Four Years On

A friend of mine, Cami, taught a Relief Society class (women’s group at church) a few weeks ago and sent out a quotation she found on the internet: an old-timer talking about grief. I was organizing my emails and wanted to copy the quotation to save it on my laptop. Where to save it? I searched for grief and found a spreadsheet with a series of questions that Jim, Annie, and I answered in February of 2016: six months after David died. I found no surprises, but one thing stuck out:

Ever since we came back to Lexington in May 2014 I have carried a BOX of tissue in my church bag. I'm always prepared for unplanned tears. David's death is another motivation to living my life more consciously. However, it's hard to get out of bed in the morning and hard to get things accomplished, so that's a frustration.

When did I stop carrying a box of tissue in my church bag every Sunday? Six months ago? Three? The box had gotten pretty banged up and I hardly used it, but for the first three years I felt comforted having it nearby.

And when did it become easier to get out of bed? I suppose it was gradual. I’m in a much ‘better’ place now. What does that mean? We Americans are so afraid of painful emotion. I’m grateful for the grief, even the intense grief. I want to feel; I want to miss David.

And I do miss him. Just an hour ago I looked up at the pencil drawing of him, smiling and ‘extremely presentable’. It’s becoming obvious that the picture isn’t aging and his siblings and cohorts are. I’m becoming one of those weird grieving mothers with the old photo of a long-dead child. He’s not long-dead yet, but it’s coming.

Doing further surveying of my computer files on grief, I found a document I made of bereavement support groups. During the last two weeks of his life, David received care from Good Shepherd Hospice. Part of their service is to provide grief counseling support to family members for 13 months after the death. Jaye was our counselor. At the time of his death, that seemed very generous and more than adequate. However:

18 Jul 2016. I’m in a panic that the Good Shepherd Hospice grief counselling will be over in another 7 weeks. I have only been to see Jaye twice, but both of those were so significant. I’m going again. I wanted to go on the 11th monthiversary, but she has conferences on Tuesdays, so I’m going this Friday. Can I tell her I’m panicked, that I’m afraid of what Kimberly told me, that the second year is the worst? I hope I can. I hope I can be honest with her and find healing in the honesty. I hope she can help me navigate this unknown territory. It will remain unknown for a long time, for my whole life, but I hear it will get less intense. Life will get better.

Called Mt. Auburn Social Work asking about a bereavement support group. Left a message, while breaking down into tears and a squeaky voice. Apologized in the voicemail for the tears. “She will think I’m a basket case: it’s already been a year.”

Found A Compassionate Friend website and a monthly support group in Concord, 16 minutes away. “Well, if it’s only once a month, they must not expect you to be over it in 13 months.”

It’s hard not to distract myself. Hard to know whether it’s healthy. Hard to know who I can share this with.

Two days later I wrote:

I am feeling much calmer today. Maybe reading these grief books has been too intense; maybe it’s healthy; I just don’t know.

I’m glad I wrote this down. It’s hard to imagine now how panicked I was, how distraught and overwrought. That isn’t happening anymore.

Another document I found was a transcription of a voice memo I made a year ago, on the third anniversary of David’s death. I was bothered that I couldn’t keep in mind whether it was three years or four. And how I felt that

as a grieving mother I should be crying and I should be watching the time, and I should be aware that this is the anniversary of the last time he did this, the last of that.”

I remembered arranging the words from “If You Could Hie to Kolob” to Ralph Vaughan Williams' Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus while washing dishes when David was sick. I had fantasized about singing it in public and wondered if I could ever sing without tears.

In early grief it feels like it’s never going to change, that it’s always going to be excruciatingly raw. Even though people tell you it won’t be, you can’t imagine it. That’s the cognitive distortion of strong emotion. It’s one that I wouldn’t try to talk anyone out of. I would say, “in my experience”, there has been healing of the raw wound and hope they find comfort in that. Who can predict the emotional life of another person?

So, as the fourth anniversary of David’s death approaches, I can say that there has been healing. I miss David and am terribly sad that he is missing out on the mortal experience of adulthood. But I’m not overwhelmed with grief and sadness.

Another entry I made in July 2016, 11 months after David’s death:

So, how will I breathe as Victoria lives her life forward while all there is of David’s life is to live it backward? Is this why I can’t go visit them? Is it the truth I guessed at earlier in this 11-month journey, that Victoria’s birthdays will surpass David’s death anniversaries? Part of me sees that as inevitable, as I did intellectually when I thought of it months ago, but a deep emotion wells up inside of me that it’s not fair, that there could have been both: Victoria and David growing older together.

Now, with three more years past, I can breathe, and freely. Seeing Victoria grow into a loving, curious, vivacious four-year-old doesn’t make me sad; it fills me with deep joy. Of course, I wish David could be alive and enjoy the niece he never met. But I'm not in debilitating agony. What I can do to honor David is to live my life fully and be fully present in the lives of his beloved nieces and nephew, our grandchildren.

Processing grief

Wednesday, Jan 30, 2019, eight days after Michael's death

I debated about whether to go to DBSA-Boston tonight. I left the Lynnfield Family History Center, where I volunteer, at 6 p.m.: plenty of time to make the 7 p.m. support group meeting. When I arrived home, I realized that it was Mill St Open Mic Night, so groups wouldn’t start till 8 p.m. At about 7, I got my coat on and went out the door. The wind was whipping snow onto the porch and the flag was flapping wildly, cracking like a whip. It was much colder than a half an hour before. So, I went back inside. Sat at my computer, then decided that I shouldn’t be a wimp. These are my friends: I should be there for them.

