Good Mourning Grief

A blog about my adventures as a grief warrior

Tag: #healing

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.

Healing Messages from Hallmark Movies

December 19, 2021 /

I am a sucker for Hallmark movies.  They are my brain candy.  Zane would laugh at me, as I would tape and then binge watch into the summer months!  He called me cute. I now believe that the messages of these gentle and comforting movies are sent from above.

Since Zane’s death, I have found that there is some sort of cosmic coincidence that I choose a certain movie from the collection of recordings on a particular day, that has a specific message I need to hear, on that day.  Such was the movie, “Debbie Macomber’s A Mrs. Miracle Christmas”.  A story of loss; a woman who lost a daughter, and recently her husband, her granddaughter, having lost her mother at six and most recently her foster child (although the foster child did not die, he went back to his biological mother) and even Mrs. Miracle, obviously the angel sent to ‘fix’ their broken hearts…she too had lost a child.  The irony of watching all their broken hearts, stuck in grief, and trying to move forward.  Who can’t relate to this?  I was crying before the first advertisement.

What I love about Hallmark movies is that there is always a peaceful ending.  There is always hope. This one did not disappoint. The obvious messages: have faith, lean on your friends for support, honor your loved ones (here and those who have passed) were loud and clear.  It is the subliminal messages that, if you watch closer, are the messages from heaven.  Or, for me, come from Zane.

This movie told us of an angel who knew firsthand the impact of losing a child and yet she continued, serving others, holding her faith, experiencing joy in her every day. And why? Because she knew life was eternal.  She knew her daughter existed, and that they would see each other again. There was the message for the granddaughter who is reminded that her role is of mother. Mother is a role that is shared with your own children and those children who ‘show up’ in your life for however short a time that might be.  You are always mother. And Grandma…yes, she heals and moves forward but the more important, quieter message is that she moves forward because she embraces her grief and finds ways to make friends with it.

Oh Hallmark, I don’t know what I would do without you.  Your movies have become a lifeline to tuning out the current reality for a bit and immersing myself in the hope and joy found in your characters.  Whose message, magically, sticks with me and gives me strength to go on.

Thank you, Zane, for picking out just the right messages that I need to hear.  Or be reminded of. This last movie was a doozy; I needed to be reminded I am always mother, that you are here if I just ‘see’ you. And that my grief will one day softly live in the ways in which I honor you.  There is hope I will feel joy again. And that is the Christmas gift from Hallmark.

“Bearing the Unbearable” by Joanne Cacciatore, PhD

September 26, 2021 /

The beautiful Dr. Joanne Cacciatore is, among many things, a bereaved mother. Her book “Bearing the Unbearable” is a collection of shared grief of many mourners who walk the path of loss. Through these shared stories, we connect and find hope and understanding to support our own grief.

She speaks of the necessity of contraction and expansion; taking time for inward healing and thus giving us the energy to lean outwards for support. We must surrender to this pain, fighting it will only increase our sadness, surrendering to the tidal wave of emotion, will help soften our grief.

My favorite lesson is that of the necessity to own our pain.  She writes, “Turning toward the shattered pieces of ourselves, choosing to stand in the pain, is a serious responsibility.  When we remember our beloved dead, we bridge the gap of space and time between us and them and bring them back into the whole of our reality.”

She assures us that remembering our loved ones is what we need to do, quoting Soren Kierkegaard; “…remembering our dead epitomizes the most unselfish, freest, and most faithful type of love-a love willing to suffer for itself, so that it can continue to exist.” She speaks of how we might do this by paying it forward with a donation or act of kindness in honor of our loved one.

She believes that grief transforms from the individual into the collective and that it is us, the bereaved who can heal our world.  I have always said we are in this together, long before my life was torn apart. I have this personality glitch that I am ok only when everyone else is ok. As a mother and a caregiver all my life, Dr. Cacciatore is telling me, I now belong to a community that can heal our world. The irony of this amuses me. I live to help heal my little corner of the world and the fact that what has happened to me with Zane gives me more responsibility and entitlement to continue doing what I felt my purpose was.  I don’t want this. And yet, here it is, the Universe has sealed my purpose. Today it scares me.  Tomorrow, it will surely encourage me. My grief can be my fuel.

