Author: Mama Fish (Page 23 of 26)

When Grief Comes without Warning

February 1, 2021 / Mama Fish

The black Toyota Scion parked next to my car set me off. This was Zane’s car…the driver was his age. I cried all the way to the grocery store. I fixed my make up and went inside to shop. Then the song came over the intercom. A song Zane shared with me and the words sliced me in half. I am crying, bent over the shopping cart, hoping no one will come down the aisle while I try to pull myself together.

Joey, the cashier, asks me how I am doing. “Fine, thank you”, I say and turn my head so not to cry again. He tells me about how his staff can’t figure out why he smiles all the time. How he is happy because it is so much lighter than being sad. He says he is an empath. And that was all I needed. I burst into a full-on raging sob. I am apologizing as he is asking me what’s wrong, am I ok. I am crying how I just lost my son and he was an empath, how he would say these sorts of things and how life now sucks…

I felt for poor Joey, that sweet, smiling empath. I am sure he needed an energy bath after my tantrum. He holds my hands and whispers; “I’m sorry for your son”. I apologize, again, and ask him to keep smiling. He is a light for all of us. I leave, sobbing all the way to the car.

Mourning is good for us-it is grief expressed. I should be really good at it. But I seem to be worse. I am a shell; a now, aching, pressured, and screaming mess. I can’t fix this. The biggest thing I need to fix, I can’t. The pain is unbearable.

I wrote the above experience in my journal in April of 2019. 8 months after Zane was killed. Flash forward another 21 months and I am having a bad day, struggling with grief and find myself grocery shopping, albeit in a different store, and a similar song comes on. My eyes fill with tears. But this time is different.

This time, time has passed, although it still feels like yesterday. I have had (lots of) practice with handling grief bursts in public. I have had training reaching out to my son on his new realm. I have a better realization of what are signs, postcards, being sent to me. I am more secure in my belief that Zane is still with me. So I say, quietly, out loud; “hey Zane, love this song, need you here to listen to it with me”. I hold out my hand to my side. It is my way of feeling how my son would have held my hand. It gives me reassurance. And I take my moment. And yes, I stand in the aisle hurting, grief crashing down on me. But this one time, I am not drowning. I feel my son. I know he is near and I take a deep breath to push my cart forward. And I thank Zane for helping me through this moment.

I can’t say this happens every time. I can’t say it happens often. But when it does, I am grateful the waves of grief are not all consuming. These manageable moments strengthen my hope that I may have the ability to move forward. With the memories of when Zane was physically here and the new memories I experience with him in spirit.

Distracting Grief with On-Line Learning

January 25, 2021 / Mama Fish

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 / Mama Fish

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 / Mama Fish

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 / Mama Fish

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.

It’s a wrap-Holidays 2020 Done!

December 28, 2020 / Mama Fish

We made it. I can’t say I’ve ever liked the hassle of the holidays. There is too much of everything; food, wine, spending…I am sure that Christmas didn’t start out like this. Leave it to us to make a spiritual holiday a commercial event. There always seems to be drama too. Who didn’t get invited, whose house, which day to be at is always difficult with blended families. The ban on gathering inside our homes caused more tension. Friends, who we would always welcome into our home, this year, dropped their gifts at the door and left. It goes against my open door policy. The need to be together and share stories helps our grief. This season, because we were limited, I know, my grief was intensified.

Two of our friends, who lost their only child, dropped by with a book that Zane would love. It was a thoughtful gift, recognizing our son, and our pain, as they miss their own daughter. I broke ‘the rule’ and hugged her. My heart ached for the emptiness I know she feels. I wanted to pull her daughter from the heavens and hand her back to her. There is nothing you can do or say to comfort this level of pain. And so I just hugged her.

This was our third holiday season without the happy go lucky boy of mine here to make the mashed potatoes and doubt we have enough gravy. Zane loved gravy on everything, and lots of it, so a traditional gravy boat was not adequate. Our gravy boat is a massive Alice in Wonderland tea pot. Used only for gravy. This year I could not bring it out to use.

