings and part of her advice is to review what am I doing to address the anger of my grief. Wow.

I came home stunned.  I randomly opened my journal to a page in December 2020 that read:

You have no idea

How much energy it takes

To keep the screams inside me

From escaping

My soul is in constant pain.

Can grief cause a major illness? We know it effects our memory, our heart hurts, we are emotionally stripped but major physical ailments. Isn’t this just about growing old? It sent me down a web search rabbit hole and here we have it.  

Research says that the emotions of anger, resentment, hostility, and grief unexpressed can harbor and change our health at a cellular level.  There is a definite connection between life-threatening health conditions and trauma experienced two years or more prior.

When we are grieving, our health practitioners, family and friends say we must take care of ourselves. How many of us listen, truly listen to this advice?  How many have a daily regime in place to address the anger and resentment of our grief so that it does not fester inside our bodies to create more issues? For 3 years, I have been dealing well with grief. Or so I thought.  I had not taken seriously enough the fact that anger is a part of grief that necessitates attention.

If this year’s check up has illuminated one thing, it is this. We need to be very cognizant of the length of time that grief has accompanied us. The longer the emotions related to grief are with us, and ignored, the more dangerous they become. The internal screams need to be released. For the sake of our physical health.

The Promise for Red Roses

July 24, 2022 /

My brother-in-law and I took advantage of time before he departed.  We talked about many things including his love for my sister. A request he asked of me was to surprise her for their, what should be, 32nd anniversary. I agreed. I was told to buy red roses from Costco. Those two factors were not to be compromised.  They had to be red roses.  They had to come from Costco. When someone who is actively dying asks you for a favor, you do not ask why.  You say, “I promise”. And I did promise.

When the anniversary came around, life was busy.  It would be easier to pick up roses at Safeway while I was getting groceries.  I heard Dan’s voice, “has to be Costco”. So off I went to battle the line up and traffic to pick up roses. They had so many beautiful rose colors, and so many types of flowers.  There was one bouquet that was stunning, and I thought to myself how my sister would enjoy these. Again, I heard Dan’s voice, “has to be red roses”.  I chuckled to myself.  A promise is a promise.

When we arrived at my sister’s home for the anniversary dinner, I handed her the roses and said, “You must not have heard the doorbell, I found these on your porch.”  “The doorbell is broken,” she said, looking for the card.  I kept walking into the kitchen. She followed and I watched as she opened the envelope. The card was signed, Love Dan. She gasped. Her eyes filled with tears.  “Did someone forge this?” she asked.  I hugged her and said they were from her sweetie.

As she put the flowers into a vase, she asked me, “did Dan tell you red roses?”.  “Yes,” I said, “and they had to come from Costco”.  She started to laugh through her tears and told us of how he brought her red roses from Costco for a long time, and she doesn’t like roses!  “He brought me a bouquet of them every week”, she said, “and finally I just had to tell him, I don’t like roses!”

We laughed.  What a wonderful memory to recall.  What a double whammy that Dan promised to play tricks on me and did so in recruiting me to spoil my sister with something he knew she did not like. It was so him to remind us of a funny ‘do you remember when’ moment.  He did this for us, through his request and it brought us joy. We sat around the dinner table sharing stories and laughing and each of us knowing, that Dan was right there.  At the table, laughing with us.

We know too well that life does not always tell us when we will depart.  When we are given an estimated death date it does give us an opportunity to hold conversations, to make promises. We can prepare for their departure. And, during a very sad time, together, we can plan future events that will become memories our loved ones will share with us across the bridge of life and death.

Stampede Lesson

July 17, 2022 /

In our home, Stampede is a holiday. It is met with anticipation and excitement. I have a tradition of sharing one of the ten days with my kids: games, shopping, mini-donuts and trying the latest weird foods before sending them off to Nashville North. This year was no different. And yet it was.

We couldn’t find skeet ball.  We didn’t play the water gun game. I didn’t see any bubbles like last year. The connections to Zane being with us seemed non-existent. So, although I enjoyed my day, I came home, and grief flooded over me like the tsunami it can be.

I pulled out my journal, calmed my breathing and began practicing my automatic writing I have recently learned to do. Why were you not there Zane?  I am so afraid that the day will come where you will not show me signs. Was today a glimpse of what is to be? I can’t bear this…

And suddenly my writing answered me. What are you talking about? Did you not hold and admire the beautiful feather created by Marney Delver?   You always complain that the wine is not good and suddenly your favorite chardonnay is there for you to enjoy, is that coincidence? What about the art piece; the bear holding the crystal ball, and the caption read, “the energy continues”. You had so many signs and you felt them. Your soul knew.

Sitting in my room, the tears splashing on the paper as I wrote without thinking, my grief settled down. I closed my journal and reflected. It was true.  There were so many signs.  Different.  But as real as ever.

