Good Mourning Grief

A blog about my adventures as a grief warrior

Month: March 2024

An Easter Message from Heaven

March 31, 2024 /

In our family, Easter is another excuse to gather.  It includes traditions; my daughter still insists on an egg hunt. We try new things. This year the highlighted cocktail is a ‘bunny mary’ (same as a bloody mary but with carrot juice!).  I am sure Zane would approve.  It is a fun, light-hearted and simple holiday but with a deep message. It kicks off the season to warmer days and the fresh smells of rain. It represents natures message of new beginnings and religions message of the same, to live fully, the life we are blessed with.

One of my like-life visits from Zane, after he was killed, was he came bouncing up the stairs to greet me, wearing a bright blue jacket. He ran into my room, grinning from ear to ear. I hugged him and squealed, “you’re alive, you’re alive…” and he smiled and then melted onto the rug as I screamed, “come back!” I have never forgotten that dream.  It felt so real, and it came at Easter.

The following Easter, I dreamt I had come into the room and Zane was at the end of a table, sorting eggs & treats. I asked what he was up to, and he replied, “It’s Easter, we must get ready.” He seemed content sorting out the different Easter symbols. I woke, disturbed, wondering what I was to be ready for. And each year since, I have had Zane visit at Easter with a similar message. It wasn’t until this year I started considering any underlining significance of these visits when my father came with Zane to tell me, point blank, watch out, for this is a season where things happen. Subtle, but important things.

We have a lot of birthdays around this season. My father passed away at Easter. The kids’ first pet arrived at Easter. We have had friends die at this time of year. Why was my father accompanying Zane this time.  In this dream, according to my father, I have not been paying attention.  He needed to come with Zane to set me straight!  So typical of dear old dad.

My belief that spring is the season to bring into play your best self was something I learned from my family and shared with my children. I am sure my father and son’s awareness of my constant go-go-go, my total disregard for what ails me, and lately, my scary high blood pressure, has them rolling their eyes and shaking their finger at me as does my earthly family. I know this sounds so far out there but I could feel the two of them sitting next to me. Telling me to take some of my own advice!

The Easter visits, the vividness of Zane’s physical body coming through slumber has brought an annual message of hope, of confirmation he is still here, of how he is aware of what we are all doing. And possibly a telling of how he wants more for me. On earth, Zane would joke about my self-care by giving me a hug or a loving slap on the shoulder and say, “don’t die on me yet, mama”. Easter’s message of renewed life and how faith and hope bring this about for all of us, is the reminder my son has been bringing to me each year. An assurance that they are with us and that they want the best for us.

Oh, how the holidays he knows I care for make me miss him more.  His appearances as I sleep reflect the communications he had when he lived here. This one I can hear him say, “It’s spring mama, take care of you.”

The Commonalities of Child Loss

March 24, 2024 /

One of my friends was scared when her child was diagnosed with cancer. She survived and is now cancer free. One of my friends is scared as her child is currently fighting cancer. I didn’t have a chance to be scared. Sudden death does not include any time to be scared. It does not bring with it anticipatory grief. This has its own merit and its own pain. The cause of death can affect the grief process.

Our society likes to fit death into specific types, each one dictating the period we are permitted to grieve openly, how we should feel, behave, and move forward with our grief. We are judged by how we grieve. “Oh, she acts as if nothing happened.” or “It was just a dog…what is wrong with her?” or “She needs to be there for her other children.” or “She is too young (or too old) to remarry now”.   Society has it wrong. In the end, it is the person grieving that must find their voice and stand firm in the chosen way they need to grieve, often leaving behind family and friends who cannot support this.

One cause of death brought this thinking to mind.  I was reading about miscarriages and the impact of how irrelevant our society seems to address this loss. One in four women will have a miscarriage.  That’s how we look at it.  Another statistic. But what about that woman, the one in four. She was holding life inside her. She was excited about being a mother. No matter the debate on when life begins, if that woman was anticipating giving birth, to care for and do her best for this fetus, she is now a mother. No matter what fate brings or choices she had (or didn’t have) control over, she is a mother.