The first Christmas we were in shock, the second in disbelief. This third year I am angry. It’s time this cruel trick was over and he showed up, like physically showed up. I am sick of pretending that I am ok. And so I brought the holidays in for my family to enjoy them and when it was over, I went to bed and took the next day off.

Alas. We made it. May this holiday be a reminder, fellow grief warriors, of the incredible strength you have. Take a look at what this season demanded of you. We prepared for a holiday, compromised by the current times. We travelled through malls, saw TV ads, and had casual conversations about the season’s glitter and the merriment of it all. Something we might not feel but we nod anyways. With our heads held up and a smile on our brave face, we took on another Christmas without the physical presence of our beloved. This courage, this strength to plod on facing the appalling reality we live with is something we do. Perhaps this strength comes from the love we have for our missed one. Perhaps it is a way to honor them; to represent them. Perhaps it is their very essence that provides us with this incredible strength. (A topic for another day). But today, give yourself a yahoo, a pat on the back, a self hug, for managing this difficult time of year.

Holidays 2020, done. We made it. And together, we will face 2021 with that same strength.

Filling the Empty Chair

December 20, 2020 / Mama Fish

The holidays are here. It is a time of year when all messages are about hearts coming home, being together, cheer and joy that becomes, to those grieving, a LOUD reminder that there sits ‘an empty chair’. The pain is compounded when your loved one was born or passed this time of year.

This morning, friends from our grief community dropped by to bring us a piece of cake, napkins, chocolates, a sour candy cane and pictures of their sweet son. Tomorrow he should be turning 27. I know they have planned this for the last while. A distraction from the empty chair, they chose to create a celebration that had components of what would be happening if he was still living here on earth.

Celebrating what should be but cannot be isn’t easy. It takes a lot of energy to which we have little or none. And how do we celebrate one that can no longer be physically here to enjoy it? We do, by reminding ourselves that our children are still with us. However you wish to define it; in spirit or energy or in your heart, our children are still with us. And keeping special occasions, including their favorites in your gatherings, is important. I believe our children want us to celebrate them. I believe it is a way to honor their life. I believe it is a way to create space to remember them and the unique place they have in our lives.

I know, in the moments of planning a birthday sharing for their son, it brought my friends some comfort. It created an opportunity for them to share stories about their son. I now know sour candy is his favorite. I know blue is his favorite color. By creating a birthday remembrance for their son, and then sharing it with us, he is recognized and celebrated. And that is good mourning.

Forever, I will speak your name

December 14, 2020 / Mama Fish

Yesterday was National Candle Lighting Day. My on-line support groups blew up with pictures of loved ones no longer on earth. I am always shocked at the number of children who have finished their journey here, too early and whose moving to another realm has left so many here, lost.

Our own support group gathered in a park. Bundled to face the cold, cold weather, we huddled and shared how we were feeling with the upcoming holidays. Covid was a big topic; how it has brought in the walls and the isolation heightens the loneliness of grief. The ‘empty chair’ at Christmas was an acknowledgement; how this time is so different now. There were tears. There was a nodding of agreement to the feelings shared. We wish we didn’t know the people holding their candle and speaking their child’s name. Oh how we wish we didn’t belong here.

But we do. And as I looked around and listened to my fellow grief warriors, sharing with raw honesty, I also felt strength and love. This group gets me. This group walks the path I walk. Suddenly, I could feel the presence of our children. Through speaking their names and sharing some of the reasons why their child loved this season, the chill of the evening seemed to melt away.

The hour together reminded me I am not alone. And the hugs we shared reminded me I am loved. It also reminded me of the importance of human contact. We must find ways to keep in touch. It is essential for our mental health.

We reminded ourselves too, that we need to speak our loved one’s name. Forever. We must honor them. Forever. And we did that by showing up and speaking about them and lighting a candle to send a message to the heaven’s, to our children. You are loved. Forever. You are remembered. Forever.

Zane, you will always be the light of my life. Forever.

Examining the ‘What Ifs’

December 6, 2020 / Mama Fish

This past week a neighbor lost her 36 year old daughter to a diabetic complication. As we all do, she is experiencing anger. We want to blame something or someone for this terrible injustice. She believes that if our current times were different, she would have been visiting her daughter more and would have been able to support her better, avoiding this outcome. It is the beginning of her ‘what ifs’.

