Holiday Hell

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

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.

 

What Now?

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?

 

Her Mother Died

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.

 

Kindness

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.

 

Expressing Grief

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.

 

Home

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.

 

My Responsibility

I’m still angry. There are people I am angry at and some of them I am angry at for many years. There are extended family, long time friends, and doctors that I still hold resentment toward. Recently, I wrote a list of all the people I was angry with related to my family’s loss and my resulting grief.

The list was about a page long. I printed the list and studied it. It was clear that things had changed over the years. Most of the people on the list were no longer in my life. Either they died or I discarded them. Or they rejected me. There was only one person on the list that is still in my life and I am working on forgiving that person.

The list made it so clear to me. My life had changed. These people were not in it. That was good. But being angry kept them in my life emotionally. I hadn’t wanted them in my life anymore physically, but I had yet to let go of the old pull of staying angry with them.

They hurt me. They abandoned me. They failed me.

Yes, they did do all those things, but now, my life and my experience depends on me and my attitude. My choices. They don’t have the power to hurt me anymore because I don’t give it to them. But, in staying angry, I give up my own power. Or, my choice for a better life.

It’s hard to let go after losing someone. We get used to wanting to cling on, even to people that we discarded. It’s really not them I have trouble letting go of—it’s their connection to that time in my life. It’s that mistaken belief that if we hold onto our grief, we hold onto our loved one.

But, I saw it clearly on that list. It’s true those people hurt me and failed me. It’s also true that now, I am responsible for my life. Blaming them and staying angry feels righteous but not right. Not anymore.

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

 

Thrive or Survive

I have passed the survival phase. That dark place where the only thing I have is my will to live. The place where my only obligation was to make sure I was fed, that I did my responsibilities as best as I could. That place of survival was my instinct and my deep desire to live.

Now, I don’t live in survival anymore because I already have survived. I’ve survived losing many family members and the people I trusted and loved. Please don’t ask me how I migrated from survival to this new landscape of vibrant life. I don’t have the answer because there is not one thing I can point to that I did. However, there are many small things that I did. Perhaps these cumulatively helped me get a passport to a new residence of my spirit.

I talked. And talked. Even when no one wanted to listen. Their rejection stung but I talked anyway until they changed the subject or stopped calling. I expressed my feelings in a genuine way in safe places. Sometimes, the only safe place I could find was talking to myself, or talking to G-d. I didn’t bury myself alive by shutting down.

I cried. A lot. I still cry even though it’s many years after my losses. I know that my tears are a physical and emotional release that makes me feel good.

I gave up expectations—that other’s had of me and I had of myself. I stopped judging myself and measuring my progress.

I stopped fighting the pain and let it wash through me.

I felt empathy for myself but I didn’t feel like a victim.

I accepted I was on a journey.

I gave myself Permission to Grieve

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

 

Why Bother?

Why should we bother to grieve? Perhaps this sounds flippant but I mean it seriously. I know first hand the pain that grief brings and the inevitable isolation. So why bother? Why not do what most people do and suppress it? Shut it out or shut it down. It is possible. I’ve done it. I know I could do it again.

You may be thinking, how? Tell me how because I cannot stand one more moment and I will do anything. That’s the key phrase: I will do anything. We sometimes feel that we would do anything to bring our loved one back or have one more conversation or hug. But that is impossible.

The desperation sets in. I would do anything to stop this. I don’t want to feel this. I don’t want to hurt so much. I don’t know how I will ever feel better.

What are the choices? It is possible to stop the pain, to stop feeling. That is easy. There are many substances or things to do to shut down. We all know them. Or at least some of them. There are people in the tabloids doing all of them. Drugs, drinking, shopping, lovers, gambling, cutting (one’s self or hair), eating or not eating….the list goes on and on and on.

So why grieve when I could blunt the pain? Because if I blunt the pain I am killing myself. It may be a slow and unnoticeable death, but it is death just the same. A fast death or a slow death depending on the choice one makes.

To feel the pain, I am alive. To numb my feelings I am denying my life. It is botoxing my emotions—paralyzing them so my wounds don’t show. I didn’t choose the pain. I don’t want the pain. But it is rightfully mine, and if I choose to be fully alive, I have to grieve so that eventually I can live.

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