Growing A Garden of Hope

Growing A Garden of Hope

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I don’t think whoever said, “Time heals all wounds,” ever lost someone they loved more than life itself.

It’s been month after endless month, and I’m still waiting. Continually stuffing down all these painful feelings just to function in the “normal” world surrounding me.

Long after the funeral is over and the world has moved on, the searing pain and anguish of my grief has softened some. But the shards of broken hopes, dreams, and life as I knew it have cut my heart and spirit so deep and profoundly that I can’t find any hope for a future without this horrible pain.

Lying in wait under the surface of my day-to-day life is the ache of misery deep within the dark depths of my soul. Anything can trigger the tears welling up behind my eyes, suspending me in torment while the world is business as usual, not caring that I’m forced to live the rest of my life without you.

“You need to tend to your garden,” someone says to me. “With intention, dedication, and support, you can transform your deeply wounded heart and spirit into fertile ground. From that fertile ground, you can transform pain into love; Longing into memories, and despair into hope.

“You see, deep within where you buried your painful feelings, the warmth and depth of your love for them can become the brilliant sun that shines light down on your fertile ground. The tears you shed turn into the rain that helps your garden grow. Your garden of grief can grow resilience, compassion, and hope. Others can support you with how to grow and tend your garden.

“Use the harvest as continual reminders that your life should be lived. Not in a ‘just barely make it through each day’ kind of life, but a purposeful life that recognizes the gift that each new day brings… because we know all too well that the next is never guaranteed.”

So with self-care and guidance from other seasoned gardeners, I’m learning to nurture my buried feelings of pain and sorrow. With determination, practice, and patience, my garden is growing. Yielding crops of loving memories, purpose, and newfound hope.

Apparently time does heal all wounds…but not without a little help.

By Maria Kubitz, in loving memory of Margareta Sol Kubitz

Paying It Forward in Grief

Paying It Forward in Grief

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There’s a saying, “misery loves company”.

While I don’t really know the intended  meaning, it sounds as if misery attracts more misery. Or maybe those who are miserable feel the need to share it with others? Whatever the intended meaning, I think it’s actually a good description for those suffering after the death of a loved one. In my case, the death of my 4-year-old daughter over a decade ago.

One of the hardest aspects of intense grief is the sense of isolation that comes with it.

Long after the funeral is over and everyone goes back to their normal lives, those suffering profound loss are left alone to try to figure out how to pick up the pieces of our shattered lives. The idea that our loved one is at peace or an angel in heaven does not address the gaping hole left by the departure of someone who was an integral part of our life—and in many cases, our very being.

Often, family and friends try to help support us in our time of grief, but this support often comes with a time limit. Usually that time limit occurs within weeks or months after the death. Others might offer support longer, but eventually they too become emotionally fatigued trying to comfort someone whose grief timeline takes years versus weeks or months. Which is understandable. But it leaves grievers feeling alone and misunderstood by the ones who love them the most.

So what’s a griever to do?

The reality is that people suffering after the loss of a significant loved one often crave company. That’s because the feelings of isolation make grief more intense. If you think of grief as a huge boulder, it makes sense that others helping you hold it as you chip away at it is much better than trying to do it on your own. The likelihood of you getting crushed by your own grief is significantly higher without some form of support.

Unfortunately, grievers often find that despite their best efforts, family and friends cannot offer the level of support needed, simply because they haven’t experienced and don’t understand this level of loss and grief.

This is where the beauty and benefit of grief support groups come in.

Surrounded by a group of people who have suffered a similar loss is invaluable. The simple act of expressing yourself to those who have experienced the same level of loss as you can be the biggest source of easing the initial, overwhelming pain of loss.

You don’t even have to say a single word in support groups to reap the benefits. Simply listening to others who have survived this insurmountable pain provides a sense of understanding and community. It provides a feeling of hope for a future that doesn’t feel like the pain of loss will crush you every single day.