My ‘what ifs’ with Zane are long and complicated. What if I had listened to his fears more? What if I had insisted he not go out? What if he had stayed there a little longer? What if I had sent him to school away from here? What if….and each time a ‘what if’ comes up, it brings with it a gut wrenching agony.

‘What ifs’ are about examining what control we might have had and why we didn’t exercise it then that we might not be here now. ‘What ifs’ are all about how things might have turned out differently. The problem with ‘what ifs’ is that they can’t be answered. We don’t know. We will never know. So the possible outcomes of the ‘what ifs’ only create regrets or exaggerate a regret we already had. And regrets complicate grief.

So how do we stop the ‘what if’ scenarios that play over and over again? I believe you can’t and I also believe that sometimes facing the pain of the ‘what ifs’ can bring a little healing.

Some ‘what ifs’ we face are about things we couldn’t control in the first place. What if I had insisted he not go out? He was 26; he would have called me cute and told me he was going. By facing this ‘what if’ and understanding this was never in my control, I can let it go. I am so sad that he chose to go out that night, but why shouldn’t he have? He was enjoying a beautiful night with a beautiful friend. If they hadn’t been killed, I would have wanted this night to happen for him. There would have been no ‘what if’.

What if I had sent him to school? I don’t know his life plan. This ‘what if’ understanding is powerful. Only God knows the plan and thus many of our ‘what ifs’ are known by God, the Universe, whatever your higher power belief is. So a bigger picture is in place; one that we don’t see or understand in our grief. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

I try not to soak in the ‘what ifs’ because there are no answers. If I do go there, I ask myself, do I know for certain that ‘what if’ would have kept him alive? No. My ego may think it can, but the truth is, I will never know. So I shift my thinking to what I do know. I think of all the things I did do, we did have and my mind begins to move on to more pleasant memories of our life together.

‘Tis the Season to be MADD

November 30, 2020 / Mama Fish

Recently my daughter asked how do we make change or increase awareness about the way Zane was killed. “If it was cancer”, she said, “I could be a part of a number of things to help promote, prevent and belong to…people get it. But what do people do about drugged driving?” Well, there is MADD and there is National Drunk & Drugged Driving Prevention Month (which happens in December) and there is Safe Driving Week…there are options. It got me to thinking, why have I not joined one of these? The truth is, I’m not sure which one is for me.

When the officer told us that Zane’s death was not an accident, that they were killed by a drugged driver, that it was a collision that could have been prevented, anger was the first emotion I felt. How the hell did this happen? How did anyone not notice? How could this man’s friends let him drive drugged? Why would he get behind the wheel when he was high? Why did no one see them and report them? Where were the police? How can something so avoidable be the reason that, not one but three people died on that road? Oh, the insanity, the utter grief that my son was killed by a man who shouldn’t have been driving in the first place.

I felt such hate for the driver that took away so much from so many. And then I stumbled upon a social media page of his. It had pictures of him, of his family, his sister who is my daughter’s age. It was the picture of his mom that I stopped scrolling and stared at her. There she was; the mother of the man who killed my son. I thought to myself how she would be sitting in her home, planning her son’s funeral, looking through his pictures and remembering happier times. I am sure she was a typical mother who loved her son and did her very best to ensure he was safe and healthy and happy. And with that, the anger melted into sadness and all I felt was pain for her. She was another mom who had just lost her son. This was a fellow mother who will live the rest of her life without hugs and the sound of her son’s laugh. Whose dreams of what he could have been will never come to fruition. She was sentenced to live in the same community as I do. It was not her fault. The rest is just details. Messy. Ugly. Details.

The year my son was killed there were 4,423 drug-impaired driving charges and 4,633 deaths due to drug overdose. On average, 4 Canadians are killed each day in alcohol/drug related motor vehicle crashes.

My daughter is right; we need to shout this out loud. Whether it is addiction or the victim of drugged driving, drugs are killing more of our children than any other cause. My question is why is this? And maybe that’s the focus we should be taking. That is the cause I want to join.