7 Lessons of Loss: One Year Later
My parents' rings, together one last time. My brother has Dad's ring. I have Mom's.
1. The anger part of grief is real.
At my dad's burial, a woman came up to me and said, "Your dad wouldn't want you to be sad. He wouldn't want you to cry." I had to bite my tongue to keep from taking off her head. I was Hot Blazing Furious. Totally over the top. Out of proportion.Later when I was able to think rationally, I knew she was only doing what many of us do in similar situations - placing a platitude on a gaping wound.And for the record, my dad was never ashamed of his own tears. Or mine.
Lesson:
Grief often wears a mask, tricking you into thinking you are mad at someone or something else. But it is the grief talking. Or shouting. Or biting your tongue.
2. Sadness happens.
I catch myself wanting to call and talk to my dad and mom. To hear him say, "I love you, Pooh Bear." To have Mom excited about the mundane details of my day. Since we never lived close to each other (with the exception of Mom's last four months), I can still believe they are sitting in their favorite chairs in Minnesota, waiting for me to call. Another sad bomb explodes when I remember they are gone.
Lesson:
Don't be so quick to push yourself to "get over it." Your normal now includes the loss of someone important to you. You have changed in ways you may never fully grasp. Mourning is part of the process of healing.
3. Grief can manifest itself in physical ways.
Three weeks before my dad died, I got on a plane to hear his final solo and say goodbye. Beginning that day and for 2 1/2 months afterward I had diarrhea. Every stinking day. Pun intended. (Sorry if that is TMI, but it's the truth.) I had every test done. All tests were normal.
Finally I sat in the office with my family doctor who has known me for years. She asked me, "Have you tried journaling?" I told her I was the Queen of Journaling, that I was talking openly about my dad's cancer journey, that I was blogging about it, that I was being as healthy as I knew how to be.
"Grief has to come out somewhere," she said. (Pun not intended.) "This is your body's way of dealing with it." Then she told me about her own dad's recent death and we cried in her office together. (I seem to have this effect on people lately, but honesty in grief allows others to be honest with their own loss.)
As far as physical stress since Mom died: I still struggle to sleep past 4 a.m. I blamed it originally on my body being conditioned to give Mom her 4 a.m. meds, but I don't think I can still use that as the reason three months later. I have quit fighting it. I get up when I wake up and find something to read. Or I write. The good part - I have welcomed a hundred sunrises.
Lesson:
See the professionals. Have the tests. Take the medicine. Give your body time to heal.
4. Remember.
When attending a niece's wedding one month after Dad's funeral, we all recalled how Dad liked to ask a married couple, "Are you still in love?" We all smiled at the memory. When visiting my mom, we joked how Dad would always say that Minnesota had two seasons - winter and road construction. First, we laughed. And then we cried. Just a little.
After Mom's funeral, twenty-five of us--children and grandchildren, told stories as we packed up Mom and Dad's belongings in Minnesota. We had all shared so many memories there. With all the stories, it's amazing we got anything done!
Lesson:
Some feel that it is too painful to bring up the memory of someone who has died. The opposite is true. The grieving person needs to talk, to remember, to laugh, to cry, to know that the person they loved is not forgotten.
5. Create a tangible memorial.
It was important for me to make a quilt of my dad's cancer tshirts and give it to my mom. (Purple, my mom's favorite color, is also the color for cancer survivors.) After Mom died, my girls and I all bought new lipstick. We wear our new shades often in her honor. I also have some of her things around me and use them every day - a favorite saucepan, a decorative tea pot, and a mug from a vacation in Hawaii.
One way we all want to honor Mom, is to continue her tradition of the family email. Mom wrote at least once a week to us all and I have put it on my calendar to start the process on the 1st of each month so we can stay connected to each other and our growing families. We already miss Mom terribly in regard to that. She was incredible as she kept in touch not only with us kids and grandkids, but with friends, nieces and nephews, and siblings.
Lesson: Memorials (planting a tree, sewing a quilt, creating an online page, participating in a charity event in the name of a loved one) are healthy outlets and an important part of the grieving process for many people.
6. In the darkness, God may seem silent, but He is there.
To be honest, some of my usual spiritual practices seem dry as dust at the moment. But I have been at this faith thing long enough to know that in all relationships there are seasons of closeness and seasons of distance and you don't abandon the whole thing when you are groping around in the darkness trying to figure it out.
For me the main thing that has saved me alive is the meditation and memorization of scripture, a relatively new discipline. Earlier this year I memorized Psalm 139 with a group of ladies, including these verses, "If I say, 'Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,' even the darkness is not dark to You and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.'"
Two other places I discover God - in nature and in community.
Lesson:
In the darkest pit, the love of Jesus goes deeper still.
7. Part of the difficulty of grieving is returning to routine tasks and rediscovering purpose and meaning there.
In my dad's final months, he gave me carte blanche to write about his cancer journey. Coming from the man who used to correct my English usage in public, this surprised me, until I realized that my words were giving voice to his suffering and sometimes the greatest gift of compassion we give the dying is not to look away.
After he died, I struggled to find words. After months of writing about eternity and dying, everything else seemed meaningless. My journal entries the past three months have been almost nonexistent -- snatches of words - as if the syllables were struggling to leak out the end of my pen. Words became incapable of expressing what I had lost.
Since losing Mom I have come to the decision to put away the novel I was struggling to write and to focus on a nonfiction book. I am currently working with a life coach and planning goals to make that a reality. I am very pleased with my progress and a decision that has moved me from stuck to unstuck.
Lesson:
Sometimes dreams get put on hold, but sometimes dreams just get stuck and we need to seek out tools and people to help us move forward again.
Today,
on your journey of faith,
if you are in a season of loss,
I pray you will be kind to yourself,
and you will create space
to heal,
to mourn,
to remember,
to find God in the darkness.