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Moving forward, but not moving on…

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What is it about New Years that gives us a desire to look back over the past year, reflect and then make New Year resolutions? This is a question that I have pondered over the course of my life. I was never one for goals or resolutions. When someone asks where I’ll be in 5 years, I’m never sure. Maybe it was due to my parents looking for stability and longevity and therefore the desire to be in one place for 5 years was something to achieve. My parents grew up in the great depression. My father fought in World War II. Did they desire to lessen their trauma impact by setting and keeping goals? Maybe it was my fear of failure. If you don’t set a goal, then you don’t fail. I guess it’s really just my stubbornness to not allow society to dictate a day that I need to reflect backwards so I can move forward.

As I consider that statement, reflect backward so I can move forward, I wonder if those of us who grieve don’t always reflect backward because we fear moving forward. I follow many grieving bloggers and Instagramers and a theme I am reading from many people who grieve is the fear of moving forward because we may appear to “forget” the person who has died. So, we grievers often do a little dance with our past and present. I find myself in this conundrum often. I desire to live in the past when my parents and best friend were still in my life. I desire to hear their voice and receive their guidance. I sit with my memories every day. Some days, those memories suck me down into a vortex and I don’t want to leave. It’s like that dream we all have had where a loved one comes back for a visit and you see them so clearly, and then you become aware that it’s a dream and you start to think of ways to hold on for just one more second, and suddenly you are being pulled out of the dream and you are lying awake in your bed trying hard to go back to sleep so the dream will continue. We fight so hard to make it happen. It’s almost as if we can’t deal with another loss that present’s itself in the dream. The other side of it is, staying awake and feeling the memory of the dream. Hearing that voice, or seeing that smile for just a moment, and being thankful and grateful that you had the opportunity to experience it again. That’s the moving forward.  In the moving forward, do we feel like we are letting go? Is there a dishonor if we move forward?

There is a woman by the name of Nora McInery that gives a wonderful TED talk (I’ll add her talk to the resources page). She talks about moving forward with grief.  I’ll never get over my grief, but what I will be able to do and what I have been doing better at is moving forward. Moving forward for me is starting to look like acknowledgement. The memory is there always inside me, and I smile now when I see my niece or nephew smile like my mom. Or when we talk about family stories and I hear my brother’s sound like my dad. I’m moving forward, but the past is still there.

This past year was a year of growth for me on many levels. 2020 was the year that I decided to no longer allow my fear of what “other’s think” to rule my life. This blog is the perfect example. I needed to do this for my own grief process, but I was so scared of what people would think when they read my blogs. I’m a horrible speller, I change tense’s in my sentence structure and sometimes I ramble on. But this past year, I said to hell with it all. I need to get out of my own head so I can begin to move forward. I don’t know what 2021 will bring. I hope it will continue to bring growth. As long as I’m growing, I’m doing pretty good. This year, I hope to perfect my dance. To find rhythm within the gentle sways, past, present, moving forwarding, but not moving on.

It’s been a year…

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Today it’s been a year since your service. I didn’t remember it was today until Facebook reminded me. What kind of best friend am I that I didn’t remember that? Was it because I blocked it out? Was it too hard for me? Was it that I just got caught up in life and forgot? Or is it truly that I just not have accepted the fact that you are gone? Social media makes it so easy for me to forget. It feels like almost daily, FB gives me a memory of you and I, or a memory that you commented on. It makes it seem that you are still just a text message away.

My mind won’t let me go there yet. Even when your death day came and we celebrated with cake and stories, it still hadn’t sunk in. I look at pictures and laugh and remember the stories associated with the pictures. I go to pick up my phone to send you a message and my stomach drops knowing you won’t answer. The last year has seemed so surreal. I can deny your lack of presence in my life by saying we just have been too busy to see each other. It’s easier than saying you are gone. My losses in the past two years have been so crushing, that I have chosen to deny your loss. My heart told my head it couldn’t take anymore, so my head told my heart you were still there.  My head said, look on Facebook, Insta, or even my text messages. My heart believed it, my heart still believes it.

