Posts Tagged grief

& then there were two

December 20, 2009 at 10:11 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , ,

Grandparents, that is. Maggie & Sadie now have more living great-grandparents than grandparents. Tom’s daddy died at 10pm on Thursday, Dec 10th. Bobby, Daddy & I flew up to Ohio on Friday, the visitation (or “calling hours,” as it’s called in the North) was Sunday, and the Mass was Monday. Tom, Jennifer, & the girls were booking it for South Carolina by Monday night. They were gone for a total of 13 days & 12 nights, which in baby-world, is an eternity.

It feels very surreal, this parentloss. Aren’t we a little young to be doing this? Aren’t you supposed to make it to your 40’s or 50’s before your parents die? We can’t seem to make it to 30 in our family.

Things feel a little more normal less traumatic now that we’re home again. We’re all back to work (well, those of us who have jobs) & determinedly embracing the Christmas spirit. Listen to some Christmas carols, damn it. Pass the effing eggnog.

The sheer chaos of the last week did bring about a breakthrough on a personal level for Jen, Sue & me. Ya’ll may recall that I was raised in a somewhat cultish conservative religious environment, and one of the biggest deals is women wearing pants (fondly referred to as devil britches). Like, it’s a BIG DEAL — bigger than wearing makeup or cutting your hair or painting your fingernails.  As of last week, my sisters and I, ages 31, 26, and 22, had never ever wore pants in front of either of our parents. We’ve grown up, gotten married, bought houses, & birthed children (one of us, anyway), and we have never been caught without PAC, which is sister-speak for “Parent-Approved Clothing.” I have actually seen my father’s vehicle in my own driveway and driven away from my own house and hidden in a nearby parking lot until he left. Yes, I have.

Then there was the time just a few months ago that Sue & I were having dinner with Bobby, his mom, & his sister, and our internal PAC radar started beeping as Daddy drove by. And without an explanation, Sue and I get up from the dinner table and run, literally RUN, to our bedrooms to change into skirts. Bobby’s mom and sister were confused. I can’t imagine why.

Anyway, back to last week. Tom & Jennifer are calling with updates on his daddy, Bobby’s grandfather is in the hospital ICU again, Sue’s in the midst of her final exams, I’m freaking out at work waiting for “the” call from Ohio, and then Bobby falls down the stairs. He calls me gasping for air and I freak out (some more) and race home to find him lying in the kitchen floor with the dogs sniffing his face & his butt concernedly. He’s completely convinced that he’s punctured a lung because he spit up blood after he fell. Because a punctured lung is all we need right now.

So I get him off the floor & into the car & take him to the hospital, where his mom (who happens to be working) is worried that he’s cracked a rib or two (turns out his just pulled some muscles, but it hurt like a bitch. Oh, and the spitting up blood thing? He bit his damn tongue when he fell. Drama queen.). So I’m sitting there pulling our insurance information (because that’s when we still HAD medical insurance) & trying to help Bobby & answering inquiries from work about when I’ll be back & then Daddy calls & announces that he’ll be there in two-point-five minutes.

And suddenly, my focus shifts from my job and Bobby and Tom’s dad to “Holy shit. I have on pants. And my father is coming here.”  Commence the mother of all freakouts. I actually seriously considered leaving Bobby at the hospital and going home to change. I berated myself for not carrying a spare skirt in my car. I tried to talk to Bobby about it, and he just moaned in pain and cussed and was no help at all. So I just sat there. I mean, what’s a girl to do? And for the first time in almost 32 years, I wore pants in front of my father. And ya’ll know what?!? He didn’t even blink. What the hell is that about?!

Then Jennifer wore pants in front of him in Ohio, and he didn’t blink. And then I wore pants in front of him yesterday, and he didn’t blink. Jennifer finally asked him what the deal was — like, what the hell, dude, we race around like idiots for 31, 26, & 22 yrs respectively and you’re not even reacting? And he told us that it was “between us and our husbands” and it was none of his business as long as we still respected him by not wearing pants in HIS house.

And then Bobby & Tom, who are both fine with their wives wearing pants, laughed their asses off. I swear to God, I was born into a family of freakin’ crazies.