So why do we not stand next to that family like we would if it had been born and lived for a longer period of time. Why are we advised not to ‘celebrate’ we are pregnant for the first trimester? The medical answer is because that is when most miscarriages happen. Perhaps this is our society’s way of shielding others from the pain of a potential loss.  It is absurd when you think about the instructions to not hope until you know more, when we never truly know the fate of our children. Ask any grieving mother. I personally had no idea of the trauma, the pressure to accept and move on mothers of a miscarriage or stillborn baby endure.  Not until I started hearing their stories.  A mother’s umbilical cord connects her to a soul, transforming her life. That cord is eternal.

As a mother who lost her child, I can relate. One can argue at what age is more painful to lose a child, but every age brings with it the same feelings of loss, of deep anguish. Each of these deaths, regardless of the child’s age, brings the questions of ‘what if’, and ‘could I have done something different’. The only concrete known is that the heart is now broken.

The ugly and truly sad common denominator of every mother who has lost a child is that it brings with it the anger that fate has stolen our opportunity of more time with our child. It robs us of memories, dreams, hopes we had for this child. It replaces a future with a past we long for and a bitter-sweet present.

We are taught that loss is loss and the greatest loss of all is your loss. Whatever loss that was. The cause of death does bring different elements with it but what is important is that we have ended up in the same place of eternal sorrow. How we got there is minimal compared to the long journey ahead.   Grief is universal.

Are You Prepared?

March 17, 2024 /

We have been visiting our friend in hospice for a month or so now. Everyone is aware that treatment of his brain cancer has stopped.  There is nothing else that can be done. We listen as the doctors tell us what the next stages will look like and to be prepared. Be prepared? How does one truly do that?

Each morning begins with a trip to visit him. He smiles, we chat, he tells us he loves us. We say it back. The conversations are light, about a morning walk he had (in his mind as we know he has not left the room).  We read to him the daily verse of ‘the big book’ of A.A and we analyze that. He continues to inspire us, coach us as he lays there talking about life, about how he wishes to live.  “…And then some,” he says.  

Ice cream, diet coke and tapioca pudding.  These are some of his favorite things. As we sit one morning watching him eat a drumstick of chocolate and peanuts, he says, “when I don’t want to eat ice cream, you can start to worry about me.” We laugh.

One visit I asked if he felt his prayers were heard. He said most of them. I asked what do you do about the ones that are not answered? He said, “I pray harder.” I hugged him before I left and noticed the color of his eyes, the new way he was breathing. I leaned in close to his face and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, right?” He nodded. I asked, “can you let me know when I won’t be able to?” He looked at me, silent, then he squeezed my hand and whispered, “I’ll try.”

Things have started to really change now.  His desire to sit up, to walk, to chat for longer than ten minutes has vanished. “I had a long walk this morning, I need to just rest now” he would say as he closed his eyes.  Our cue to leave. Visits are still daily, but now we find him sleeping and he falls back to sleep as we chat. I think on some level, our friend is trying to prepare. Silently, I am sure his talks with God and the realization he stays dormant weighs on his mind. These thoughts take space with his tumor. There is an irony to all this; staying mentally positive so that you may live while the reason you are dying is found in the same organ.

Who knows when your last breath will be. But we know it is sooner than later for our sweet friend. His son calls to share his visit, how hard it is on him to see his father like this. He asks if we are aware his father is not here for long. Yes, we know. We talked about how he feels about that. He believes he is comfortable with what has been said. We have all shared memories and thoughts and endearments of how important he is to us now and forever. We have prepared ourselves for the inevitable. There’s that word again. Prepared.

When grief arrives, it rips you apart and ‘prepared’ crumbles into a million tears and questions about was it enough. I don’t know how to prevent this.  I just know it happens. My heart aches for his children, his siblings, his friends, for us. His son says he knows one cannot be fully prepared, but he will find strength in knowing his father is not in any pain.  I smile. It is that small but comforting truth to which we will cling to. It might help us to be prepared for the moment that anticipatory grief becomes eternal heartache.

Never Forgotten

March 10, 2024 /

Three years ago, I sat with a mom who had just lost her son. We shared the feelings of shock and despair, and she looked at me and asked, “does it get any better?” I reached over and took her hand and said softly, “No. It doesn’t. Whatever you begin to read and whatever people will tell you, this pain does not leave. You learn to live with it.” She started to cry. I joined her.

This week, as I was scrolling through Facebook, I came upon a post from her. She wrote about her son’s angelversary coming up and what she was planning to do to honor him. She wrote about how she has learned that people expected her to ‘get over it and move on’ and she has experienced friends and family not wanting to talk about her son anymore. She writes, “…he existed, he was full of life, he mattered…” as if she needed to defend her feelings and the life of her son.