Surprisingly, support groups are not only healing for those who are newly bereaved, but provide a different benefit for those of us further along in our grief.

The single most powerful tool that helped me through this journey of grief is the act of “paying it forward”.

The definition of paying it forward in grief can vary significantly. But it all comes down to one basic idea: you use what you’ve learned during your experience with grief to help others. It provides new meaning and purpose to your shattered life.

For me, sharing my experience and hard-won insights into the grief process has been an important tool in lessening the pain of losing my daughter. Writing about grief started out as a way for me to express my emotions and questions. Then I decided to put it on a public website for anyone who cared to read and follow my journey. I continually wrote about all the nooks and crannies I encountered on this journey of grief.

Writing allowed me to look at my grief from a different perspective. I was able to more clearly discover what helped me and what didn’t. I could more easily spot potential pitfalls and how best to deal with them. The more I wrote, the more people found my website and followed my journey.

Knowing I was helping others feel less alone and more hopeful, I was able to turn the pain of grief into something positive and purposeful.

Of course, writing isn’t for everyone. Other ways I’ve seen people paying it forward in grief include:

  • Volunteering your time in support groups or other community grief support organizations.
  • Honoring them by donating to or becoming involved in a social cause that was important to your loved one.
  • Creating a foundation or scholarship in their name and memory.
  • Educating the community about the way your loved one died in hopes to help awareness and/or prevention.

Not every form of paying it forward need be so much of an undertaking. It could be as simple as reaching out to someone.  Whether it’s family, a friend, or mere acquaintance who finds themselves in this community of profound loss, you can simply let them know you’re available for them to talk with or just listen. Without judgment and without time limits.

Do you have any examples you’d like to share about paying it forward in grief? Submit them as a comment to this post so others can read it too.

 

Let Me Help Carry Your Grief

Let Me Help Carry Your Grief

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I see you.
I recognize the sadness in your eyes.
I feel the ache of your broken heart.
I’ve known the anguish and misery
after the death of a loved one;
not knowing how to continue living
in a world without them.

I’ve been on this journey a while now.
I remember how dark, treacherous,
and hopeless this road first felt.
I endured pain so big and heavy
it crushed the person I once was.
I see you there, suffering under
the insurmountable weight of grief.

Come and sit with me a while.
Share your story of loss, shed tears,
and let me help carry your grief.
Mine doesn’t feel heavy anymore,
and I can offer you a brief rest and
some relief from your intense pain.
Even if just for a moment or two.

Express all your feelings of torment
hidden from the rest of the world.
I’ll bear witness as someone who has
cried the tears that fill your eyes.
I’ll share with you all I’ve learned
to help lighten the burden of grief;
and not just survive, but thrive again.

Walk this path alongside me;
I’ll help you navigate your journey.
I can guide and offer you some hope.
Not the hopes and dreams you lost
when your loved one died.
New hope for a life that transforms
misery into memories and love.

Inspired by and dedicated to the people and programs of New Hope Grief Support in Long Beach, California.

Healing Milestones After The Death Of A Child

Healing Milestones After The Death Of A Child

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The death of a child is so profound, it’s like no other form of loss. There’s no such thing as getting over the death of a child. Instead, bereaved parents must learn to adapt to a life without our child. We must reconcile the reality that we’ll feel some level of pain for the rest of our lives. 

This is the long, slow process of healing after the death of a child. 

The intense pain in the aftermath of my daughter’s death felt devastating and unbearable. In most support groups I’ve attended, the most common questions I heard from newly bereaved parents is some version of, “How long will this pain last? Will it ever end?” 

The answer to that question is complicated because grief is a very individual experience. Like snowflakes, no two grief journeys will ever be the same. There’s no right or wrong way to grieve, and there’s no standard timeline. Due to varying factors, some parents just learn to adapt and reconcile faster than others.

Since there is no end point of being fully healed after the death of a child, how can you gauge your healing progress? 