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Part 3 of 3 – The Hard Part

December 9, 2009 at 6:10 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , ,

Tom’s dad is dying. I haven’t written about this for a couple of reasons — first, there was such hope by so many that he would pull through, and second, I just didn’t want to think about it because it’s too familiar, too real, and it makes me remember things that I’ve been working really hard to forget.

In June, Tom’s dad, who lives in Ohio, was diagnosed with AML (acute myelogenous leukemia). This is a perfectly healthy 50-something-yr-old man who has a nagging cold that he can’t shake. Finally goes to the doctor, and it’s leukemia.

It’s now December 9th, and he’s actively dying. Yes, there’s an actual “active phase of dying.” I was blissfully unaware of this fact before September 2007. He hasn’t eaten in days, and has a steady drip of morphine running into his body. His breathing is shallow and sporadic. He’s slipping in and out. He’s ready to leave, and he’s just waiting for it to happen. They’re all waiting. Waiting for the waiting to stop.

Cancer has done it again — reduced a healthy, brawny, 250-lb carpenter to an emaciated shadow, a distorted monstrous version of the person he used to be.

Jennifer, Tom, Sadie, & Maggie drove up to Ohio last Thursday with an open-ended agenda — to stay until it’s time to come home. Approximately 36 hrs ago, his breathing changed. I got Jennifer’s text message, and felt my stomach clench. I remember when the breathing changes. I remember Mama’s chest rattling and each breath seeming like the last one. I hope that Tom’s dad won’t have seizures. Please don’t let him have seizures. The only thing worse than your beloved parent looking a corpse is your beloved parent looking like a corpse and having a violent, horrific seizure.

My heart hurts for Tom, as he sits and watches and waits and tries to remember how to feel normal. His family is in that place — that frantic, irrational, insulated place, where the world is still turning while you sit and watch and wait and bustle and chatter and cry only sometimes and say things you won’t remember saying later. Every occurrence is either really irrationally funny or really irrationally sad — there are only extremes with nothing in between. Every hour is spent revolving around the minutia of death, and it’s hard to believe that outside, the world is still living like nothing has changed. While I’m thinking about money and Christmas and gifts, there’s a tick-tocking in the back of my head… “Tom’s daddy is dying, Tom’s daddy is dying, Tom’s daddy is dying.”  In Jennifer’s voice, I can hear that she looks at Tom’s father and sees our mother.

Last night, I went to their little house, and Jennifer instructed me on which clothes to pack for the funeral. Tom was ordained just a few months ago and is preaching his own father’s service. And then one of the most difficult things I’ve done to date — I read Tom’s notes to him on the phone, notes that he made last week for his father. There were stories of his childhood, of what makes his father special, of why his daddy is irreplaceable. As I read them aloud, I sobbed… even though I knew that my emotions weren’t making things any easier for Tom, I simply couldn’t stop. He cried, and I cried, and we made it through four pages of notes. And my heart broke again for children who lose their parents too young. Tom is 29, the age I was when Mama died. Jennifer is 27. They aren’t even 30 years old, and they’ve lost two parents.

It’s so hateful and barbaric and primitive, this dying process. With all the improvements and research dollars and technological discoveries, the dying process is still the basic leaving of life — the slowing breath, the dimming pallor, the cold hands, the failing body.

It’s just so damn ugly.

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Part 2 of 3 – Christmas Past, Present & Future

December 8, 2009 at 9:28 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , ,

*Scroll down for Part 1 of 3.

It’s a weird place in which I find myself these days. I’m relieved, but worried, but not too worried about our financial well-being. I’m missing my mother (always), but I find myself enjoying Christmas for the first time in three years. I actually went Christmas shopping. Yep, the Grinch came out of her cave and walked into an actual store & purchased actual Christmas gifts. Without snarling or cursing even one time.  The Christmas shit everywhere isn’t making me angry & bitter this year…. Bobby and I put up a tree, and I’ve decorated our mantel & dining room table, and am typing right this minute by the light of our lovely Christmas tree.