I can’t give away your title, even though other’s have desired it, it’s not theirs to take, not yet. If I keep the title of best friend, then it means you are still there. The title is thrown around so easily among people. Everyone becomes your best friend. Best friend titles are tossed as easily as a salad, one day she’s my best friend, the next day, he’s my best friend. But for you and I, that title has remained yours for 47 years. It may stay for another 47 years. You promised me you would take care of me when we were in the nursing home. You promised me that you would be my memory when it faded away. You were my story keeper. I find that I want to ask you about a memory that is foggy in my brain, but I know you won’t answer, you would if you could.

I wear your starfish; it never comes off. It’s close to my heart so my heart doesn’t have to feel another loss. I remember all our trips to the beach, how we talked the entire drive there and back. How we laughed and cried at all the changes in our lives over the years. It reminds me of our marathon dinners when we would drive our servers crazy because we couldn’t stop talking long enough to order food. There would be times when weeks or months would go by and we hadn’t talked, but yet as soon as we did, it was as if we never missed a beat.

You taught me how to do my hair and make-up. You taught me all about fashion and MTV and boys. You were my protector from bullies, you taught me forgiveness and how to dance (hopeless cause). You were there during my senior week firsts and we laughed about that almost every time we talked.  I know that eventually, I am going to have to learn to live without you, but I’m not ready. As long as I have Facebook telling me my memories, I won’t need to do it.

About a three months ago, I was at the beach and I was walking by myself and my mind drifted to you. I spoke to the wind and suddenly it was as if you were there. For a moment, I felt you, my whole body tingled with your energy. I tried to hold onto it for as long as I could, but too quickly it was gone. It was a double edged sword, I was devastated that I couldn’t hold on longer, but I was blessed to have had the experience of knowing that for the briefest of moments, you were right there, just like old times.

The Grief Club

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What is it about grief that makes you become a member of a club that you did not sign up for. Is there some sort of energy that surrounds you that other people can see and because of their own grief, they gravitate toward you? It’s like a mini grief support group happening at the most interesting of times.

This happened to me very recently on a mini vacation that my paramour and I were on.  We were enjoying a wonderful dinner and drinks outside under the lights. We were having good conversation and admiring our interesting surroundings. We did have an in-depth conversation about the loss of my best friend, but otherwise, the mood was calm, easy, and relaxed.  As we were talking, another couple proceeded toward us only to stand at a makeshift bar next to our table. Mike, being the friendly and engaging person that he is, said hello. Within a few moments, the couple found their way to the two empty seats at our table.  Now I would not be transparent here if I didn’t say the couple had a few drinks in them by the time they sat down to talk with us. They introduced themselves as Mike and Wendy (who were just friends).  Conversation started at a superficial level, but quickly advanced when the young lady went to the rest room, and her male companion told us that he is wife of 20 plus years just died 2 months ago. She died suddenly. He said it was the widower maker. And just like that, he and I had a connection. Another member of the grief club.

Once back from the restroom, his female friend caught herself up on our conversation. She immediately tried to placate him. She tried to use words that each of us who are in the grief club cringe at hearing. She said he would be ok, have another drink, do not dwell on your loss, focus on what you have in front of you.  I could tell she was shutting down his emotions. She wanted to put the band aid back over the wound so she would not have to see it anymore. Often grief club members experience a “Wendy” during their grief process. A Wendy does not know what to say so they will fill up a silent void with empty words. They offer sympathy, but they do not offer empathy. I never understood this difference until I joined the grief club. And let me tell you, there is a difference. I will never forget the year my parents died, that spring I went to the beach with my best friend. She was a second daughter to my parents, and she lost her dad when she was 7 years old. When I sat and talked about watching their swift decline, her eyes filled with tears, she reached and held my hand and gave space me to be sad. That was empathy. When someone sits down with you in your time of agony and does not try to fix your emotions away. Brene’ Brown is such a great resource to better understand the difference between sympathy and empathy.

