Good Mourning Grief

A blog about my adventures as a grief warrior

Tag: #goodmourning (Page 3 of 3)

Father’s Day Race

June 19, 2022 /

Friends, we met through grief, have a son who loved to race cars. He was good, travelling across the country honing his sport. It was a passion the entire family shared, bringing home photos and trophies. It was a hobby that bonded father and son. So, when our friend announced he wanted to race his son’s car, we were not surprised. We joked about being a part of his pit crew.

In grief, honoring our loved ones sometimes means finishing something they started or taking on what they loved. For our friend, it wasn’t that he wanted to win. It was this need from deep within his soul to get out on that racetrack and run a race to honor his son. It was to comfort his heart, placing him in a time of years past that he spent as his son’s pit crew, driving, and supporting and cheering him on. This is a father who lost his son too soon. This is a father, lost in his grief, wanting to connect with his boy.

He appropriately chose Father’s Day weekend to debut; a time that celebrates the love between a father and his children. When we experienced a few glitches and the practice run got missed, we became doubtful that his wish would come true.  But he was relentless, this was going to happen. And when I saw this in him, I understood. The drive we have, when we want to do something for our child, does not end at death. In fact, it becomes intensified.

 He needed to be ready because any other weekend would not be Father’s Day weekend. This was an important detail. We called for a couple of racing friends to come over and a small team helped get his car ready to enter the qualification run. The car passed. There were two heats of 10 laps each and a final race of 25 laps. We were ready. Father was going to race for his son.

There is an energy, physical, financial, and of course emotional when honoring our loved ones. It is hard work. It can bring doubt and fear that it can’t be accomplished. It is always a blatant reminder that they are not here. But it also brings a sense of comfort, sharing what they loved, what we had with them and what we still have that death cannot take away. It is worth the agony of grief to experience the moment of spiritual connection. And that is what my friends got.

It was an incredible experience. The other driver’s understanding the purpose of his race, zoomed past him up high while he stayed low and raced his laps. I stood beside his wife staring at the track, thinking of how many times she would have stood here watching her son beside her husband. With that thought, I put my arm around her and looked up to the sky. There, high above perfectly positioned over the racetrack, was a cloud.  It was the undeniable shape of a heart. I squeezed my friend and said, “look up!” We both took a picture. He was here; their son was with us.

The race was overwhelming for my friends. It was a race that father and son did together. On Father’s Day weekend. The emotions of being in a race their son loved to do, dad driving son’s race car brought us all to tears. One cannot explain the powerful feeling of being a part of love expressed through grief unless you stand next to it. The invitation to be a part of our friend’s pit crew was a gift I did not see until I was standing next to them, encompassed in their energy of good mourning.

Goodbye Ellen and Thank You

May 22, 2022 /

My husband informed me that the Ellen DeGeneres show is over. I knew this was her last season, but I could not bring myself to accept this. Not because I watched her show. But because Zane had. He loved her show. And her show ending will become one more connection to my son that will be forever gone.

When you are grieving, all losses become big losses. Grief warriors are forever sensitive to anything or anyone else leaving. The loss of a person or a sentimental object or even a habit can bring us back to the center of our grief and the intensity of our pain. We are left to face it, examine it, and find a place for it within our broken hearts.

Knowing that Zane enjoyed the Ellen show and that he would be sad it was over, regardless of any accusations as to why, I felt compelled to write to her. I needed her to know how much, as his mother, I appreciated what she had unknowingly done for him.

Dear Ellen,

I am not sure that this letter will find you amongst the millions of fan mail you receive but I needed to thank you for the joy you brought my son. Up to the day he was killed, Zane watched your show. It gave him a reprieve from the stresses of work and school studies. The hour spent with you was more therapeutic than entertaining. I would be in the kitchen, the sounds of his laughter filling the air. “Mom, listen to this…” he’d say to tune me into the piece of wisdom of the day you spoke of. He enjoyed you because you are real. You are not afraid to be yourself. You promote kindness and try to walk your talk. Genuine. That is what Zane loved about your show.  He felt as if he was spending time with a fellow spirit whose lightwork on this earth was of the same cloth. You inspired him to face the day, deal with the negative and find happiness in all things.

Your show ending plays with my grief. It is one more thing that will be gone that reminds me of my boy and the joy he found in this life. It is why the urge to write to you.  On his behalf, thank you for bringing the sunshine to so many gray skies. Thank you for being the one responsible for the enjoyment my son experienced through your show, the sound of his laughter as he listened to you, forever imbedded in my heart.

Were you aware of the influence you had on people like my son?  Were you aware that some days you were written in the gratitude journal of what enabled him to make it through the day? Of course not. This is why we, your fans, love you so much. You offered us strength. You connected us to optimism. You showed us how to dance through life’s challenges and to always be kind. You connected us to a higher calling. Thank you.

I look forward to watching the reruns!

I don’t think Ellen will ever see this letter. I am not sure that is important. What is important is that I have faced my sadness and honored my son by writing to a woman who he was a fan of.  And that is good mourning.

Laughing with Grief

April 3, 2022 /

April Fool’s Day this year was to be glum. Dan, having just left this realm, would not be here to try to fool me. I woke thinking what could I do to honor him and distract myself from my grief. I received a text message from a stranger asking for advice. I received another text from my sister that she had dropped his urn. The beautiful glass urn she had special ordered lay in broken pieces over her wood floor, ashes exploded everywhere and the dog rolling in them. This had to be an April fool’s joke! I sent a message to her suggesting I come over and we could snort the ashes off the floor together.

I replied to the text from the unknown number with a vague comment as I could not figure out who might be playing this joke on me.  Or was it a joke? My cell line is also my business line.  Just for fun, I sent it to my sister asking if she knew who it was (the person had alluded to knowing her husband) and the message was a very strange request.