Why the change, you (& Bobby) ask? When Sue was home for Thanksgiving, she said something that pierced my little Grinchy heart — that one of the things she hates most about Christmas is going to her friends’ houses, where there are lots of gifts under the tree and she’s reminded of how much our family has lost/is losing. As obvious as it may seem, I suddenly realized that Sue is still a child in lots of ways. While I genuinely don’t miss the Christmas gifts, she DOES. Light-bulb moment. So this year, Sue’s gonna have gifts under the tree. Not expensive gifts, or big, earth-shattering gifts, but she’s going to have presents to open on Christmas morning. Cancer has taken enough of her childhood — it’s not going to continue to make trips to her “normal” friends’ houses more painful than they have to be.

Generally speaking, the holidays make me feel even less normal than usual. The commercials, the cheeriness, the happy family talk… there’s an implied pressure to feel & act a certain way. It’s easy to see why people become (more) depressed during the holiday season. Which is why I openly declared my Grinchiness during Christmas 2007 (much to the dismay of my then-coworkers). Sometimes it just takes too much effort to pretend.

I was in a very dark place this time two years ago (click here for post). A very, very dark place. If nothing else, this blog has helped document the fact that I am indeed improving.

And although I’m noticeably less bitter this year, it’s still hard. I don’t think Christmas will ever not be hard. Yesterday, I subbed with a lady who’s about Mama’s age. She was chattering about her children, her new grandbaby that’s on the way, shopping for their gifts, going to the Christmas parade, how much she’s looking forward to having them all at her house on Christmas Eve. It’s hard, ya’ll. It’s hard to listen with a neutral, interested expression on my face, and act like her words aren’t causing me pain. Listening to her talk is a glimpse into what would have been, and I find myself shying away from letting my brain go down that path. There’s no point in even thinking about how it would have been. There’s no point. So I smile & nod & try not to let her words go beyond my ears into my brain.

I can say that from where I am this very minute, Christmas Present resembles what the “new normal” will be more closely than 2006, 07, or 08 did. Finding a new normal isn’t something that happens in one year or even two years… I remember people talking about “the new normal” like it’s a destination to be reached, which is completely misleading. It’s year three, and I’m just now beginning to see a glimpse of Christmas Future.

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thankful-ish

November 24, 2009 at 10:42 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , ,

Thanksgiving without my mother is different. Really, really different. Dinner’s at my house instead of Mama & Daddy’s. I’m making the grocery list & cooking instead of arriving just in time to help. We’re using a sweet potato souffle recipe written in Mama’s small, neat handwriting, and trying not to think too much about it because tears in the sweet potato souffle just don’t work.

We have Thanksgiving Past on video. Everyone laughing in my parents’ kitchen. Mama fixing the turkey and laughing about it being on videotape, because it’s just one of those things that seems too insignificant to record at the time. She looks at the camera with her big smile, and says “Yep, you can watch this when I’m dead and gone.” and breaks into her signature laugh. It would be funny if it weren’t just a little too true.

I have things to be thankful for, I do. I’m thankful that Sue’s coming home tonight. I’m thankful for my & Bobby’s marriage — that we’ve been able to sit down and begin to figure out this unemployment thing together. I’m thankful for my lovely house.. it IS my happy place, and not a day goes by that I don’t actively love it. I’m thankful for my sisters — it’s hard to imagine how this motherless Thanksgiving would be without them. I’m thankful for my two beautiful nieces, because their mere existence makes every occasion happier and more entertaining and more family-centered. No matter how distant our islands become — mine, Sue’s, Jennifer’s, & Daddy’s — we have our love for Maggie & Sadie as a common thread. I’m thankful for those home videos of Thanksgiving Past — the word “priceless” doesn’t even begin to describe their value. I’m thankful for my mother — she’s not here now, but I had 29 years with her, and for that I’m thankful.

I miss her, I do. Her absence is in everything — every plan, every menu, every moment has an empty, aching hole that she left. If someone had told me that you can still feel the urge to call someone two years & two months after you last talked to them, I’m not sure I would have believed them. But it’s very, regrettably true.

So off I go to do Thanksgiving Present in a new and motherless way. As strange as it sounds, it’s sometimes still so difficult to believe that this is real. It feels like 50 years since I’ve called her & heard her voice say “hello” on the other end, but it also feels like only maybe a week or so. There’s a new sense of time when you’ve lost someone who was a part of your everyday life — days can feel like weeks or minutes. Confusing, but also comforting… I’ll bet that’s what heaven’s like, but without the pain of missing.