When I arrived, the last performing group was singing “House of the Rising Sun”. I leaned against a pillar, not wanting to commit to a chair. The group coordinator walked by and told me that G. was facilitating the Newcomers Group, which I often do. I thought about leaving, but at home I had decided that if I didn’t facilitate I should go to a group and talk about my weird state of mind. I was undecided. I thought I’d go to the Depression group: the Mania/Bipolar group can be pretty energetic and might not be the best place for a discussion of grief. I approached the room of the Depression group and saw a few empty seats, but hesitated. I turned around and walked toward the area where the Mania/Bipolar group was forming. There was a large square pillar between me and the circle of chairs, easy to hide behind, and I stood for a minute, uncertain of what I wanted to do. I turned around and walked toward the Depression room, but there were no longer any empty seats. I turned and walked towards the exit. Maybe I should just leave. But I drifted back toward the Mania/Bipolar group. Seeing friends around the circle, I decided to risk it.

At my check in, I said my younger brother had died last week and I just wasn’t sure what I felt. I couldn’t articulate it in a few words, so I said, I’d like some time after. That’s the protocol: check-ins are for a brief update, after which we can spend more time focusing on issues. The check-in continued, and then the facilitator asked me if I wanted to speak.

I said I wasn’t sure how I felt. Perhaps it was something about the fact that in the past 5 years my mom, then my dad, then my son died. Perhaps I was protecting myself from the pain. I wasn't having the double-over-in-pain reaction I'd had when my son died; I didn't want to have it again; it was awful.

T. said, give yourself time, lots of time. He said that when his mother died he didn’t feel anything at first. Several months later something reminded him of her and he cried for an hour.

I know one thing that complicates my feeling: I feel guilty that I’m free of the burden of visiting him every month.

In November I met a mother at church who’s young adult daughter had been killed in a bicycle accident. When I saw this mother, desperate and grief-stricken, I recognized that I am no longer in that desolate place. I fear that facing the grief of Michael’s death will send me back again.

Thursday, January 31, 2019

I’ve been in shock. I’m still in shock. T., my friend from DBSA, pointed this out to me after the meeting last night. And that’s exactly what it is. I’m in shock from my younger brother Michael dying. I’m also feeling the shock of his life. All those years of limits on him: physically being delayed in walking and talking, never being able to do the things we take for granted: middle school, high school, college. And then, after he came out of the state of constant seizure when he was 13, more limitations. I lost part of my brother that summer. And have been slowly, over 46 years, losing him further.

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

I just got home from Compassionate Friends, my support group for grieving parents and siblings. I told them about Michael and about my experience at DBSA. I've never been so indecisive about going to a group as I was last Wednesday. The facilitator could identify. She said she had felt, after her son died, that she was holding it together, until she went out to dinner and stared at the menu, unable to make a selection. Exactly.

I'm grateful for the connections I've made, the friends I have, at these two groups. I have a place to go to process my feelings and not be judged. Not that anyone anywhere is judging me, except myself.

(Name initials have been changed to maintain confidentiality.)

Worldwide Candle Lighting

Join me, if you can, for The Compassionate Friends' annual Worldwide Candle Lighting, this Sunday, December 9th, at 7 p.m. your local time. Imagine the candlelight crossing the country and world in a 24-hour commemoration of all those who died too soon and are sorely missed. Leave a comment if you do it.

Compassionate Friends

I went to Bereaved Parents of Middlesex County tonight. It’s a part of The Compassionate Friends, a support group for parents, grandparents, and siblings of a child, grandchild, or sibling who has died.

I hadn’t been for a long time: nearly a year and a half. But I had an experience last week at our church’s wreathmaking party: the first much-anticipated holiday event of the season. There’s a program (this year it was Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols complete with a harpist), and the  optional making of wreaths. (Mine hangs on my kitchen porch.) The congregation sings a few Christmas carols. I love Christmas, especially the music. But as the first chords of the organ sounded, I started to weep, holding myself so I wouldn’t shake with sobs. Slamming into an unforeseen brick wall.

A few days later I was visiting a friend in the hospital and told him of my experience. “There’s no expiration date on grief,” he wisely said.

So, tonight I went to Compassionate Friends. I actually went last night, but found one other mother standing outside the darkened church building. We had a good, healing conversation. She asked, “Does it get better?” I wish I had words for it: better is not quite it. But, yes, I can now feel happiness and even joy and can hear a helicopter without being overcome with gut-wrenching emotion.

We later found out the meeting had been changed to Tuesday. I had received an email about the change, but when I received it I wasn’t planning to go, so I'd forgot about it.

Each story is different: the commonality is the heartbreak and heartache. I had forgotten the closing tradition. We stand together, holding hands around the table and speak our child’s name, “Good night, David.” That is very powerful and catches me off-guard every time. I can barely speak his name. I realize that I’m not able to truly wish David good night. I’m crying right now, as I write this. It’s a lonely, desolate feeling.

It’s a comfort to meet together, in “the club no one wants to join.”