Death after Death

     A year ago I decided that it was time to do something with all the writing and research I did for my doctoral thesis on grieving multiple deaths. Since then, as if on cue, I have experienced multiple bereavements and find myself dealing with the complexities of multiple bereavement grief. All I can say for sure is that I am grateful to have walked this path before. I know what to expect, and knowing allows me to be more gentle with myself than I might otherwise be. I can let go of my self-judgement when I find myself grieving. I can be more patient with myself when I need more sleep or more headache meds. I can give myself some understanding when I'm impatient and irritable. I can recognize the difference between grief and despair.
     I say, "I can," in all of those sentences, which is not the same as saying, "I do." I can't always follow my own wisdom. I don't always take my own advice. My current job situation does not allow me to get extra sleep, which is one of the things I know to be important. And when I find myself short-tempered and angry it doesn't always occur to me to relate it to the deaths that I am grieving.
     The biggest difference on this particular journey of multiple bereavement grief from the one that I walked during the 80's and 90's, is that I now talk about grief and grieving out loud. I don't keep secrets. I share what I know. I hand out business cards with this blog site on them. I connect with other grievers. This time, I know how important it is to have companions on the journey.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Tears

Last week, in the middle of my school day, I was doing some research on a computer in our library. All of a sudden, I found myself looking at a picture of an aortic aneurysm (my mother died as the result of surgery to correct an aortic aneurysm), and without warning I burst into tears. It was like I was seeing my mother's heart, and her very large aneurysm. My stomach lurched, my breath stopped, and I was plunged into a state of deep shock and grief. I have not been able to shake the memory of that picture. You can never un-see something. I wonder if my mother saw a picture of her aneurysm before she agreed to surgery. I'm lucky - I can still ask my father.

The Death of a Parent

It's been 4 months since my mother died. I've survived Mother's Day, my parent's anniversary, and each of all the other days in between. I have been surprised by how different this grief is from the others I have gone through in the past. As I said in my last post, it feels as if this death is more disorienting than others. I suddenly find myself hoping my grandsons will call me Granny, which is what our children called my mom. I find myself planning my retirement years with more intensity than I plan tomorrow. I want to stay young for the pre-teen I still have at home, but I feel older than I've ever felt before.
I also find that I'm grieving a loss of my own history. There are fewer and fewer people I can call to find out the real family history - that history that lurks just out of sight, because of all the secrets that all families have. The history that could help me understand some of my present.
And I'm grieving the loss of the little, seemingly trivial things. I find myself wondering who my mother's favourite Blue Jay would be this year. When I watch a game, I feel the weight of knowing that my Dad is watching alone. Most things are like that - tinged with sadness.

Feeling My Age

There's nothing like the death of a parent to make you stunningly aware of your own mortality. Other deaths have moved me to examine my life in light of the fact that it will one day end, but the death of my mother has done this in a more significant way. Not only will my life end, as hers has, but I am now the "next in line," as it were. I am now the grandmother, the matriarch of our family. I can now see that my life will have pretty much the same perameters as hers had. My grief at the loss of my mother is laced with sadness about my own future. Some days I can get past this and choose to continue having dreams, making plans, and investing in my future. Some days I just need to sit with my sadness over the fact that 20, or even 30 years seems a very short time to have left.

When You Can't Go Back

Recently, while watching TV, I heard a woman say, "If you can't go back, you'd best go forward." Such simple, truthful, advice. I cling to that advice every day. In my deep grief and sadness about my own mortality, I find strength in that saying. I can't go back. My mother is dead. I must go forward. I have children and grandchildren, a wife, friends, relatives, all of whom deserve my investment in our shared future. I need to take the days as they come and just keep going forward in the simple ways that I am able. Perhaps just sweeping a floor or making a phone call will be enough to tell someone else I love them. One day at a time, always going forward.

Every Little Thing

For my father, having just lost his wife of 59 years, grief is in the details. Every action, every breath of every day is filled with the loss, from the moment he wakes until he returns to sleep. Every chore he has to take on, every lonely lunch without his cribbage partner, every unshared TV show underlines the devastation he is forced to live with.