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a separate identity

October 3, 2009 at 9:06 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , ,

There are many stupid things that people have said (and continue to say) to me after Mama died… things like “everything happens for a reason,” “God never gives us more than we can handle” (for a full-fledged rant on this one, click here), and “Now your mama is your guardian angel.” There’s one in particular, though, that actually has proven to be appropriate…  “something good will come of this.”  This one’s especially hard to hear when your hurt and loss is still so open and raw. Something good coming from this gaping hole that used to be me? Um, I don’t think so.

But now, two years later, I find myself thinking that amazingly enough, a few of those platitude-spewing people were right on the money.

Here’s the thing. I do NOT think that God took my mother for a reason. I don’t think that God took my mother at all. Cancer took my mother. But when things go awry (as is always the case with cancer), positive changes can result eventually. EVENTUALLY, not immediately. It took me two years + two weeks to even see this small glimmer.

The glimmer is this — losing my mother has allowed me to become a person that I wouldn’t have been otherwise.

During a conversation with my sister last night (our first in months), she said, “Mama made us alike.”

And she’s right. Mama did. It wasn’t like she forced us, or insisted… no, not at all. It’s just that my mother’s presence was so strong, so passionate, that we adjusted to allow for the huge force that she was. She gave us a moral value system and a sense of home. But what she DIDN’T give us was options. We, mostly Jennifer & I, parroted so many of her views and her perceptions, and we really, truly THOUGHT they were our views and perceptions.

This is not to say that my mother was a dictator or overbearing or a bad mom. She was the polar opposite. What I’m talking about is common among many mothers & daughters I know. She teaches you how to keep a tidy house. She teaches you to wash your hair and shave your legs. She teaches you what’s right and wrong. And her own perceptions & ideas get all mixed up in that, so that you become, in a sense, a mirror of her. How many times have we thought or said some version of this thought: “My mama’s way is the right way”? I think that’s why many women find their mother-in-laws oppressive… because they’re NOT our mother. When we hit college, we branch out on some topics like politics, religion, or we might even date someone our mothers don’t approve of just to assert our independence. But underneath, the voice of our mothers are still there, throwing in their $0.2 on every single decision.

Then my mother died, and I had to learn how to be a separate identity. It’s something I would have never, ever chosen, but it wasn’t optional. Is this separate identity an altogether new creation? Or is it a version of myself that was always inside, and I just had no reason or inclination to let her come to the surface? Probably a combination of the two.

My separate identity has pierced ears.

She never goes home to Townville. Why? Because she doesn’t want to.  Mama’s not there, so why bother?

She learns cooking, and sewing, and countless other household tasks from the internet because there’s no mother here to teach her the “right” way to do it.

She has joined a church, which she would not have done if her mother was still here, and she is becoming more and more active with that church & its people.

She doesn’t go shopping anymore because her shopping buddy isn’t here, and she doesn’t even miss it (the shopping, not the buddy).

She is more independent, and becoming more so everyday.

Validation from family is no longer a necessary step in her decision-making process.

She now understands the concept of grace, and knows that following the rules of legalism actually has no impact on her spiritual outcome — thus the meaning of grace.

My separate identity is also more cynical, less compassionate, and more out-spoken.

She’s smarter than the old Sarah, and I respect her more because she had to go through hell to get here.

I no longer have the option of being my Mama’s little girl. I miss it every single day. I don’t think there will ever be a time that there’s not a lost little girl inside crying for her mother. But I’m finally – FINALLY – starting to see a glimmer of the good that’s happening because of this tragedy.

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coping

September 23, 2009 at 7:29 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , ,

Relieved to say I have the two-year anniversary behind me. The day itself was spent just being sad — looking through my Mama box, acknowledging the loss. I haven’t done that in a while… I’ve gotten really good at slamming the door on thoughts that are too painful. But Thursday, I let them in. Cried and cried until I ran out of tears, under the covers with one of Mama’s nightgowns. There’s physical pain when you go to that place, like your heart is actually, physically ripping.