I looked right into Mike’s eyes and said, “My god man how are you even walking upright?” Relief flooded through him. I told him my story and we recognized our club membership. Mike began to open up and speak freely about his emotions. How hard it has been over the past two months and he’s finding he has good days and bad days. I could offer some normalization to him that he is on the right track with his grief journey.

Grief can be a lonely place. I find even now; I sometimes like being in that lonely place. It feels like it is the only thing that is mine. The memories are mine to keep. Maybe it is the social worker in me, or the fact that I am a strong empath, but I feel emotions deeply.  Being an empath also means other’s gravitate toward you and desire to tell their story.  That night, after our experience with Mike and Wendy, we pondered the coincidence of the night. My Mike and I saw it as a cool thing. A situation where someone was clearly hurting and trying hard to find a real empathetic connection to validate his feelings. Mike would call it a God moment; I would call it mutual recognition of membership in the grief club. Have you experienced this type of connection?  Take a look under the resources to see the video by Brene’ Brown. She is an excellent resource!

Getting started and moving in the right direction…..

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Please note during this blog, I will use the term “family” very consistently. Family in my terminology is defined as a group of people who are either biologically related or chosen by an individual to be inside the personal circle of that individual.

It has been interesting over the course of my professional career watching other families respond to crisis’s centered around an aging parent. Keep in mind, in the hospital setting, it was rare to see a family that had it all together and had a plan in place before the crisis took hold. What was normal, was to see families taken off guard by how bad things were at home and that their family member was unable to return home after a hospital stay. When families are in crisis mode, good decisions are hard to come by. Over the years, I have had friends who have asked for my assistance with helping their family prepare for crisis. The focus of this blog is to share what I feel are good steps toward managing an inevitable crisis down the road.  I will be very generic in my discussion and my suggestions may not apply to your case but reach out to me and I can help guide you. Not every family is created equal.  My knowledge comes from both professional and personal experience.

Scenario: Two older people living together. They have 4 children, 3 live close, 1 lives out of state.  Two of the children are noticing some signs that things are not going so well at the home of the older couple. These may be subtle signs such as lack of good meals, repeating stories, a home that was once clean, is no longer tidy and neat. Increased bickering between the couple, one person withholding information from a child, yet the significant other tells the child the information. A dent in the car, overpayment/underpayment of bills, just to name a few. At this point, often a child will notice these issues but may not say much or if they do, their siblings may not agree, and they silence the other sibling.

What needs to happen to avoid crisis mode?

