Good Mourning Grief

A blog about my adventures as a grief warrior

Tag: #coping (Page 2 of 2)

There is No Boxing Up Grief

December 26, 2021 /

It is boxing day. I had thought I wanted to shake up this holiday and it happened. Christmas ended with my daughter going to see her fiancé’s family after giving us a gift to go enjoy the night in Canmore. We took the dog. I drove.  It was -28. We found Famous Chinese Food open and shared a dinner for one in our room. We had wine and magazines and appies (previously packed in Calgary to accompany our adventure). All in all, a nice night.  Different. The mountains are always a soothing sight and the fact that Payton wished this for me was a gift.

I received some wonderful gifts this season. Among them was a gift from Alyssa.  This thoughtful young woman dated Zane and remained friends with our family after Zane was killed.  She is the one that filled our home and albums of incredible photos she and Zane had taken on their adventures. Last year, she gave me a framed print of Zane and her sitting on Santa’s knee. This year, she posted a ‘live picture’ of Zane. We could hear his voice and see him smile as he turned in the three seconds of time this photo carried. It was alive. We all enjoyed this gift.

In Canmore, I took my phone out after Jon and I had retired to bed and played this picture.  Over and over. Hearing his voice, seeing his gentle shy smile.  He was enjoying that day.  I began to think of how many days he enjoyed, his adventures with his camera, his friends, the girls that he loved. And my grief came crashing into the room to sit next to me.

I know I am a proponent of taking time out to feel your pain and reflect, meeting your grief face to face. However, on the very cold Christmas night, huddled in the silent room, the hustle of the season faded away, and left me sitting in the middle of a lot of memories of holidays past. My reality became very loud. My holidays are no longer filled with his incredible laugh and tight hugs and no matter what I do to ease the pain, the holidays seem to bring it bubbling to the surface. I know this. We all know this.  It is why the holidays are dreaded.

I remembered what we learned about grief bursts. I took a deep breath and closed my phone. I took another deep breath. I poured myself a tea and pet Tango. I curled up with a pillow and reached out to my grief friends online. “Thinking of you…” And then I talked to Zane. “Would love a visit; I know you are here but send me a sign. I am really missing you right now”.  I took out a magazine (another gift I received) and started reading it, letting my mind fill with health tips and new recipes to try. And I nodded off to sleep.

We know things don’t get easier; we just grow stronger with practice.  And the holidays offer us lots of practice! We shook things up, tried something new.  And it was lovely overall.  What I realized is, although I don’t want, I need distractions at the holidays.  I was reminded that grief travels with you. Santa can’t bring me the miracle I want. The ghosts of Christmas past will show up.  I am not surprised by these understandings, but I am a little saddened. And why I think next year I will choose noise and a movie. Distractions have their place. Christmas is one of them.

The Need to Switch Up the Holidays

November 21, 2021 /

I continue to think about the holidays, and how to shake them up so that joy is found. How do we plan this festive season, filling in ‘the empty chair’ that is the elephant in the room?

We are taught to honor our children, especially during the holidays. So, each year I think of creative ways that Zane would appreciate to celebrate his energy and his love he had for this life. His birthdays are easier.  We have tied ribbons to trees, played stampede games (with prizes), and passed out pay it forward cards. His last birthday I made a ’30 things to do for Zane’ in honor of his 30th birthday. Christmas seems harder and why is that?

It might be because birthdays seem to be about the individual.  We celebrate the person, who they are, what they did or do and how that makes us feel. Christmas is melancholier. This holiday is promoted about being together and ‘coming home’ and it all working out in the end. All things that are not possible for us. And it is this overall innuendo of what Christmas should be that I think makes it worse than other annual holidays.

If there is truth to this theory, then what can we do to soften it? I think the suggestion of what we do to honor our loved ones plays a different role here. Maybe the past holidays I have tried to ‘bring him home’ too much.  I have his own tree decorated and his culinary favorites forefront at every meal and his gifts (that he should be enjoying) bought and wrapped.  Crazy? Well, I was told to do whatever makes you feel better.  And the truth is, nothing makes me feel better. And that realization, struck me. Hard.

