sharing the grief story – Shes her mother's daughter

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.

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!