Looking back at my own journey after the death of my 4-year-old daughter, Margareta, I see three major turning points. These milestones are markers of when I was able to shift my perspective to better adapt to a life without her and reconcile my ongoing pain. 

Milestone 1: Separating the memories of my child from those of her death

For three years, my grief was entirely focused on the trauma caused by her death. I was trapped in endless questions of “What if?” and “Why?” Having been so focused on my pain, I eventually realized I had lost sight of what I was actually grieving the loss of: the love and joy Margareta had brought into my life. 

I began to fear that I was going to forget all the smaller details about her short life. And the idea of losing her all over again was terrifying. 

I had to emotionally separate my daughter from the day she died, and no longer let the devastation of her death overshadow the beauty of her life. That shift in focus allowed me to start adjusting to a life without her physical presence. And as I began to turn my thoughts to all the happy memories I have of her, the severity of my pain started to lessen. 

Milestone 2: The decision to forgive

Margareta drowned in 2009, and for years after her death, my overwhelming guilt intensified the pain of my grief. I felt as though I didn’t deserve any form of  happiness in a world in which I didn’t keep her safe. I had failed at my most important job.

For years, grief counselors and bereaved parents told me her death was a tragic accident and that I should let go of my guilt. Most of the time when we let our children out of our sight, they’re fine. Only on rare occasions they’re not. Logically, I understood their rationale, but emotionally I wasn’t in a place where I could let go of my guilt. After all, she was only four and it was my job to protect her. I begged for her forgiveness every time I went to the cemetery. 

But then something changed after I began to focus on Margareta’s life instead of her death. Instead of obsessing over my failing to keep her safe on the day she died, my memories of her reminded me of all the things I had done right as a mother. It dawned on me that I didn’t need Margareta’s forgiveness — I needed to forgive myself. Just as her death cannot overshadow her beautiful life, I decided my failure on that day should not define the entirety of mine. 

While I will always feel guilt on some level, my decision to forgive myself paved the way for allowing happiness back into my life. After all, I still have four wonderful living children and a loving, supportive husband. In cultivating happiness once again, the level of my day-to-day pain lessened even more.  

Milestone 3: Letting go of what was and acknowledging what is

Another difficult aspect of my grief is the fact that I (and other bereaved parents) didn’t just lose my child. We lost the person we used to be, and can never be again. Our hopes and dreams for our child are now shattered forever. And in the midst of being crushed by grief, many bereaved parents lose relationships and friendships they once thought would last the rest of their lives. 

The world we once knew is suddenly gone, and many of us desperately want it back. We want to go back to being the person we were; back to a time when pain didn’t suffocate every minute of the day. In my case, I wanted to return to the illusion that I had some amount of control over what happens to me. 

Like many others, I couldn’t bring myself to let go of the idea that I could reclaim my old life. Obviously my daughter would no longer be a part of it, but I thought that somehow I could otherwise go back to the way things were. I fought grief as if it could somehow be defeated. 

After I wrote down all my memories of Margareta, I started to journal about my grief. Over time, this allowed me to see that I could never defeat grief. Journaling showed me that my grief could transform from searing pain to a dull ache…but it could never fully go away. I will never stop longing for my daughter and feeling a sense of loss. 

By coming to terms with the fact that her death has changed me and my life in ways that cannot be undone, I finally decided to stop fighting grief. And when I did that, I began to see that some of the changes in me were, in fact, good. I learned more about myself and my needs in a few short years than I had in the entirety of my life prior to Margareta’s death. My grief led me to grow as a person and begin to cultivate a new life that focused on what matters most to me. 

It’s been 12 years since Margareta’s death.

While my grief can still occasionally intensify and overcome me, most days the dull ache of missing her is easily managed. I’ve learned to focus more on the present moments of day-to-day life, which makes my pain barely noticeable most of the time. 

I still think of her every day. That is how I keep her present in my life. But these days, thoughts of my daughter are filled with love, not pain. And that’s my definition of healing.