As women, our ‘mama bear’ is in our DNA and death does not kill that. There is a lot of healing to do. Whatever the reason that brought you into this hell, maybe there is opportunity to help heal that area on a scale bigger than you.  First, we must learn how to live with our grief. This will help heal ourselves, and perhaps then we can find the energy to heal our world.

A Grief Book That Gets Me

August 29, 2021 /

There is a library onto its own to support dealing with the many varieties and levels of grief. Some of the books I have read, I have had a hard time getting through and others I can’t put down.  “It’s OK That You’re Not OK” is one of those page turners!  Written by Megan Devine, a therapist who was thrown into our community witnessing the accidental drowning of her partner, Megan writes from professional and personal experience.

Megan’s early grief was the inspiration behind this book, experiencing first-hand the reception and expectations our culture has related to death.  She gets us.  She writes…

“I remember my own early days after my partner drowned-shoving myself out into the world…. doing what was reasonable, expected, ordinary….”  “All the while, beside me, inside me, was the howling, shrieking, screaming mass of pain…”

She gives us permission to do what we need to do and take as long as we need.  Her book includes tips and exercises to support ourselves as we feel our pain. I knew the power of deep breaths before I read this, but did you know that to maximize the benefits of breathing, one should exhale longer than inhale.  Who knew?  And it works!

Her book clarifies commonalities grief has like how some of the people in our life step up and others seem to vanish.  She calls it, “Grief rearranges your address book”.  She is bold enough to say what we think when people compare our grief to the death of their goldfish. Yes, there are different levels of grief she points out, some grief is worse than others.  It’s the comparing of grief that is an attempt to ‘understand’ or empathize with us, to which it almost always backfires.

Her book is divided into four parts making it a great read in early grief or years later.  She even includes a handy checklist to give to friends and family on the “Do’s and Don’ts” if they wish to be truly helpful.

Because she walks our path, she also encourages us to be strong in our grief, to not shy from it and cave into the guidelines given by our society on when and how we should ‘be better’. This attitude will help our own grief and even bigger, there is hope that adapting these actions will educate those in our own community, bringing change to our culture. What a blessing that would be for us.  And for those who, sadly, will find themselves where we live now.   

This book is a must read.  I felt comforted, assured, hopeful and inspired.  I am not ok.  And that is ok. Thank you, Megan Devine, for helping us practice good mourning.

It’s OK To Be Broken

April 25, 2021 /

A girlfriend reminded me of something I told her.  I said, “I am broken.  I will always be broken. And I am trying to learn how to live broken.”  She brought it up in the context of us moving away from Zane’s childhood home and that this would be a good thing for me.  She said, “It’s time for you to heal, to move on”. 

We have all received the comments, “it’s time to move on” or “she wouldn’t want you to be sad” or my favorite, “I need you to be the same person you were before”-there’s a concept!

Although painful, I realize these types of comments come from the heart.  Friends and family care and they don’t want to see me hurting. They too miss Zane.  And they miss who I was before he was killed. None of us like change and death is the biggest change of them all.

What they don’t realize is that you can’t fix this.  Death has put us into a state of grief for the remainder of our days.  Some days will be better than others. Some days will bring laughter and joy…I look forward to that. Some days, actually a portion of every day, I am not ok. Something comes along and reminds me I am broken. Something shows up to remind me I am not, and cannot, be the same person I was.

The simple fact is we are broken. We can’t get over it or get past it.  We are broken.  What we do with our brokenness is what is important. How we bring daily practices and new ways of being into our lives is what will help soften our grief. But remove it?  Put it behind us?  That is not possible. Grief will always be a part of our new make-up. It is the other side of love and we have loved deep, therefore we will grieve deep.

And that’s ok. Grief is hard work and part of the work is accepting our brokenness. If you try to hide or fight it or ignore it, it will hit you harder and in many ways. By accepting it, I can face it and then I am able to explore ways that it will fit into my life such that I am not a blubbery angry mess every hour.

When something is broken and you glue the pieces back together, it is not the same as the original beautiful piece. With care and love and time, it can take a different, but still beautiful shape.  Friends and family need to give us patience, and a lot of it, as we redefine ourselves to accommodate our grief and develop into a person that carries brokenness with individual style and grace.

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