That evening, I went back to a message board called “Motherless Daughters” that I hadn’t frequented in a while. I found that, amazingly enough, I actually HAVE progressed. There were newcomers to the group, who were only two, seven, ten weeks out from their mothers’ deaths. For the first time, I was able to articulate my own path in order to make someone else feel less alone. There’s something very comforting about being told that you’re normal, even though you feel anything but. I remember being that “new” girl, feeling like there really was no point in waking up tomorrow, feeling so completely broken, so utterly alone.

There’s a tinge of guilt to all of this, looking at the calendar and knowing that I’ve gone two years without my mother. I haven’t spoken to her once in two years. I haven’t heard her voice, or answered a phone call from her in two years. 760+ days. It seems impossible. She was such a part of my identity, my everyday life. It’s difficult to comprehend that I’ve just gone on living without her.

I’m reading “Motherless Daughters” by Hope Edelman again. The first time I tried, it was too fresh and I was too angry. But now, it’s clicking.

Last night at my GriefShare group, I talked about counting down the hours and minutes until Mama’s death. As soon as the calendar hits September 1st, the countdown begins. “Two years ago, I was _____,” and “two years ago, Mama was _____.” A lady in my group, whose teenage daughter was killed in a car accident almost four years ago, told me that the countdown would fade away eventually.

I have mixed feelings about that. As painful as the countdown is, it keeps me close to Mama.

Oh, and I need to add a credit here: The “after” picture in this post was taken by Tiffiney, an incredibly talented photographer, mother of sweet, tiny Sadie Mae, and a beautiful, compassionate person. Click here for her blog.

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Two years ago today

September 17, 2009 at 11:47 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , ,

Before September 17, 2007:

family in charleston copy

After September 17, 2007:

IMG_5787-crop

Sometimes it seems like more than I can bear.

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i hate september

September 13, 2009 at 9:18 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , ,

Does anyone else ever look around and think “Is this really my life? How did I get here?” I don’t really mean that in a negative way… just more of a pondering sort of way. I feel surprised sometimes — even though I know I’ve been here the whole time, it occasionally often feels like where I am now just snuck up on me.

September weighs heavily. Every day becomes a mental montage of “this day two years ago, [fill in blank here].” There’s a feeling of disbelief. HOW can I still be here, still be breathing and functioning normally, two years after losing Mama? It feels like a betrayal of her, like she wasn’t as important as she should have been, if I can live two years without her. This is permanent. This is real. She’s really gone. And today a year from now, I’ll be saying “it’s been three years.”  And then five years, and then 12, and then 18. And she’ll become dimmer and more abstract, part of my past with no place in the future. I wish I could drag my feet and make time move slower — every day that passes puts me farther away from her.

She’s so far away now. I can’t remember the last time I felt her presence. I wonder if she thinks of me as often as I think of her. Somehow, I doubt it.

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helpful things

September 1, 2009 at 9:25 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , ,

As is often the case, the deepest funk is followed by a realization that all this “stuff” I’m doing is (gasp!) actually working?!? Last week was the darkest it’s been in a while — just a pervasive feeling of utter despair with no light. September is particularly difficult…  my first thought when I woke up this morning is “Today 2 years ago, Mama was dying & everything was falling apart. Today 1 year ago, I was having a D&C.”  And then I turned my brain off and went to breakfast with girls from church.

Although working through and living with grief &/or depression is an ongoing process, these things are helping. And so I list them here — for others who may be interested, and mostly for myself for future reference.