I have never forgotten her son. He was a friend of our family’s, and we mention him often in our home. Reading her post, I was encouraged to visit his grave. I bought a St. Patty’s Day necklace with a rapper style medallion I thought he would like. He was born on the 17th of March and enjoyed writing and singing rap songs.  I poured a little Jameson’s into a vial and invited my husband to join me. We did a toast to him and the beauty of his earthly being that brought us all so much joy.  We placed the necklace next to the grave and drew a heart in the snow.

The biggest fear of every parent who has lost a child is that they will be forgotten. Our culture encourages us to say goodbye and then move on, leaving our loved ones in the past. It may be because it hurts too much, or they feel tentative to share their feelings as if saying their name reminds us, they are gone. The thing is, we need no reminders and speaking about them makes us feel strongly connected to our loved one. In the grief community, we are taught that to say their name, to keep the memories alive, is healing.  They will always be a part of us and including them in present day conversation can be soothing.  That is what this mother was telling her Facebook friends. A reminder that she lives with grief but honoring her son, brings her comfort and strength.

I called her later that day to ask how she was holding up. She said, “you are right, it does not get better, you learn to mask your feelings and carry on with a fake smile.”  “I’m sorry”, I replied. And then I assured her that her son will never be forgotten. For as long as we are here, her boy’s name will always be spoken. His memories, his laugh, will always be a part of our St. Patty’s Day. We are lucky to know him.  And I thanked her for the reminder she wrote publicly, letting others know. Our children lived and they are never to be forgotten. Say their name. This is how we keep them alive.

“Ageless Soul” by Thomas Moore

March 3, 2024 /

Zane had a thing about old age. He didn’t like it. He watched our friends grow older with complicated health issues and told me that wasn’t what he would want. I laughed at him saying he had little choice so get used to it! (I see the irony of my reply now). Zane shared his belief; “The idea is to die young, as late as possible.” We chuckled.

I bought the book “Ageless Soul” by Thomas Moore, thinking it was about our children whose soul is ageless because they departed from earth too soon. The tag line of this book states it was about the lifelong journey toward meaning and joy. I was wrong; it had nothing to do with the eternal lives of our children, so much as it was about each of us growing older and how to do so gracefully. I read it anyway.

Thomas Moore is a bestselling author of books related to cultivating a mature spiritual life. His most recent professional position is that of psychotherapist to which he shares client experiences, science research and case studies, all as evidence on the importance of growing old with poise. The book starts by outlining the signs that we all experience as we age and challenging us to think differently about gray hairs and achy bones. It’s a good thing in Mr. Moore’s opinion. And if we were to accept it as part of the cycle of life, rather than fighting it, our role on this earth would change from ‘old person’ to ‘sage person’ filled with experiences and knowledge that could be shared with others.

What I liked about this book, besides the inspiration to feeling ok with the inevitable, is that a lot of his advice to accepting age graciously, we grief warriors are already doing because of our loss. He assures us that melancholy is ok, that feeling this way you may discover things about you and your life that you would not if always cheerful. Old age gives us the opportunity to digest our past experiences and discover who we are from them. He also believes that honoring our loved ones who have passed is essential in growing old gracefully.  It can change us when we accept that this is how it is and how do we want to live with it.  Kicking and screaming is not a viable option. Nor is ignoring it.

The common emotions related to aging such as being angry, feelings of loneliness, or my favorite, your soul getting sick physically because your body is, resonated with how closely aging is to coping with grief. Youth is lost. We are no longer the person we were in our younger years. Who are we now?  Do we withdraw and become that grumpy old person? Or do we open our hearts to experiencing new adventures and share our life, including our past, with those we know and love. And those we don’t. Mr. Moore suggests we can become elders, relate to younger generations, and cultivate a legacy for when we depart.  Our golden years can demonstrate a life that is commemorated, despite the pain and suffering of the past.

At the end of the book, I thought it was serendipity that I decided to read it. We are aware that grief ages us faster than the person who has not experienced deep grief. With the writing of “Ageless Soul”, Mr. Moore wished to teach the reader how to embrace the richness of experience to feel fulfilled. Whether he intended to or not, his encouragement to think now about how we can grow old with peace and grace complements the lessons we learn in grief.

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