Permission To Grieve

I don’t like to grade loss. Each of our losses is precious to us and each of us feels our pain differently. Still, it happens all the time that we hear or find ourselves measuring our loss to someone else.

“My Mom died and my kids will never know their grandmother” or “I lost a sibling and a parent in a short time” or “I lost both of my parents within a year”. Or, the all time trump card, “I lost a child; there is nothing worse than losing a child”. There is one that even trumps that, “I lost my entire family”.

I avoid these words because often, I win the contest, and it’s a contest I don’t want to win. It also gives me plenty of room to be a victim if I wanted to. Also, it leads to a futile discussion about whether it is worse to lose someone suddenly or to a long illness.

You know how when you are waiting for results while a loved one is in surgery or ICU and everyone in the room has the same expression on their face? Those rooms equalize us regardless of our financial situation, our religion, our race, and our age. We are all waiting with an aching heart. We are equal. And usually we support each other in that small waiting room because we all understand how hard it is to wait—hoping for good news.

Well, after the initial loss has passed and the anger over how or when our loved one died, we become equal. We all hurt and suffer and grieve. Grading our loss is just a temporary way to feel better or worse about our situation, but nothing changes it. We all are grieving.

Copyright 2006-7. Barbara Cole. All rights reserved.

We all know it’s coming, don’t we? Passover and Easter will be here soon and grocery stores are carrying matzoh and chocolate easter bunnies. For some of us, it will be our first holiday without the person we love so dearly, and for others, it will be ANOTHER holiday without them.

We wonder how the time went by and we have survived without them. Some of us wonder if we are surviving, but know we are still here. Regardless of how long ago your loss was, that empty chair stares back at us. It doesn’t matter if we are in a room with two more people or twenty because nothing changes our longing for wanting to share the holiday with the one we love and miss.

Whatever we feel around the holidays is okay. We are entitled to our feelings, our sorrow, our memories. We cannot judge our grief because it is true and pure and a part of us. There is no shame about loss.

Self care and care giving don’t go together. Everyone means well but unless they have cared for a seriously ill person, I’m not sure they understand just how stressful and exhausting it is. It is different than caring for a child because there is a future to look forward to. Caring for an ill loved one results in a life without them.

Well meaning people told me to make sure I take care of myself. I wondered how when I had to manage a high stress job, Mom’s care, regular emergency room visits, and every moment knowing it may be the last day I saw Mom.

I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t strong enough or perhaps emotionally removed enough to practice self care. It was important to me to give Mom the best care I possibly could and that involved me being involved. There just wasn’t enough time or energy to go around.

I read once caring for a sick child for a few years could add 10 years to one’s age. I think caring for an elderly parent certainly is up there too. Especially when you have life and death decisions to make and the responsibility for the legal things like DNR’s and advanced directives. I didn’t realize how fatigued and battle weary I was. After Mom died, it took about a year for my body and mind to realize there were no more emergencies. I could go to sleep with the telephone turned off.

There was a long period of time that I just didn’t have enough left over for anyone. I had spent years, many years, being a caregiver and it took all my strength. Mom came first, work came second, and I came third. After almost 10 years of doing that, I was exhausted. For the first year after Mom passed, I didn’t know how much of my emotions were from exhaustion and how much from grief. It took a long time for me to just start caring for myself, because now I was first. But, it was so strange after being a caregiver now giving to myself.

It took another few years to just care for myself and nurture my depleted heart, body, and soul. During that time, I still didn’t have much left over for anyone else. Despite having done so much before, it was a full time job caring for myself. It didn’t mean that I didn’t care about others; I just couldn’t care give.

I’ve filled up my tank in the past few years and now I am able to give to others, give to me, and still have a reserve left. It takes time. For me, it took a long time.

Where are you in this process?

I spoke to a woman today who just returned from an emergency leave of absence. We discussed business for twenty minutes and then I quietly said that I hope all went well on her leave. No, it didn’t end well. Her Mom of only 64 years old passed. She didn’t expect her Mom to pass. It wasn’t what she planned or thought would happen when her Mom went in the hospital, even though she was ill.

She’s back at work now and told me that her sister is giving her a hard time because she should be back home with the rest of her family. She is at work because she doesn’t know what else to do. That’s what she told me. I know she wanted approval from me and confirmation she was right and her sister was wrong.

But all I could tell her is to listen to her own voice. To take care of herself as best that she could. Her Mom’s birthday is on St. Patrick’s Day which is so cruel that it comes so soon after her death. it is cruel for her family members who will feel the pain so much more deeply. They will be drinking green beer in celebration of her Mom, but she said it will be diluted with tears.

She asked me how long until it gets easier; gets better. All of us in this community know that it is different for each of us, and that it really does take time. We know there is no band aid big enough to stop the wound from gushing with bloody tears, and it stops flowing when it stops flowing. and sometimes the wound re-opens.

She told me that she’s working a lot just to keep going. Yes, I know that one too, and some of you may have also tried that. There is no running from the pain and the sorrow. It finds you. But each of us faces it at our own pace in our own time.

Losing Mom is torture.

Sometimes all we want and need is a little bit of kindness in this tough grief process. The people closest to us may also be suffering and not able to give it to us. Each of us suffers differently and some of us crave just a small kindness and are open about our vulnerablity. Others shut down and believe in tough love and a stiff upper lip.

That little drop of kindness though can be so healing. Over the years, I have found profound kindness in the least expected places…on the line at the market, on the bus, or at the post office. Sometimes it seems that the anonymity allows people in brief bursts to let their guard down and respond with a genuine good word or deed.

Once I was on the bus and the tears fell out of my eyes unexpectedly. I was triggered by a woman talking on her cell to her Mom and I desperately wanted to be able to call my Mom. I dabbed my face with a tissue and simply said to the woman seated to my right, I miss my Mom. She was at least 20 years older than me and her face relaxed from her frown and she said to me that she missed her Mom too.

When we need a bit of kindness we have to open ourselves up and take a risk. Maybe we will get the kindness back or maybe not. But we have to ask when we need it. Maybe we can’t ask a family member or friend. Maybe we can’t outright ask a stranger. But we can say or do something that gives us the chance for receiving just a drop of kindness.

That small kindness makes a big difference. And the more we heal, we are able to pay attention to others so we can extend a kindness to them.

Each time we express our sorrow we are giving ourselves validation. We are saying that we are okay and we are entitled to feel our pain. We are saying that our pain is real and not imagined. And, each time we share we release a tiny bit of that pain out of our body and mind.

The mind chatters and the body either races or is sluggish. Either way, it is the painful thoughts affecting our bodies. Pummeling ourselves on the treadmill and the weight machines is not a loving act of expressing our emotions. Sure it may get some tension out but it’s not healing.

When we share our feelings in community, we give life to our feelings. Others witness us and validate us by commenting and sharing their experience. And then others chime in – silently or written—and the energy continues.

The healing begins. We heal when we express ourselves. We heal when we read others experiences. We heal when we connect with others and know we are not alone. We heal when we are in community as an individual.

Copyright 2006-7. Barbara Cole. All rights reserved.

Something happens after both your parents die. Things are never the same. The loss of being a child, even when we are adults is a profound transition. Perhaps it is the largest transition or rite of passage in our adult lives except our own death. Yes, I know we love and have families of our own, but, being someone’s daughter or son is our earliest identity.

It’s our memories of childhood and safety. It’s going home. Emotionally and physically.

Where is our home when we have no parents? Where do we run to for shelter? Where do we go for unconditional love?

This starts a new journey: to find our emotional home.

Copyright 2006-7. Barbara Cole. All rights reserved.