  1. GriefShare – I’m 3 weeks into this 13-week program. Although I’ve read tons of grief books and even did a support group through Hospice, I have resolutely avoided ANYthing religious until now. So this is new ground. My group is ~15 people, and all kinds of loss — sudden death & terminal illness, teenage children & babies born still, suicide & natural death, recent & years ago. I know it depends on your group &/or mediator, but this series, and the accompanying workbook, has been great.
  2. Acupuncture — Such a positive experience. My acupuncturist, Cassandra, is unbelievably compassionate, and we talk quietly for 15-20 minutes before each session. About 10 minutes after she puts the needles in, I can literally feel the tension draining out of me. It’s amazing, and I’m not a huge user of that word. I do giggle at the sheer incongruity of it — 5 needles sticking out of each ear, a few in my forehead, wrists, and a bunch in my feet. It’s made for some amusing stories here in small-town South Carolina, where that there eastern-type medicine just ain’t done. It’s an expensive vice, but I’m hooked, at least through September.
  3. Quote Notes – During acupuncture #2, Cassandra told me that when I feel overwhelmed, I should say aloud, “Darling, I’m here for you.” I’m not really into mantras and such, but the simple comfort of these words really struck me. So the next day, I found several comforting & supportive quotes, typed them up in pretty fonts, and taped them around the house. They’re on the bathroom mirror, the kitchen cabinet doors, next to our key-hook, over the alarm keypad, beside the front door… everywhere that I look at least twice daily. Bobby just shakes his head when he comes across a new one. He’s a patient man.
  4. beliefnet — I’m bad about signing up for little inspirational email things and then deleting them without even opening them. But last week, during the sad times, I made myself read those suckers. And as hokey as it sounds, they actually help. Not all of them, of course… but some of them have been both interesting & timely.
  5. The Shack — And finally, this little book. I know that everyone and their grandma has read it. I’ve been holding out due to my anti-religion policy. But I bought it and I’m been reading it.  The writing isn’t fabulous, the story isn’t a nail-biter. But I felt a powerful sense of recognition as I read the author’s description of what he calls “The Great Sadness.”  His portrayal of grief is achingly accurate, as is the acknowledgment of anger at God.

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grief trigger

July 16, 2009 at 8:41 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , ,

This past Sunday, one of Susanna’s high school friends was killed in an accident. He was 21, the oldest of three boys, a student at Clemson. This week has been rough. Hello, understatement. She and I talked about the loss Sunday before going to bed, where the nightmares ensued. I dreamed that Mama was alive and I was bargaining with her to stay here, crying, begging her not to leave me. For hours, this went on. Finally got up, feeling hungover and exhausted. Was greeted by Sue sitting quietly, with puffy eyes and dark circles. She had dreamed that our dad died, and she was an orphan whom no one wanted. She called into work and slept on the sofa… said that she could sleep as long as she knew that I was in the room with her.

The funeral was last night — the first funeral that Sue has attended since our mother’s. It was a 5-year reunion for Sue’s high school class for the worst imaginable reason. Afterward, she & her friends drank. A lot. But the dreams were waiting, because alcohol only works when you’re awake — she woke herself up this morning crying and saying “Mama.”

It sucks, people. It really, really f-ing sucks. You think you’re getting better, that you’re learning to live around the giant, gaping hole. But it’s a slippery slope, and even the smallest nudge sends you hurtling back into that dark, scary place where you’re nothing but a lost, shattered child.

The grief books call it a “sudden, temporary upsurge of grief,” defined as:

brief periods of intense grief which occur when a catalyst (or trigger) reminds one of the absence of the loved one or resurrects memories of the death, the loved one, or feelings about the loss.

These are not the same as missing or thinking about a person, or even shedding a few tears. No, this is overwhelming anguish, like someone has put you in a time machine and sent you back to when it first happened, when you were raw and bleeding, and not sure if getting out of bed was an option.

Obvious triggers are birthdays, the death anniversary, Mother’s Day, and holidays.  But then there are the sneaky little bastards that blindside you when you least expect it. A sudden death like Sue’s friend, a dream, a picture, a song — even something as seemingly harmless as a hand-written recipe or a lady’s dress in church can bring it crashing back down on you like a wave, rolling you over and incapacitating you for minutes, hours, or days.

I find myself saying that it gets “easier.” Not EASY…. easi-ER. But that dark place is never more than a moment away. And is that really easier? Should any form of the word “easy” be applied to this? Easy means “without effort, free from pain, unoppressive.” Not even in my best moments, on my strongest, most “normal” days, does this word fit. It’s always, ALWAYS there, like a dull ache of chronic disease in remission, and the flare-ups, the attacks, never get easier. Perhaps they get briefer… but when you feel your soul and heart shriveling and bleeding for all that’s lost, “easy” is nowhere in sight.

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