Christmas will always be a holiday that will not, with all its magic, bring me back to any time before Zane was killed. Christmas must become something different. Christmas must be revamped so that I can be present with those that are here and not deaf to their joy because of my own pain. So, I ponder what will I do different.  And whatever I decide to do, Christmas will come and go. And this fact gives me the freedom and the permission to shake it up.

Thanks for Giving

October 10, 2021 /

“Well, first of the holidays, Thanksgiving, without your contribution of mashed potatoes and gravy.  Some of your friends dropped by including Kat who came with a bunch of bananas! I had told her I couldn’t buy them yet because they were what I bought for you, for your smoothies.  It was cool she thought of me.  I cried…  I am thankful this year for family and friends. And Zane, thankful to you for the countless times we shared.  You are my sunshine.”

The above was a letter I wrote to Zane on the first Thanksgiving after the crash. Three years later, we nestle, following the restrictions, in our tiny home to celebrate the first event of the upcoming holiday season.  Everything is in order.  Turkey, stuffing, treats.  The table set. The dog has his bone. Everything looks like a Norman Rockwell poster. The ‘empty chair’ is the elephant in the room.  Time does not help heal the holidays.

These are the occasions where you need to practice extra selfcare.  We tend to overdo, overeat, overdrink. All things that increase grief. We also notice families, social media happy posts, that remind us of what we are missing. Even if everything else is in place and you are surrounded by family and friends, your broken heart hurts more at these times.

I think it does one good to schedule a portion of the day to remove yourself from the activities.  For a short time, find yourself alone, in a park or a room or a walk around the block. Feel the big picture.  Look up to the skies. Listen to the wind, or the birds, or the water if nearby. Call out to your loved one.  Whisper you miss them and that you invite them to come to the dinner table. Have a cry. A good, soul cleansing cry if you can.

Then, at the dinner table, share some of their favorite things about the holiday. Share memories of holidays past. Laugh.  Laugh, knowing that your loved one is with you.  Their spirit shines.

I am thankful that I am healthy enough to work and to give back to my community.

I give thanks to my friends that give me time and understanding and love. I give thanks to my family who surround me and give me space when I need it.

I am thankful every day of the year, for Zane. For the signs he brings to me that he is near. I am grateful for the many memories I carry in my heart of my sweet boy and the times we shared on earth. I am grateful for the new ways that I am learning to ‘be with my son’ while we are realms apart.

This year, I give thanks for the things that give me hope.

Living with the Dot

June 13, 2021 /

When we ignore our grief, when we distract ourselves or refuse to acknowledge it, the invisible pain of these actions create havoc worse than facing it in the first place.  At least that’s what the experts tell us.

My therapist drew a dot, in the middle of a piece of paper.  She said this is your grief, the first moment your grief arrived.  As she said this she kept pen on paper continuing to press in the shape of the dot until it bore a hole through the paper.  I liked her analogy.  Yes, my grief has ripped a hole in my being.

Then she drew a small circle from this centre, explaining this is time, the days that go on.  She said; “when something happens, a memory or just breathing, you are drawn back to the centre”.  She drew the line back to the dot. She continued drawing circles around the dot, each circle of time extending a little further away from the dot but with lines going back to the dot.  This illustrated that triggers never quit but, with time, it takes longer for the line from that outward circle to reach back to the dot. I think it was to be a map of realistic hope. If I believed this, then yes, I would always have grief, I would always have triggers bringing me right back to that centre of pain but with time it would lessen.

I have had moms who have lost a child decades ago tell me ‘the pain never goes away but it does get softer’.  When you are new in your grief this sounds impossible.  Even now, 2 ½ years later, there is no sign of fewer triggers or the intensity of them. Grief teaches you patience.

This is where ‘embrace the pain’ comes in. If we don’t face this centre dot, this boiling point of grief, if we don’t mourn, we become stuck in ‘the dot’.  If we are stuck, then we are unable to experience the lighter moments that occur in the lines circling our grief. And that is where we need to be to live our lives and fill our purpose; with grief as a part of which we are now but new things brought in to give us moments that are (hopefully) less painful.