I sent a message to my daughter telling her that her father informed me that he wanted to move back to Ontario.

I got dressed, packed a bag of tricks, and set off to have lunch with one of Zane’s best friends and his 7-year-old daughter. The tricks were for his daughter.  Over hamburger and fries, she opened each trick and tried them on us.  Her favorite was the exploding ketchup bottle. As she practiced (over and over) fooling us, we shared stories with her of her ‘Uncle Zane’ and how each year he would think of who to fool and how. She donned the red clown nose I brought with a big grin and giggled, “this is a great lunch”!

The afternoon was filled with laughter, reminiscing of the antics the two boys shared growing up together. It contained a couple of tears; typical when you share love and loss together.

At the end of the day, the two went off to play more tricks on unsuspecting family. I went back to my phone to read the replies. My daughter figured out her father was not moving; I sounded sad in the text she said, and she doesn’t think I would be that sad! The stranger turned out to be my daughter, using a friend’s phone and devised the request around knowing Dan to bring him into the joke.  Well played!  I laughed so hard.  She did good. 

And my sister.  She said it wasn’t a joke. And I told her we could replace the urn and trying to lift her spirits, I said “was it all ashes or are there bones too?” She replied, “ashes, but there is one tiny piece that looks like it could be his tooth and somehow seeing that piece brought me comfort.” I laughed. “Is it normal that we are so abnormal?” I asked. She responded with “Gotcha!”

Oh Dan, you would be so proud of us.

When Remembrance and Acknowledgement Combine  

March 20, 2022 /

We had the pleasure of celebrating St. Patty’s Day with fellow grief warriors, including a friend whose son has been gone for just a year now. The festivities included shared stories of those we have lost, jokes, tears, laughter and always a shooter to toast those we love who are on the other side. In conversation, she noted that there were no calls this year, no one showed up to say hello. “His friends are already moving on” she stated.

The worse fear we have for our departed is that they are not remembered. The popular Disney movie “Coco” tells us that their spirit lives on (and visits us) if we remember them.  Only if we remember.  We know this. As a community we mark special days (like Remembrance Day) to remind us that it is important to remember. In the grief community we make a special note of birthdays and d-days of those we lost to acknowledge we remember.

When death hits home, it is easy to remember. There is no way we can forget. We live with the daily pain that our loved one is not physically with us. I am sure that the friends of her son do remember. I am sure that there will be times, signs that will stop them in their tracks, individually and as a group, that they will remember him with a smile or a tear.  Or both.

So, maybe what bothers us is not that they don’t remember, but that they don’t share that with us.  As parents, the bittersweet connection to our child’s friends is something we need. Our child chose these people to be with, they know him and the possible conversations or just a quick text “thinking of you” assures us that they have not forgot.

This acknowledgement re-confirms that our child’s life made a difference. That they were of value, they were loved and that they were important. Somehow this acknowledgement connects us to the life our child had.  It comforts us. That is why remembering is important, but it is only the first step. Without acknowledgement that you remember, there is a void to which increases the feeling of loneliness.

When we remember and then acknowledge we remember, it brings us together and gives us strength. Shared grief is key to good mourning.

The Tipping Point of Grief

November 28, 2021 /

With the donations that my work received, in honor of Zane, we agreed to create a community project that would benefit youth. We chose mindful photography because of Zane’s passion for taking pictures and how he believed that getting behind the camera reduces anxiety and improves mental health. There were many people along the way that made this happen starting with a close friend who creatively named our course #zaneography and single handily arranged all the pieces to make it happen.  Last week I attended the wrap up of the first class.  I was not prepared.

I sat on the sidelines watching the beautiful, skilled facilitator talk about the pictures that the youth had taken. Her words were kind and motivating, capturing the blossoming talent of each participant. She had printed their work on a black background and had them hanging on the wall. The participants showed pride and commented on how they enjoyed this experience and how they want to continue shooting pictures. Oh, how my son would enjoy hearing this.  And perhaps that was the tipping point of my grief burst.

As the youth chatted over pizza, I stood up and went over to take a closer look at the pictures.  They all told a story, illustrating the lessons of using dark and light that they had learned. One photo, taken by a youth that I felt had a similar energy to Zane, took a silhouette picture of himself under a lamp pole. It captured the light and mood perfectly and it reminded me of pictures Zane had taken of himself under a streetlight at a construction site.  And perhaps that was the tipping point of my grief burst.

I said my goodbyes and the facilitator hugged me. As I held her, I thanked her for her very large and important part in making this happen and I realized just how this desire to honor my son was something that I had not been sure would ever happen.  And perhaps that was the tipping point of my grief burst.

I left, barely getting to my car before the tears came. Sitting in my car, sobbing, the pain of my son not being here to take more photos, to enjoy another adventure of finding the perfect subject, the perfect light to capture a moment. Oh, how he loved photography.  How the camera soothed his soul and excited him to find new ways to look at life. I sat crying and shouting to God where was his justice until I was hoarse.

We are taught to honor our children.  We are told that good mourning is about finding ways to continue to do what they loved. We are told of the importance to share their passions with others; to remember them through the sharing of what they enjoyed in life. What they didn’t tell us, or what I seemed to have missed, is the pain that comes with this. The sharing, experiencing first-hand what they loved without their physical presence is the tipping point of grief bursts.

The ‘bitter-sweet’ they call it; happy to see it happen but sad that your child is not a part of it. That part.  It has a cutting edge to it that does not comfort you but rather slices you open to reveal the pain and injustice of your life. It is raw. It is painful. And yet, would I change it?  No. Because the other thing we grief warriors have learned is that the pain of grief only equals the love we have.  And for Zane, there is a whole lot of love.

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