  1. Call a family meeting with your family. I think it’s important to start out with siblings and their significant others, but you could also include anyone that you feel has an active role in the care of the couple. Sit down and discuss what you are seeing and observing. Ask others if they are seeing the same thing. You may get mixed feedback as each person may have a different relationship with the couple. Emotions may run a bit high at this meeting. Fear will motivate people to respond in a protective manner. You may need to have a few meetings so that the designated members can observe what you have observed and have time to process their own emotions around this information.
  2. After the family is on board, and everyone seems to be on the same page, you should discuss roles that each member feels they can take on. There should be a caption of the ship, meaning one person that drives the boat and keeps things organized.
  3. Medical evaluation. This is an area that I have observed that seems to be a big obstacle for many people. How does one convince the older person to visit the doctor to discuss the cognitive decline? And not only that, how does the individual convince the doctor that there is something going on at home. This is where a role of advocate is needed. If there is a family member that isn’t afraid to push back, this should be their role.  Primary Care Physicians (PCP) are wonderful! But if an individual is having cognitive issues at home, the PCP should refer them to a gerontologist. A gerontologist typically works in an environment with other providers such as nurses, social worker, psychologist and neurologist who specialize in the disease process of older individuals. This team can evaluate an individual from a holistic point of care and provide a solid diagnosis of what is going on with the individual. In order to see a gerontologist, a person will need a referral from the PCP. The gerontology team will pull in the family as part of the support system.
  4. Advance Care Planning.  I am a big supporter of early advance care planning. And when I say early, I mean young adult early. We live in a death-defying country, so as a result, we don’t like to talk about how we want to die. But talking about how we want to die is important on so many levels. When you can sit down and talk about how you want to die with your family, you give them a gift. A gift in the form of not having to guess if you would want a feeding tube, or CPR or other forms of life sustaining treatments. I would encourage you to start these conversations now. I will give you resources on how to get started.
  5. Have another family meeting and if able, include the older couple. You need to learn to be open and honest with your older family members and if they can control what happens as process’ move forward, that will be helpful for a buy in. This is also the time where you must NOT make promises you may not be able to keep. Often, an older person will ask you to promise not to place them in a nursing home. I have sat with more individuals than I want to count who grieve over not being able to keep that promise. This is the time that you formulate how to support at home and for how long. This is the time you begin to research home care options and long-term care options.
  6. Begin to understand the financial outlook of the older couple. Someone in the family will need to evaluate where the couple is financially and what they can afford moving forward. You may need to schedule an appointment with a lawyer so that Power of Attorney (POA) documents can be started.  This needs to happen before the individual is no longer able to cognitively understand what is happening. A POA is very different than a will. Again, an attorney will be able to discuss all those options with you and your family.  Just a very quick note here (my thoughts ONLY), you don’t need an elder care attorney unless there are major financial dividends and/or trust funds or business that need to be protected. A family attorney will do a fine job and you won’t have to pay a large sum up front that some elder attorneys might charge. Again, know your options, do your research.  
  7. Start looking at long term care options. Educate yourself on the differences between personal care homes, boarding homes, assisted livings, long term care, continuing care facilities.  Go and visit, ask what happens when/if money runs out. Don’t assume anything until you educate yourself.  If you have an older family member who has been diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, look for facilities that have secured units. Not only are those units locked, but they offer special programing centered around individuals with cognitive decline disorders. Many facilities require that all their staff are specially certified as well. This is beneficial to the individual with a cognitive decline disorder.

Not to overwhelm you, I am going to stop here, and I will discuss each of these points in upcoming blogs. I know each situation is different and my hope is that this blog will give you a starting point and some ideas as you begin this journey with the person you are caring for. Jump on over to my resource page for information about advance care planning and facility searches. I’ll add more as able.

Father’s Day

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Everyone said it would get easier. They told me each passing year would be better. The first year, my dad had just died, it was fresh, raw unfiltered. The second year, I decided to buy a house. Distracted thinking was my coping mechanism. This year, COVID. This year, I finally had to sit in the pain and the hurt. Let me tell you, it doesn’t seem to be better.

My dad was 47 years old when I was born. He had already raised 3 boys. He was a minister in the church of the brethren. He worked for the local electric company. He would go hunting during hunting season and fishing during fishing season. He was a simple man, one who lived by simple principals. He was born during the “Greatest Generation”.  He told me he remembered the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He was walking up the steps to his high school when he heard that the United States was attacked by Japan. Two years later, in 1943, he enlisted with the Army and fought for his country in the South Pacific. When dad came home in 1945, he didn’t talk about the war again until 1989.  

Thanks to my dad, I became a history buff. We often took day trips to Gettysburg and he would tell me all about the battle at Little Round Top. He would tell me about the Peace Light and how the United States made a commitment to never fight amongst themselves. He took me to Williamsburg and we talked about the freedoms that the founding American’s wanted from England. We couldn’t seem to go anywhere where my dad didn’t share a story about history. I was in 11th grade in 1989 and we were studying World War II. I came home and started asking my dad questions. After a while he agreed to speak to my class about being a veteran of the war. It was the first time that I ever knew that my dad was a medic for the Army. He told so many stories. I hold those stories close to my heart. I always told myself that I needed to sit down with him and video his stories, because eventually they would be lost. It is one of my biggest regrets to this day.

