Permission To Grieve

How are you grieving? 

How long are you grieving for?

What is your strongest feeling?

My friend, P, told me that she is grieving for the death of her Mom and for the Mom she never had.  She said that she was never accepted by her Mom even up until her death.  She desperately wanted her acceptance and love but couldn’t change herself to be the type of person that would get that approval.

 P is creative and quirky and expressive, and it made her Mom uncomfortable. Her Mom didn’t discuss feelings and most important was keeping up a good front.  Even when she was dying.  P didn’t hold back and said what she thought, hoping in vain that she would invite intimacy.

It never arrived, and now P is left mourning many losses associated with her Mom’s passing.

I think grief is what we are left with when we peel back the regrets and guilt and what if’s.  It is the part of ourself that grieves in a self oriented way. Not selfish or self-centered or uncaring about others; but when we find the self that is us and deal with the pain that remains after the guilt and remorse and unfinished business gets set aside.

this is not an easy or quick process. in fact, i think it is a rite of passage into adulthood. finding our true self…not in relation to anyone but ourselves.

Is it any wonder that grief is such a taboo subject when death is portrayed as a torture event, filled with ghoulish images, unnatural looks, and dripping blood?

All these horrible and distateful images in the media make us afraid.  Afraid to think about it, afraid to see it, afraid to experience it.

But these extreme portrayals along with bad jokes are a thinly veiled attempt to cover up what is really taboo…death, dying, and what happens later.

I won’t go down the path of what happens after we die..that is not the subject on my blog.  I wonder though if people are more afraid of what happens to them when someone the love dies or what happens to them when they die.

Either way, halloween no longer feels fun when i cannot turn on the television without being bombarded with grotesque pictures.

I’ll just wait for Thanksgiving when we remember that we are grateful to be alive.

I read a book today that said it was “unhealthy’ to be angry at a doctor or an institution and it signifed an abnormal grieving process.

This is why I started this blog: so that people could write about their experiences, hear others, and know their grief is not “unhealthy” or “healthy”, but simply their experience.

 I cannot tell my friend who’s Mom died unexpectedly not to be angry.  her Mom went in the hospital for a procedure an died three days later, clearly from poor treatment, because the hospital was immediately trying to get her to sign a waiver.

I cannot tell my friend who’s brother killed himself violently not to be angry.

I cannot tell my friend, who is a nurse, not to be angry after she read the medical reports and discovered that the surgeon cut her sister too deeply during the c-section, causing her to hemmorage and die.

why shouldn’t they be angy?

There is a Jewish cultural tradition to plant a tree in Israel in the memory of someone who died.  Around the high holidays this year, my aunt told me that she made a donation to the Jewish National Fund to plant trees in the memory our all in our extended family who died. She told me that she must have had my wrong address because the acknowledgement card that would be mailed to me so I know she did this for my family was sent to her instead.  Just last week, I received an envelope from her and I knew it was the notice that the trees were planted.  I didn’t want to open it because even though my sister is gone 33 years, Dad 18 years, and Mom 2 years, still I don’t like to see it in print.  It isn’t that it makes it less real if I don’t see it.  It’s just that it makes me so sad to see the words “in memory of”.  It makes me feel like they are really dead. Dead and gone.  Instead, I like to think of them as with me in heart and soul and just not on this earth. Today I opened the mail.  I saw the first card in Dad’s name and the second card in Mom’s name, but my sister was missing.  No card.  No tree. No memory. I wonder if my aunt forgot to name my sister or if the Jewish National Fund forgot to send the card.  I know that I am not the only one who has experienced these sort of strange incidents where people slip up–meaning well but I feel the gash. I won’t ask. I won’t be angry.  I will let it go.

When does mourning turn into the just another morning?

that’s like asking how long does bereavement last? how does the wind feel? if we both look at the same plant do we see the same color? does coffee taste the same to each of us?

ok…here is the hard answer. it doesn’t matter if it is one year and ten years, some days we wake up to mourning, and some days to morning.

what’s really important is that we sleep through the night peacefully. that we climb under the covers and rest our head on the pillow not fearing what we will wake up to. whether it is morning our mourning: to know that we are alive and breathing, and there is beauty in both mourning and morning. it is the fear that we have to ask to leave the bed.

Yom Kippur

I don’t want to forget today’s experience…so i am writing now.

i felt the anticipation of yom kippur coming. it started at 4pm when i chose to have a coffee which was really dumb because it gives me stomach aches and makes me jittery. it would have been a good excuse to avoid shul…but i didn’t.

i was late getting dressed. i delayed everything. i didn’t want to light my yahrtzeit candles. i detest that i have to light them, meaning i hate the reminder of how many family members are gone. my hand shook as i held the lit match.

taking a deep breath, i grabbed my handbag and went to shul. i got in a taxi with a driver who didn’t know the way and when i told him the area in french he got angry, pulled over, and took out his map. please, i pleaded in french, i am late. that made him angrier. he told me to get out but i said no.

finally he located it and drove to the 16 arrondissement and it was then i realized i had a large bill. he couldn’t change it so we went into a gas station where the slug of a man didn’t want to change the bill for me unless i gave him a kiss. instead, i blew a kiss because i really needed the change and i was so late for Kol Nidre, the evening service.

he tells me, there on the corner is your street. mais, no, that number is 70 and i need 19. he drives around and again leaves me on a corner so he doesn’t have to go around one way streets. no point in fighting anymore and i got out and walked a few blocks.

I asked where the list was to have names of my family recited during the memorial service tomorrow. it is a small congregation so you just write it on a sheet of paper that is like a sign up sheet. I wrote down my Mom, Dad, sister, 2 uncles, 2 cousins, and 1 aunt. these are all people who i was very close with and have no one to say kaddish for them, except for one cousin who is gone. It is my honor to make sure their names are read. when i handed it back to the woman at the desk she said, “oh, you have a list”.

that is the kind of insensitivity that makes me angry from hurt. yes, i do have a list. and yes, that is my family you are so blithely speaking about. i did not flash her a look. instead i quietly said, yes, that is my family that died. i know people say these things from their discomfort. Still, it makes me uncomfortable. i suppose it makes sense. they are uncomfortable and that makes me uncomfortable…but only to a small degree because i am used to people being uncomfortable with the number of people I’ve lost in my family.

but really, it doesn’t matter how many people i have lost because the same thing happens when i say i lost my sister. the shuddering. the look of not knowing what to say. i prefer just kindness. it’s not necessary to say anything.

inside i saw the young women i met last week at rosh hashanah who was sobbing because she missed her family in the US. we sat together and the chanting began. it’s soulful and wrenching and humbling to hear and see the words.

forgive me. i have transgressed. i meant well. remove the guilt. circumscise my heart. give me a fresh year. forgive me with your compassion not your painful tests.

these words are powerful.