I have lost two life partners, but no one with whom I have spent so many years. When your beloved spouse dies it's as if the entire fabric of life has been shredded. To say you feel "torn apart" is an apt metaphor. And, there really is no one who can possibly share that grief you have to bear. There are others who may understand some of what you're going through, because they've been there, too. But, ultimately, all grief is excruciatingly lonely. No one else had the same relationship with the deceased as you did.

Why Am I So Sad Today?

We expect to feel deep sadness and grief at the time that our loved one dies, yet often we do not. As I've outlined before, there is so much to do, so many details to look after, that we can rely on our natural state of shock to get us through without many tears. We may be aware that we are feeling sad, but the sadness then is nothing compared to the sadness that is to come.

I am now five weeks past my mother's death. On Thursday morning, just before my students showed up for class, I felt the waves of grief hit me head on. I was biting back tears, forcing myself to find the strength to go forward with my day. I was afraid someone on staff would notice and reach out to console me. I say afraid, because if anyone had tried to be kind to me at that moment my walls of self-protection would have crumbled and I would have become an emotional heap.

Knowing that this unexpected flood of grief, seemingly coming from nowhere, was, in fact, predictably on time, did help. It allowed me to fully acknowledge the parts of my being that were screaming for release and attention, while assuring those parts that I would find time for them on the weekend. Now it is the weekend, and I can find the safe places to go deeply into my grief. Now I am surrounded by those who love me most, and I can let myself experience the deep vulnerability of loss.

In years past, when I have felt this need to grieve, to let some of the pain come to the surface, I have watched a sad movie or listened to sad music. Acknowledging the grief and letting it come out robs it of some of its power to derail me in unexpected moments.

Our immune systems and grief

Everyone in my family has been very sick lately. While I haven't experienced the level of illness most of them have gone through, I feel as though I have been fighting various things off ever since my mother died. I never feel fully well, and I have an almost continuous migraine.

When we are in deep grief, our immune system is very compromised by the stress we are carrying. Not only does grief leave us feeling chronically exhausted, it raises our levels of stress hormone which knocks our immune systems for a loop. We need to make sure that we get as much sleep as possible, wash our hands constantly, drink lots of water and keep moving. Common sense, but hard to remember when you feel listless and detached. Going back to work has helped, but by the weekend I find myself beyond tired. That's when I have to be especially careful not to let the germs get the upper hand. Take care of yourself in whatever ways you need. That is not selfishness. It's protecting yourself so that there will be more of yourself to work, play, love with in the days ahead.

Grieving Now

I have been away from this blog for a few months. I lost a chosen family member in November, and in February my mother died of a massive stroke. So, in the midst of writing about grief, I am enduring multiple bereavement grief once again. My mother's death was unexpected, although when someone of 81 elects to have surgery, you know there is always the chance they won't make it. The surgery was quite successful, but Mom had a stroke within hours that destroyed significant portions of her brain. She remained on a feeding tube for a week, and then my family made the decision to remove the tube and stop the IV. My youngest sister was lying on the bed with Mom, holding her, when she passed away.
Knowing as much about grief and grieving as I do has helped me and my loved ones. Many of my relatives have not had to go through such a significant loss before. It has helped my father, especially, to be told that everything he is thinking and feeling is normal.
For myself, I have lived through the numbness of the early days. I gave the eulogy at Mom's funeral. I spent a week with relatives and friends whose presence was a deep blessing. We played games, ate food that had been dropped off by loving neighbours, and took comfort in knowing that we loved and were loved by each other. It seemed like "time out of time," as everything was odd: we weren't at work; we were with people we hadn't seen in many years; we were aware of why we were together, but the real grief had not started. Tears were shed, but it always felt like Mom would walk into the room any minute and invite someone to play Scrabble or Cribbage.
As our brains go into shock we are allowed the blessing of being able to do and be many things that surprise us. Early grief is not often the deep, raw, ravaging experience we may expect.

Why Don't I Feel More?

The days after the death of a loved one are hectic and full of people. There are plans to be made, meals to be coordinated, appointments with funeral homes and/or religious leaders. In those early days we don't have time to feel our loss in any significant way. It's almost as if our minds and hearts seize on the details in order to cope with the larger reality. It is normal to wonder why we don't feel the sadness we expected to feel, or that we think others expect us to be feeling. That sadness may take a long time to surface. We can, however, trust that the grief will come - at what ever time our hearts and minds are ready to process it.