Grief Card

  Let’s face it, you have a year to grieve. People don’t like to say it out loud but it’s the truth. It doesn’t matter that many of us are layered in a coat of denial or sipping shock at having lost our children as we eat our tea and drink our toast. My point is, the year after our children have died is a crazy time. Make room in your life to grieve, to mourn and slowly, to recover. Here are a few pointers from a Mom on the other side of loss. Not to say I’ve overcome my loss, or that somehow its magically vanished because that would be a really big lie. But I have learned to live with it, laugh at the absolute absurdity when Grief rears its bizarre little head. The big difference between the first few years after our daughter Madison died and the last ten is that grief no longer consumes me.

Grief is a get out of jail free, use it. Do the things you want; wash your car naked by moonlight, sing at the top of your lungs when your driving a hundred miles an hour down the freeway. Buy all new furniture to replace your child’s crib and chest of drawers. Have a yard sale, give everything to charity or keep their room exactly how it was before they died.  Cancel the appointment with your CPA because you want to feel the warm sand between your toes. Smoke a Cuban cigar, drink Aquavete and gorge on Spanicopita rather than swallowing your tears at a Christmas dinner with relatives who you haven’t seen since before your child was diagnosed...Mom will understand. Allow yourself the time to process the magnitude of your loss.

Give yourself a pass. Don’t want to go to a concert that your friends already purchased tickets for and now your awash with anxiety? Flash the grief card. Want to stay in the hot tub for hours long after everyones inside and waiting for you? Grief card. Extra martini or twelve? Grief card. Leaving a party early, or having a conversation in the bathroom with a few of your closest friends for the entire evening because it feels safer than the sea of people gathered outside talking about their work and families? If there’s an extra bathroom... whip out the Grief card. Every surface in your home covered with your child's photos years after they have died? Grief card. Forgetting birthdays, appointments or your manners? Grief card. Unreturned calls? Grief card. No sex, or nymphomania? Grief card. Calling your friends together every year for your child's anniversary or birthday. Grief card. Driving sixty in a twenty-five? Give the officer your license and keys and consider yourself lucky not to have hurt anyone.

In our culture you have a year of unresourcefullness after your child has died. Occasionally, if your friends and family are terribly understanding you can stretch it a bit. This is your time, use it wisely.

Looking back, I wish I would have let myself cry more, wish I would have taken the time to sink into mourning. Grief terrified me. Instead I worked a lot, filled the empty place in my heart with Oreos, vanilla frosting and getting back to normal in an effort to appear like I was handling the loss. I scheduled time with friends  and activities to drown out the deafening scream of silence.  I was afraid to be alone, thinking my Grief would grab me by the neck and throw me into its pit of darkness.  I thought if I started I would never stop crying. Thought if I went into the pain of loss, that it would consume me. Maybe it would have, I’ll never know because I never let myself.

The week after Maddy died our close friends had cut their trip to Hamburg short several weeks to make it back in time for Maddy’s funeral. They finished the rest of their vacation with us at our home unwrapping all the casseroles that had been delivered, washing the dishes and talking until sleep finally took us.  They were hanging out in our living room when grief overtook me in the bathroom. Gut wrenching sobs spilled from my mouth as I doubled over in pain. I fought back the hysteria, my weakness repulsed me as I thrust a washcloth into my mouth to stifle the crying, threw cold water on my face trying to regain my composer. I wouldn’t let myself be a basket case, I wasn’t about to let myself go crazy. What would my friends think?

I now know that there is an vast divide between crying and full blown psychosis. It takes courage to cry, to let yourself feel, to be effected. If there were any time to let it out, it’s now. I didn’t let myself feel the weight of my sadness until Maddy was long gone; well over a year. I didn’t say the words “dead” or “gravesite” until several years after she died. Part of me thought she might be coming back, that perhaps she was on vacation. It sounded strange even in my own mind but the denial helped me to continue to get up in the morning. I wonder what would have happened if I stayed in bed? If I let my friends spoon feed me warm broth, occasionally coming in to replace the tissue box or make sure I was breathing. What would have happened if I would have let myself feel more in those early years?

    Trust me, you don’t have to be composed when your child has just died. Even though I held in my grief for many years I was finally able to talk through my tears. When I do presentations for Children’s Hospice or lead round table discussions with clinicians or sit on parent panels I talk through my tears, sniff my nose or take a minute to wipe my face. Tears are important, emotions are part of the remembering. People will gain understanding only when we are willing to share our stories and be vulnerable; tears help us to heal.

There is no right or wrong to grief. It just is.  Let the tears flow, let your heart break- it will continue to beat.  Accept help from others and don’t keep track of what everyone does for you in hopes that someday you will repay them. You won’t be able to, its a loosing battle. What I have done is pay it forward. What I have done is be there for people when they are in their own crisis as best I can. Sometimes life gets hard and I am not always at my best or most resourceful. I give myself those moments, allow myself to be good enough instead of excellent and sometimes I am just okay. But I am still here and mostly I am glad for it. I waited too long to flash the grief card, I tried to use it after the first year and quickly found out it had expired. The grief card expires when people expect you to be who you used to be, do the things that you used to be able to do before your child died. If you’re acting like everything is fine, people will follow suit. Give yourself the gift of vulnerability, let people know the new you as you discover it for yourself. Don’t pretend to be anything than who you are and know that especially the first several years after your child dies, you may look and act very differently but you will find your way again. A new normal will emerge. It’s not always going to be as hard as it is now. One day you may wake up and feel lighter, or a laugh will slip past those pursed lips. It’s okay to live again even when your child is dead. The road back to living can be a long haul, just keep moving your feet and flash the card when needed.