My father was an extremely religious and God-fearing man. He had high standards and kept to them. We were never allowed to enter a restaurant that had a bar. My dad was always worried that someone would see and think we were going drinking. He instilled a wealth of religious teaching into my life. He could quote a bible verse from memory. It would amaze me how at the most inopportune time (such as coming home from a night of dancing with my friends) that my dad could pull out a bible verse about the sins of dancing.  I felt like the movie Footloose was made from my life.

Dad could fix almost anything. I would often be tasked with the job of holding the light while he would use one of his tools to perform his magic. My dad taught me how to change my tire, my oil, my spark plugs and add all kinds of fluids to my car. He would often be called to one of our homes because something was broke, and we knew he could fix it. During his retirement years, dad took up woodworking. He made beautiful items. Benches, clocks, bird houses, doll cribs and doll houses. It’s amazing how those simple homemade items are so treasured today.

I was talking to my brother this past week on the phone and he said to me “Crystal, I really miss my dad, if I could bring one person back it would be my dad”. Through that conversation, I felt the immense loss of the man we called dad. He was a quiet, strong, knowledgeable, loving caring man. He was consistent and stubborn.  We miss him. As I reflect on today being Father’s Day, I acknowledge that our family was blessed. I also acknowledge that not everyone had the type of dad we had. I also recognize that many of you reading this have lost a dad, a father figure, an important man in your life. I wish I could tell you it gets easier, but after 3 years, I’m not sure it will ever be easy.  I want you know that you are not alone in your grief, that many other’s are scrolling through Facebook and smiling at friends and family who still have fathers, all the while you are feeling this odd sense of jealousy, sadness because you can’t physically hug your dad.  Big brother, I miss my dad too and what I wouldn’t give to hug his big broad back one more time. Happy Father’s Day to all of you going through this loss, whether it’s old or new or somewhere in between. You are not alone.

The Dance…

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It started with stories. All repeated stories. Even before I could attach a problem to the stories it was there. It started so subtly. She would say “Have I told you this already?” and I would say yes but go ahead and tell me again. I just initially assumed she forgot she told me. I never in my mind went down the road of Alzheimer’s disease.  Ever since I could remember, my mom had word recall problems. Meaning, she called us all by the wrong name, I was Ted, Jay, Gary and even Oscar the cat. If she couldn’t find a word she wanted to use, she called it a whatchamacallit. My dad would often fill in the blanks for her, it just seemed like second nature to them.  So, it never really crossed my mind that she was developing one of the first signs of Alzheimer’s disease, memory loss.

Over about a two-year period I started to notice more re-telling and statements such as “Have I told you this before?”. She seemed more frazzled when she prepared family meals, in fact she forgot to make key dishes in the meal. I believe it was Christmas of 2010 when I asked to have a family meeting with my brothers and their wives. I wanted to see if they noticed anything.  I was worried that I was the only one that saw something was “off” with mom. My brothers and their wives spoke up quickly and we all agreed mom was not herself. Each of us made some level of excuse for why this could be, but at the end of the meeting, it was decided that the topic had to be approached with mom. And it was decided that because I worked in healthcare and knew how to navigate the system, I was the perfect person for the job. (Yay me!)

My mother always took very good care of herself. She was proactive in her healthcare and took an extremely active role in preventative health. She saw her PCP regularly. There was a part of me that thought if something was wrong, her PCP would be on top it right? After Christmas, I went to visit my parents and asked if I could sit down with them and talk about a few things. Of course, they readily agreed. At this point in my professional career I had done so many family conferences, that this should have been a cake discussion. What I learned that day was something that I learned at every step of the way through the Alzheimer’s journey; this was different, this was personal. As I sat and faced my parents and tried to find the words to say I found myself struggling. But after coming out and saying we kids were worried about her memory, my mom said “thank GOD! I thought I was the only one. I thought I was going crazy”. She then told me about the times she forgot how to get home from church and how she can’t remember where she placed items, or the new grandkids names. She agreed that she needed to go through some testing to rule out other factors that could be causing memory loss.

