Good Grief!

"Aren't you done with that yet?" This is a question that I get a lot from people. I think that they are trying to be supportive. I think that they are trying to help me through something. I don't think that they are intentionally trying to be mean and hurtful. Three years, seven months, sixteen days, and about eight hours since my husband took his last breath. That's a lot of time. And a lot of things have happened since then. Good and bad! A lot of events have filled the spaces in between my husband dying and this moment where I sat down at the computer to resurrect this blog. It's not that it went away ever. Life just happens, and a lot of the time, spending time with my kids or washing dishes or just laying on the couch doing nothing seems way better than typing a blog post. But, this particular post has been churning in my head for some time now. And tonight, after a conversation with Amelia, I decided that it was time to write it. I was tucking Amelia into bed tonight and doing our usual "Just one more thing mommy moment" when she said, "Mommy, are you sad that daddy is dead?" I sucked my breath in for a second, sat at the edge of her bed, and said, "I am sometimes." "What? Why do you say sometimes?" "Well, sometimes I don't even think about it anymore. Sometimes I'm so happy with being your mommy and I'm so happy with being a friend and a daughter and a coworker that I don't think about not having daddy around anymore." "But sometimes you do think about him?" "Yeah, sometimes I do think about him." "Is it OK for us to still be sad about daddy?" "Of course it is! It might take us a long time to still be sad about daddy and as time goes on, there will be things that come up that make us sad about daddy all over again." "Isn't it time that we're done with that though?" And my heart fractured into a million pieces because my seven-year-old has heard this, and the most likely source is probably me. I shook my head at her and said, "No, Amelia. There won't be a time when we're completely done with it. There will be times when it is better. But, daddy was part of us, part of you. And he always will be. It gets easier. And it gets better. And the time between missing daddy and not thinking about him gets longer and longer. But there isn't a time frame to just be done. We're done when we're done. And we get as long as we need. This is our process. And your process is different from my process. And Emerson's process is different from our process. We can be here for each other. We can hug and kiss and love and support each other through. We can ask our friends and family to hold and carry us through. But we each have to go through what we have to go through. And it's all ok. And whatever pace we go through is ok." "So, what if I don't want to cry about it now, but maybe I want to cry about it when I'm a teenager?" I held her hand, and said, "Then, I will be right here to love you and carry you through that time when you need to cry. Because you probably will need to cry when you are a teenager. And that's ok!" "OK, mommy. I'm glad we talked about this. I was worried I was running out of time." "Nope. You take all the time that you need. I'm right here to help you through whatever you need." "I love you mommy! I'm right here to help you through whatever you need too!" "I know you are, Amelia. And I love you, with all my heart." I kissed her and squeezed her good night and walked to the living room for the night. They say there are five stages to grief. They say that everyone goes through the stages at different times. They say that people go through the stages more than once, or may go out of order. Some steps are skipped and not gone through for a while, or maybe ever. The stages are 1) denial and isolation, 2) anger, 3) bargaining, 4) depression, and 5) acceptance. When I read through these, I can certainly tell you which ones I've experienced. Anger was for sure the one that I settled in, and stayed in for much of the last three years. As I've stated before, I go to counseling, and my therapist and I have had many discussions about how easy the anger stage is for me. I settled there and I've stayed there for quite some time. And it makes it easy. Anger is easier for me than any of the other stages. I don't really like to cry. I really don't like to show emotion. I'm sure there may be a few select people that would disagree with this statement, but I don't like to be sad in front of others, so anger is easy. Even my best, closest friends are pushed away when things get hard. When I get to a place, perhaps in the grief cycle somewhere, where depression sneaks in, I am quick to push anger to the forefront and push my friends away. Anger is easy for me, because it hurts way less than the others. Things have been great. The stages of grief had died down, or so I thought. I was feeling good about things. Life was great. Things were going smoothly. And then there were some bumps in the road. Some news that was unsettling. Some pain and heartache for friends and loved ones. And there comes grief again. This time, it did not come with anger. It came with sadness. Depression. Tears and heartache. The feelings of not being able to breathe. The feeling of needing to lie in the lap of a friend and sob until my soul couldn't sob anymore. So, it got just before that point and the anger came back. And I pushed away. And I ran. And I felt cornered and angry. And I opened up and shared with someone that I was having a rough time, that I was sinking into old patterns, and that person said "Aren't you don't with that?" and my process came to a halt. I felt guilty. I was ashamed. They were right. I should be done! Three years, seven months, sixteen days, and eight hours is too much time to waste on this. I've had my time with grief. It's time to be done. It's someone else's turn. I can't keep cycling around to this over and over. So, I shoved it down and moved on. Put on a happy face and move forward because you're done. And then a seven-year-old voice of reason tonight gently pushed me over the edge that I needed to hear. She needed advice. She needed to know that she didn't have to be done. She needed to know that she could revisit this if she needed to. And I needed to hear that too. From me. From her. From whoever! Grief isn't just done. Losing a husband, a partner, no matter the circumstances behind that loss, is devastating. I didn't just lose a husband that night. I lost the father to my children. I lost my partner. I lost the second pair of hands for housework. I lost the second income for our family. I lost the second person to help with decisions. I lost the hopes and dreams for our future. I lost the guy that knew how to program the electronics. I lost the person that took care of the little crises in the house like broken toilets, or burned out light bulbs, or changing batteries. And I get to grieve for all of that. No matter what anyone says or thinks, I get to grieve...Amelia gets to grieve...Emerson gets to grieve. And if I can look for the blessing in any of this, I have learned to be gentler to my friends and loved ones who need time to grieve. Because it doesn't ever go away. It gets quieter...for a while. So, good grief! It's all part of the process. It's all good. It's all working towards what we need in that moment. It's all part of the process...any grief process. Whether it's death, or diagnoses, or loss, or whatever! So, if I want to be happy and not talk about it, honor that! If I want to sob in your lap and tell you how badly my heart hurts, please don't freak out and tell me I should be done. If you see me sobbing in front of the Blue Moon in the grocery store, know that that was Brian's favorite and I still can't really walk down that aisle without thinking of him. And if you are one of the super unlucky ones and I push you away and show you my angry side, just know that I'm so sorry...this roller coaster ride is not fun for any of us! We'd like to get off anytime, but all we can do for now is hold on and pray for the operator to slow the ride down for just a while. Good grief!