The Positive Side of Grief

The Positive Side of Grief

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I recently saw a quote on social media that caught my eye.

“Maybe you’re not healing because you’re trying to be who you were before the trauma. That person doesn’t exist anymore, cause there’s a ‘new you’ trying to be born. Breathe life into that person.”

I don’t know who wrote it, but it made me stop and think about my journey as a bereaved parent. And I think it’s a good analogy for what so many bereaved parents struggle with in the aftermath of losing a child.

After my daughter’s death, my feelings of utter devastation were not just a result of losing my only daughter. It was also a reaction to becoming a completely different person. A person I didn’t recognize anymore.

I was 35 when my daughter, Margareta, died suddenly at the age of four. In those 35 years, I had developed a clear identity and a good understanding of my personality traits. I was a working mom and wife, juggling family life with my career. I had a predictable set of activities and routines. And while I would describe my underlying personality as shy and introverted, I had a circle of good friends.

Since childhood, I’ve been an emotionally sensitive and anxiety-driven person. Over those 35 years, I developed a mental toolbox and playbook for dealing with frustrating or difficult situations and emotions. That is not to say they were all healthy tools, but they did what I needed them to do. They kept my emotions in check and reduced the severity of my daily anxiety.

I had myself pretty much figured out. And then my daughter died and everything I thought I knew about myself was obliterated.

Before Margareta’s death I was a very patient person and great at remembering all the little details of life and work. After her death, my patience was nonexistent, and I could barely remember to eat or do basic things like brushing my teeth. Worst of all, while I prided myself in being a calm, composed person, I had become completely unable to contain any of my raging emotions. Whatever I was feeling was what I was outwardly projecting. All the tools I had developed to regulate my emotions and anxiety had become completely ineffective.

In the days, weeks and months after her death my emotions were all over the place and highly unpredictable. One moment I’d be sobbing with despair; the next I was completely numb and seemingly watching life go by without interacting with it. Sometimes I was engulfed in anger at things I normally didn’t care about. Other times I was overcome with intense fear, scared that I couldn’t survive in a world without my daughter—even with my husband and three sons by my side.

I didn’t recognize or understand the person I had become, and desperately wanted everything to go back to the way it was before.

Trying to get back to being the person I was before my daughter’s death was a losing cause and intensified the immense trauma I was experiencing.

I understood I had lost a future with my daughter in it. That fact was out of my control. But I fully believed that the ability to go back to being my former self was an attainable goal. My former self would surely be able to contain and control these constant, overwhelming feelings of anguish, despair, and hopelessness. My former self would be supported by my family and circle of friends; the people I now felt completely alienated and isolated from—even though I was the one pushing them away.

So, I decided to search out as much external support as I could. I attended multiple support groups and individual therapy. I searched the internet for any tidbit of information that could help me figure out what to do and read book after book on bereavement and healing. This went on for years.

All of this did, in fact, help me better control my outward emotions while at work and in public. But those feelings still raged inside of me. It had been over three years since Margareta’s death, and I didn’t seem to be getting any closer to who I used to be. And it was incredibly frustrating and disappointing.

In realizing I wasn’t getting any closer to getting back to my “old self,” something unexpected happened.

First, I came to terms that the ways I had been getting support were no longer as helpful as they had been. While they had been an invaluable lifeline in those first few years after Margareta’s death, I had begun to get fatigued from continually hearing newly bereaved parents describe their bitter anguish month after month. I started to realize that it was keeping me anchored to the tragedy of her death, rather than the love and joy Margareta had brought into my life. So, I decided to cut back my attendance at the various support groups I had been going to.

Second, I decided to change my approach to healing by doing something I loved: writing. I wanted to focus on writing about the joy Margareta brought me by documenting all my favorite memories. In doing so, I began to feel a change in myself. But this time it was a positive, welcome change.

Unfortunately, documenting my memories of the four short years she was with us was a limited activity. Afterwards, I began to write about my experience with grief. I wrote about how I was feeling, what I struggled with, and what I felt I had learned from my journey of grief. Surprisingly, in addition to helping me work through my feelings, it began to resonate with other bereaved parents who happened to find my blog.

Writing about my feelings and knowing that it was also helping others on their journeys became my greatest source of healing. And it began to breathe life into the “new me” that was waiting to emerge.