After a visit to her PCP, mom was referred to a gerontologist that specialized in memory loss. We initially met with a team of providers. Mom went through both cognitive and medical evaluations. The idea was to rule out all other factors that affect the memory such as medications, mini strokes, neurological conditions or other medical causes. After all evaluations were complete, we were called back several weeks later to sit with the team and review the results.  During the wait I kept telling myself that mom was having mini-strokes and that was why she was forgetting. I would not allow myself to go down any other road.

If you ask anyone who has had a cancer diagnosis if they remember the first time they were told they had cancer, they would all say they remember it with such clarity. I will never forget sitting in that room when the medical team said mom had Alzheimer’s disease. It was a punch in stomach. Because of the work that I do, I had seen the full-on effects of Alzheimer’s disease not only to the individual that it attacks, but also to the family and friends. I knew firsthand how this disease was going to go and it wasn’t going to go peacefully.  Two days later, I found myself sitting on my kitchen floor sobbing like a baby. That was the last time I sobbed like that until years later when Alzheimer’s had taken complete control. I suddenly realized that Alzheimer’s disease was my new dance partner. I could either chose to join the dance or sit on the sidelines. I chose to dance.

What experiences have you had during the diagnosis phase of Alzheimer’s disease? How did your person take the news?  What were your reactions when you heard those words?

Family…

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Family. One word, many different meanings and emotions.  Some define family as a mother, father, sibling, aunts, uncles, and cousins who are biologically related. Others define family as those people who come into your life that you feel deserve the title of family. Often those people are not related by blood. I have been blessed in my life to have both types of family.

I was pondering family as I was on my two-hour drive north this past weekend to see my bio crew. I was born an accident. My mother always said I was the best accident that ever happened to her. My parents were older. My mom was 39 when she found out she was pregnant with me. My parents already had 3 boys who were mostly grown. My oldest brother Gary was married and in Vietnam when mom told him she was pregnant. Jay was in high school and Ted was in middle school. Mom went to the doctor’s thinking she was going through “the change” only to find out she was in for a CHANGE. My parents always wanted a girl and they got her when they got me. Essentially, growing up I had 4 fathers. My brothers were protective, yet rough on me. I learned to change my oil, change a tire, shoot a gun and take a fish off the hook. But I was still considered the baby of the family, my oldest brother had this idea that I was spoiled rotten and life was easier on me than it was on him. Jay, my middle brother was a peacekeeper and Ted was my fierce protector (although he did beat me up a lot when I was little).

There were times when family get-togethers turned into yelling matches, major competitions and demoralizing outcomes to the losers. I found myself as a teenager and young adult to be in this twilight zone with my family.  I had this idealistic view of family. I thought the perfect family was one that sat around the fireplace and sang songs and accepted each other unconditionally. I felt at times that I had the total opposite of that idealistic family. I am much more liberal than my biological family. I don’t usually talk politics with them, I typically don’t share many of my personal word views with them. I always felt different from my biological family. Ted used to tell me I was adopted, and I always felt in my heart that I was, because I never fit in.

This feeling of non-acceptance by family was not something they intentionally did. I was always the one to avoid conflict, so therefore, I kept my mouth shut to avoid confrontation. Now granted, there were times that I couldn’t keep quiet, but for the most part I didn’t say much. I began to distance myself from my family. I love my family, but sometimes it was hard to sit in silence. I also believed that I didn’t have a role in the family. My brothers all had roles; I was the baby. I was told I was spoiled; I took and never gave back (my perception of my role based on how I felt).