How this looks and how fast this happens is an individual thing. The point is to strive towards this. Good mourning is learning to live with ‘the dot’.

To Change the Room, or Not

February 7, 2021 /

Zane was living at home when he was killed. He was finishing school and wanted to move out when he didn’t have school and car costs…the plan was after graduation.  We had developed a suite for him downstairs and it was like his own little apartment.  His friends would kid him about why would he ever want to move out.  It was convenient and it gave me more time with him than most mothers had with their young adult children who had moved out.  In hindsight, his living at home was a gift.

There is no right way to do grief.  That includes what to do with your child’s belongings.  Some have left the room as is.  Others have taken everything down but a few mementos.  I have friends whose child was not living at home, who have created a space in their home of all their child’s favorite things as a place to be with their memories and their child’s spirit.   

We have not touched Zane’s room.  His laundry basket still sits there with a load of dirty laundry to be done.  His bar fridge holds his water and Gatorade bottles. His room is as it was two and a half years ago.  I keep the door shut and I still knock on it before I enter. My therapist suggested opening the door to his clothes closet just slightly, putting my hand in to touch a shirt or two and then closing it again.  She felt that it might get easier doing repetitive ‘touch-ins’ which would then enable me to start packing up his things. I can open the closet fully now but I am not ready to box his belongings.

My husband has suggested we paint it. Or make it into a guest room.  When in his room I give thought to this, to what could be options. The answer is always, “we will do nothing, it is Zane’s room.”

When I enter his room, the smells and his invisible energy and the sight of how life was when he stayed here wraps around me and pulls me in.  I will sit on his bed and look around and I can almost see him sitting next to me, remembering the conversations we had. “I’m thinking of moving my bed to the other wall…” or “where should I hang my picture I bought at Stampede?” He is so very real in this room.

The resistance to change his room is not something I want to face.  Changing his room into whatever that might be, is too big a task for my heart to consider.  I am not sure when I will be ready.  I am not giving it a deadline; I will know when it is time.  For now, if I see a plant or a candle or a book that he would enjoy, I buy it.  And I add it to his room. 

When Grief Comes without Warning

February 1, 2021 /

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.

The Agony of Bittersweet

November 1, 2020 /

My daughter received a marriage proposal that she has been anticipating all year.  Her boyfriend did it right.  He asked her father first, then carved a pumpkin with the words “will you marry me” and presented the ring in a tiny black casket. Creepy?  Not if you know my daughter; she wishes to be married on Halloween.

I met them at our favorite watering hole to make a toast to the happy couple and to call family and friends to let them know the good news.  It was a glorious, happy moment; a very sweet moment.

It was also a bitter moment. Her brother should have been the one to make the toast. He should have been the one to give her boyfriend the ‘big brother lecture’. He should have been the one to post on Instagram how happy he was for his lil’ sis. For grief warriors, sweet moments are tainted with a sad bitterness. I think this, feeling truly happy, is one of the hardest battles of grief to which victory may never come.

When you are grieving, happy times are complicated. You might feel guilty to feel something lighter than despair. You might feel anger that your loved one was robbed of this moment. You might feel jealousy that you can’t share with your loved one happy moments your friends share with theirs. True happy has become bleak.  And that just brings on more guilt.

How do we fight bittersweet?  How can we relish in the blessings that life brings to those we love here?  We can try to include our missed ones.  We can speak on their behalf; if they could talk what would they say about this moment? We could include a picture of them as part of the celebration.  We could give a gift that symbolizes our missed one. Actively bringing our missed ones to the celebration is a way to honor them and to emphasize they will always be connected to our current moments.

I believe that we also need extra self-care during happy moments for others.  It takes a lot of energy to join a celebration.  Give yourself some down time prior to and after to rest.  Let go of the guilt that feeling bitter brings. Remind yourself that, if grief and love are intertwined, then bittersweet is the emotion of the two.

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