We know that our loved ones send us signs. What I experienced this Stampede was that our loved ones can change how they remind us they are here. The signs we see that bring us comfort when they first depart might change. Or they might stay (I still see bubbles and feathers and know it is Zane) but new signs can begin to show up. We all grow, experience new things in life.  Perhaps this is also true of the other realm. Perhaps our loved ones wish to ‘shake it up’ for us, experience new things with us and let us know they are with us in new and cool ways. If we are stuck on needing the signs we first receive, and close our mind, and our eyes, to other signs, we might miss their visit.

Stampede brought another great year of bonding, laughter and this year, a lesson. Our loved ones are always letting us know they are with us, in different ways that we can experience if we open our broken hearts. “Didn’t we have a great day?” I hear Zane ask me.  “Feel the joy. I am here.” 

Heavenly Pen Pals

July 10, 2022 /

Most of us have tried journaling or writing to a loved one who no longer lives on earth. It is therapeutic. It helps us remember things that were and shares on paper what we wish had been. Recently, I signed up for a course to move journaling to a new level. It is called automatic writing.

Automatic writing is about connecting to your higher power, whatever you wish to call that. It is designed to open your subconscious mind to receive messages.  It is a mindful practice done either early morning or late at night, after a deep meditation.  It begins with a gratitude prayer, thanking your higher power for surrounding you with love, light, and protection. There are questions to ask, and, in your relaxed state, you begin writing the answers. You do not think of the answers, there is no pondering, you just write.

Sometimes, nothing comes to mind, and you write, “I don’t know what to write” and you write it over and over. With practice, you begin to write deep insights of who you are, what you need and what is your current purpose. The mystery of this type of writing is that your answers may be influenced by ‘angels’ whose energy comes through pen to paper. Because you are writing, without thinking, it isn’t until you finish and read what was written that you start to see messages that may sound like a loved one holding a conversation with you.  This is a tricky concept to grasp; the dead coming to talk to us through writing? It is profound.

The course is a 21-day course, which I have another week to finish. When I reflect on my writings, from first day to now, I see a change.  How I describe myself is different. What I write has a theme running through it. In this course, I have discovered or maybe it has just confirmed what I already knew. I feel stuck, I feel anxious, I lack direction.  All things very typical with grief. Through automatic writing I have been able to focus on this, asking and writing about why I feel this way, how do I move forward. My writing brings ideas I had not thought of and insights that give me hope. Some of my writings seem to be advice from my loved ones, including Zane. 

“Mama, you must take care of what is your role. You want, need this.  You know-you need to bring you new ways to be you. You don’t get it but trust it. You know in your soul, this is right… You da best.”

I am not sure how the magic works, if it is wishful writing or a spiritual conduit, and I don’t care. What I have discovered with this course is a new way to explore both sides of the realm and to uncover who I might be as I face my grief. Automatic writing gives us one more way to become mindful, and to feel connected to those we can no longer hold. It is like being a pen pal with the angels.

Just Ask

July 3, 2022 /

We are told that if we wish for a sign from our loved ones, to just ask. Call out to them and suggest you need to know they are near.  Some say you can even specify the type of sign you wish to see. I shy away from this practice because I don’t want to be disappointed. But this weekend, I tried it.  And it works.

We were in Canmore. The magic of the mountains that Zane and I both love, poured over me as I stood alone on the balcony. The crisp morning air, the view of the wooden path to town below me. I looked up and said, “I’m here, are you?” Suddenly, out of nowhere walked a man along the path. He wore a royal blue suit jacket and tan dress pants and beige shoes. He had a Herschel backpack on. He looked just like Zane, who had the same attire. I ducked to try to get a closer, longer look but he faded away into the trees that shade the path. I smiled. I imagined Zane off to work and I laughed that my motherly advice of the kids not being able to move past Canmore when they grew up, Zane had honored.  There he was off to work. 

The night before we left, I was meditating in bed. My window open to feel the night breeze, I lay with my eyes closed and let the wave of gratitude for being there flood over me. I whispered to Zane, “I am thankful for the signs, I know you are here, I just miss your laugh”.  A few minutes later a laugh, a belly laugh from outside my window broke the silence. I opened my eyes just as another laugh filled the air. The reality was there was group of young men walking back to the hotel, laughing, and talking. The one laugh was so like Zane’s. I started to giggle. “Thanks, Zane, I needed that” I said.

I believe there is no harm that I imagined the young man that morning, looking so much like my son, was my son.  Nor was there any harm that I imagined Zane was part of the group coming home from a party, laughing at the antics of the night they had. We dream of what our children might be doing if they were still living on earth.  We dream of who our children might have become, where they would be living. When another human who behaves or appears in some manner like our loved one comes along, I think it is fair that we may dream, ever so briefly, that this might have been them. If life was different. This does not make us delusional. We know better but the comfort of pretending, for just a moment so to feel good but not so long that we become depressed, makes these types of signs playful.   

When we ask for a sign that they are present, they provide.  Whether it is a feather or a dime or a look-a-like or a laugh, it is a reminder that they are very much present. They are near. They are with us.  I encourage you to just ask.

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