One would think I would have mastered grieving by now. The deaths have accumulated over the years so I should have figured out how to grieve, but that is naive to think because no one masters grief. It is a perpetual journey, often covered with ruts, hills, and thorns. Grief ebbs and flows. There is not a map or set of instructions on how to grieve, nor should there be. Grief is individual and it is complex.
I miss everyone that I have ever lost, but if I am being truthful, none have compared to my mother.
There are mornings when I wake up and it crushes my chest, stealing my breath, that she is no longer here. The reality hits again, and some mornings are harder, especially if I dreamed so clearly the night before that she appeared to be alive. I have woken up many days from those dreams in a daze trying to remember if she was actually gone or still with us. When clarity arrives and reality sets in, I weep in disbelief. The tears that I have shed for my mom are different. They seem more painful as if my entire body is crying, tightening, sobbing from deep inside every muscle and bone. This is when I walk to her picture, pick it up, tell her that I love her, and hug the picture gently so that I don’t break the frame or glass. It’s as gentle as I had to hug her months leading to her death because she had become so fragile. One of the things I miss the most, her hugs. My mother’s hugs have been practiced, rehearsed, since I was a child and there was not a time that I was in her presence that I was not hugged. She loved my pain away. No matter what was going on in my life, I knew that she loved me and that was often enough. It was safe.
There are other times that I just sit on a downed tree in the woods and wonder about her death. I wonder why she had to be in so much pain? She lived a good deal of her life in pain, both physically and emotionally, so why did she have to have so much pain at the end of her life? I try not to resent God but I was protective of my mother, and virtually helpless against her illness. However, I learned long ago, resentment, anger, and bitterness will tear me apart. It will sit heavy on my chest and mind and cause me harm, so I have put into practice forgiveness and understanding. Yet, I would be a liar if I didn’t admit that my fist tightens at times, along with the muscles in my forearms, and I take the anger of her death out on a heavy bag in my basement. I take it out as I tax my body, pushing, pulling, squatting, and holding a plank until I shake. It isn’t a form of self-abuse I guess, this beating up of my physical self. It’s coping and building resilience for my emotional self so that I can persevere. I make myself suffer through something healthy so I can let out the emotion that would otherwise stay trapped and ruin me. I don’t have time to be ruined because I still have people to love.
There is a positive that has come from my mom’s death. It is something I have pondered on often. I never was afraid of dying, but I believe everyone has those moments where death comes to their thoughts and they sidestep it because it’s not pleasant to think about or consider. Now, after my mom’s death and some of the events that came about since then, I know that my mom will be waiting for me when I die. I will join her, and even though I want to live and I have so much to live for, I will also welcome death when it comes for me. There will be a time that I will be with her again, hugging her, telling stories, and I look forward to that day. For me, grief makes my own death more bearable, and something that I fully accept.
I believe grief also wakes us up to who we still have with us. It wakes us up in a way that we realize, if mindful, that life is short. Our days are all numbered and we have no idea when that day will come for us or someone we love. It is a favor that grief does for us. It makes loving those we have near us in a more urgent way. When you lose someone there is a void. Even if they have been sick and dying for years, it can feel sudden because they are no longer there. They no longer sit with us in our space. This is why I try to practice being fully in the space when I am with people I care about.
Grief is ancient. It’s old. It goes back thousands of years, and I would be willing to bet that the grievers then did not know any better than we do how to navigate it. Grief is an endless road.
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