At Peace With Grief

Grief and loss is not something you can prepare someone for. The experience is personal and how someone else experiences it is unique to them.

I remember getting a call from a hospital in Utah that my mother had passed away in the ER unexpectedly. It was a series of calls from the social worker who was trying to give me updates each time they resuscitated her. After the last phone call to tell me she was gone forever I remember my husband started to cry and I thought, “ Why is he crying? She was my mother.” Even when my daughter cried I felt like she was not allowed to cry. I had taken possession of the grief and loss as if only one person could be affected or grieve at a time. She was mine, therefore mine alone to grieve her absence, and MY loss.

That was a selfish and self-centered thought, and thank goodness it did not stay long.

When someone you love, looses someone they love, it’s heart breaking. It feels like there’s no right thing to say or do to lessen their grief or pain, but we try to do what we can anyways. As a wife and mother it’s second nature for me to push my feelings and needs aside to help my family. If one of them is in pain or suffering I instinctively jump into fix it mode. When my father-in-law died I felt bad for my husband and my grief and loss was for him. I stayed in support mode. When my daughter was upset over loosing a friend (breakup), I stayed in support mode. So, when my mother died, and my husband and daughter were grieving with me, I found it challenging to meet my own needs, and be a support for them too. This is why the initial reaction to their grief was frustration and confusion. My mother’s death had affected many people, on a different level, and all at the same time. This is why I say grief and loss is so personal and uniquely your own. Her memory was not a possession I could hoard, protect, or control. The moment her spirit left this earth her memory became a dagger afflicting many without their permission and without warning.

My daughter had always been close with my mother, but in the few months prior to her passing, my mother had become her best friend. As my daughter was transitioning into middle school during the pandemic she had become lonely, depressed, unable to make new friends, and struggling with the one friend she did have. At the same time my mother had just lost her best friend and roommate which required her to move into a smaller place. She was alone, had no family around her, and struggling with depression and loneliness herself. My heart was heavy and my mind distracted daily with worry for them both.

To combat loneliness, the two of them decided to play together everyday after school through a Nintendo game called Animal Crossing. We bought my mother a Nintendo Switch (hand held gaming device) and an account that allowed her to play live with anyone in the country. She was in Utah and we are in Oregon. Everyday at 4:00 they jumped on their devices long distance and on a FaceTime call to talk, laugh, and connect. My mother was horrible at figuring out the game, and Olivia found it funny to teach her the basics. I remember thinking “How lucky am I? My daughter solved my concern for my mother, and my mother solved my concern for my daughter.” Everyday, for a month, their laughter encouraged my soul, until one morning she was gone, she died.

My daughter’s best friend (depression medication in a sense) without warning was gone. I was numb with shock, and unable to process why anyone else was crying. My husband had a close relationship with her, and she had just been in our home for Thanksgiving. He felt his own loss and the unique pain of watching his wife and daughter suffer. He had every right to grieve and be hurt. Every person whoever knew her had a right to be upset and grieve. Like I said, it didn’t take but a few minutes for me to recognize that what I initially felt was wrong. It took only a few minutes for me to put myself in my family’s shoes to understand why they too were upset.

The next stage of my grief was avoidance. I could not let myself grieve or process my feelings unless completely and utterly alone. In my life I am rarely alone, so I stayed on a shallow level afraid of what would happen if I went deeper.  If anyone else showed emotion (usually my daughter) I felt irritated as if to say “ We are not doing this right now!” I lost all control and fell into a deep pit of pity. Who would bring me back from such an abyss? I saw no one around me that could pull me out of that. So I tried to control when, where, and for how long I could be emotional about my mother. Sometimes I would crawl into my bed, pull to covers over my head and watch the short videos she had sent me for hours. But rarely would I allow anything else. The videos were a temporary relief to a pain I didn’t want to feel. This would prove to be an unhealthy decision that would negatively affect me and my daughter. Unprocessed grief and loss can be detrimental. Without knowing what was coming in the future, the decision to push those feelings down was like striking a match and watching that decision become a destructive fire in our lives.

It turns out I had cancer for 5 years prior to her death and didn’t know it. I would soon be diagnosed with Cancer and my daughter would soon be diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease while I was receiving treatment. There would be no time “latter” to deal with my mother’s death in a polite and gentle way for either of us. What my family and I went through for a year and a half after my mother passed away was a series of unfortunate events. I couldn’t help thinking I was manifesting the dark cloud over our lives with all the sadness buried deep in my heart. I had to dig it out, and let it go, so positive and healing energy could return to our lives. God tells us in James 1:6-7 " But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind." On the outside I might have looked ok, but deep down inside of me I was being blown and tossed by the wind. I didn’t know what I believed. If belief was a feeling, I was numb to it. I was under new pressures at work, trying to help my family, going through chemo and radiation, and my dad was dying of stage 4 cancer, all while grieving (or avoiding) my mother. There was definitely a dark cloud over us and I felt it was my fault.   

I knew where (how deep) I needed to go to process my feelings, but not without causing more destruction. “All things were possible with God” Matthew 19:26 would be the scripture I focused on. Jesus commanded the weary and burdened to come to him so he would give us rest, Matthew 11:28-30. I had a crazy thought, what if Jesus wants to give me a permanent rest? I mean, I had cancer, it’s possible. I needed to stop sitting on this mountain or cliff of disbelief. I sat there, counted to three, then jumped off that cliff into a new state of mind. I prayed “ Father if I can still be of service to my family, and if they can benefit in any way from me staying here on this Earth, then keep me alive today. I will serve them the best I can.” I prayed that prayer every day of chemo and radiation and it changed everything. I took everything literally one granted day at a time. It gave me the peace I needed not to worry, the patience I needed to continue fighting for my daughter, and the strength I needed to guide my husband and son into being caregivers for us.

As I watched my family heal, become closer, and change for the better during hardship and tragedy it softened my heart and allowed a flood of emotion to come pouring out. A flood of stuffed emotions that were long overdue but necessary. That’s when I found my pearls in the sand (see my previous post). Once I found the pearls that came from my mother’s passing, Olivia’s Crohn’s, my father’s cancer, and even my own cancer, my spirit of gratitude returned and I felt the healing I needed. God gave me rest just as he promised.

The truth that we all need to know is that God can take the worst person and redeem them. He can take the worst circumstances and produce something good from it. Nothing is wasted. God can use anything if we let him. It’s also NEVER too late. The answer to life is life. “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32. We can’t be thinking of the past and be present at the same time. We can’t be thinking of the future and be present at the same time. Life is in the present moment. Let each day be what it may. Live it as if it’s your last day to make a difference. It’s not easy, I get it. I am a planner and an organizer. It doesn’t mean we should go through life without planning or willy nilly. I means the amount of time we spend in the present moment, being present, should be greater than the time we spend thinking about the future or the past.

On tough days at work I now stop and pray “Father, if I can still be of service to my employees, and if they can benefit in any way from me being here, then help me keep going and not give up.” It switches my focus away from whats causing the stress and back to my real purpose. I am here to serve.

God carried me through treatment (I am cancer free), put my daughter in remission, gave my son healing, taught my husband how to be softer, and helped me process the loss and grief I was swimming in, all in a short period of time. I just needed to count to three and jump off that cliff of disbelief.

Does that mean life is perfect now? By no means. In fact Just after writting this, and shortly after loosing my mother, I lost my father. Once again I felt the sting of death, grieve, and transition. Once again the timing was awful. But this time I learned how to be at peace with my grief. How to sit in my pain and my sadness and allow it to be what it is. I did not push it aside or bury it until later. I am at peace with grieve and I hope you can be too.