So, as you all are sitting back and reading this (especially my family, YIKES) and thinking…wow, ok what does this have to do with grief??  Grief, loss, terminal diagnosis, chronic illness is a game changer when it comes to family dynamics. I have professionally sat at the family table with hundreds of families and have watched two things happen, either the family is destroyed, or the family comes together. When mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, our family came together. Suddenly we became united in a common cause, which was our parents and their wellbeing. I loved watching this family unit work together in a way that I had not seen before. Each of us children took on a role that complimented each other. Instead of competing against each other, we were working together. Now granted, there were times that we hit a rough patch or two, but overall, we worked well together.  I believed, based on the way our parents raised us, I suspected the ability to work together was there all along.

Before grief, when our family would get together, I was excited, but a distant feeling of dread lingered. But after facing grief, I feel different. I saw how as a family we came together. Maybe despite my own insecurities of not feeling a part of my family, through grief I found acceptance. My family and I now share a common denominator and she’s called grief. Grief made us look at our differences in a new way and they don’t look so different anymore. The differences in my head changed into support, and I recognized that it was there all along. As I drove north this past weekend, I couldn’t wait to see my family (granted COVID coop-up did help with wanting to see a new view). I couldn’t wait to share in the camaraderie of loss. And for us, loss looks like shared memories, laughter, tears and the best part, seeing my mother’s expression in the new baby’s eyes.

Here we go…

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Well, I took the plunge and made it public! What better way to get wet than to jump right in. It’s been an interesting few months. I can honestly say that the pandemic shut down forced me to face the emotions of loss head on. What I didn’t even realize I was doing was filling my time with “stuff” to avoid facing my grief. Sure, my grief hit me (and usually at the most opportune times), but I never allowed the grief to stay. I pushed it down because I was at work, or at home trying to accomplish a task. I didn’t have time to grieve. I didn’t have time, because I made sure I didn’t have time. COVID-19 suddenly made sure I had time. At first, I didn’t know what to call what I was feeling (and I’m the professional counselor here…hmmm). I felt like a caged animal. I was not emotionally functional (by my own personal definition). I was a blubbering mess, I cried all the time or else I just wanted to sleep. I was angry, frustrated and wanted to literally run away. I actually reached out to my two wonderful sister-in-laws for some stability because I was going nuts. I grew up where stoicism was worn like a proud war metal, so what was happening to me was the opposite of stoicism. I felt weak and unable to be in control. And let me tell you for someone that holds control on EVERYTHING, this didn’t feel so good. I finally sucked it up and made a counseling appointment. I had gone through counseling about 10 years prior as my marriage was falling apart. I was proud of myself at the time because counseling really provided me with some strength based skills that I use pretty consistently. When I did my first session with David my counselor, I actually apologized for failing him! Really Crystal?? Yep, apologized because I was embarrassed to be back on the couch again. I felt like I let him down. I sobbed the entire hour and I’m surprised he didn’t suggest inpatient care. What David did for me that first session was powerful. He used the term emotionally defenseless. He told me because of all the loss over the past 10 years I was emotionally defenseless to control my emotions right now. It suddenly clicked. I had run myself ragged to the point that my emotional health became compromised. I knew it was time to start doing the work. It was time to face the emotions of loss, grief, sadness, anger, overwhelming feelings of not knowing who I was without these people in my life. Knowing that for the first time I would have to stand up by myself and form my own identity. I have always been “Richard’s daughter”, “Lois’ daughter”, “Gary’s sister”, “Kim’s little sister”. They were always there to guide me and support me, to be my rocks when life hit hard, now, they were gone and now I have a lot of grieving to do. I hope you will follow along this journey with me as I learn to face these emotions head on and learn to walk a path I have never walked before.

This is me…

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I am a quirky 40 something year old daughter and mother who has experienced the loss of parents, a brother and a best friend all within a short period of time. I’m a Licensed Social Worker who in trained in bereavement and loss, but is having trouble turning the book learning on myself. I want to share my stories, my fears, and my success with you in hopes that somewhere in the loss, we all can find some hope.