No longer hyper-focused on getting back to the person who could eliminate all those negative emotions, the “new me” was more willing to learn from them instead. The person I was becoming saw the value of embracing the change inside myself in hopes that it could ease my continued anguish. And it did. Slowly but surely.

Many years later, I am still discovering the “new me.” That is because the new me is continually evolving. I continue to discover the opportunities for personal growth that stem from the various obstacles thrown my way. I am a work in progress and always will be.

Letting go of the person I was before my daughter died has been the single biggest source of healing my grief.

I will always regret that I cannot watch Margareta grow into a beautiful woman. But I can instead watch my own growth and development—knowing that is inspired the gratitude I have for those four wonderful years and the love from her and for her that will forever exist inside me.

 

The Continuing Cycle of Grief

The Continuing Cycle of Grief

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It’s been eleven years since my 4-year-old daughter died. Eleven years of traveling through this complicated journey of grief. To be sure, I have come a long way since those first agonizing days, weeks, months, and years. My life looks and feels very different now. I have come to terms with the devastation, pain, and longing. My personal growth is evident. I am reinvested in life and try to embrace all the goodness it has to offer.

And yet, I will never be free from grief’s treacherous clutches.

I learned this truth many years ago. After years of fighting against the unbearable pain of losing my daughter, I finally surrendered to it. Now don’t get me wrong, surrendering to grief doesn’t mean I was somehow okay with her death. The loss of my daughter is too traumatic; too unbearable to “move on” from and “get over.”

Surrendering to grief meant I accepted the fact that my grief – and all the uncomfortable emotions that come with it – will never fully go away. So there is no point in spending all of my energy and focus on trying to repress those feelings or rage against them. It will always be a losing battle. And, in fact, it just ends up making those feelings more intense.

Once I surrendered to that reality, I was finally able to begin the challenging work to transform my grief—and my life.

Surrendering to grief meant choosing to stop focusing on her death and all the pain it caused. Fixating on the details of her death and the devastating aftermath had kept me stuck in a state of anguish, anger, and hopelessness.

Instead, I chose to focus on her brief life, the love and joy she gave me, and the intense love I will always feel for her. With a lot of diligent, hard work that included support groups, individual therapy, writing, and expressing my feelings, I gained emotional strength and motivation. I was finally able to give myself permission to allow happiness, hopefulness, and even gratitude back into my life. And each year since, grief has loosened its grip on my day-to-day life.

But every year, there is a predictable trigger when grief envelops me once again. Each September, I am faced with my daughter’s birthday and the anniversary of her death.

At the beginning of the month we celebrate her “would have been” birthday without her. We try to make the event joyful. We eat cake and release live ladybugs (which she loved) in her honor. But the fact is she’ll never again blow out birthday candles or open presents. Her birthday is a difficult reminder that we’ve lost another year of watching her grow. We’ve lost the hopes and dreams we had for her. And the pleasure of watching her chase her own hopes and dreams.

The end of the month marks the anniversary of the day she died. That day of horror which is forever seared in my memory. Over the course of the month, I can physically feel the grief tightening around my body. As it grips my stomach, I often feel nauseous. Then it travels up to my chest and neck; squeezing as it goes which makes it hard to breathe at times. It leaks out of my eyes. It clouds my mind and leaves me with headaches and foul moods. I often lose my patience and feel frustrated or even angry at the most ordinary things. It makes my muscles ache and leaves me feeling exhausted all of the time.

And even though I expect it every year like clockwork, there is simply nothing I can do to prepare for it or make it any easier.

Every September, I am immersed in those old feelings of anguish, anger, and hopelessness. For no matter how far I’ve come in my journey of healing my grief, the destination is never going to be the one I want. Because the destination will never include a future with my daughter in it. At least not in the way I long for.

Yes, my daughter is still present in my life and I think of her lovingly every day. But she is forever frozen in time; just a handful of memories I cherish. Memories whose color and detail will fade over time as my mind ages. And that reality crushes my soul during times like this.

I know this wave of grief will pass. I can already sense it starting to loosen its grip once again.

And I will go on living my life, enjoying it, and making the most of it. That is, until next September rolls around again. That is simply the continuing cycle of grief years after such a devastating loss. It is a reality I have no choice but to live with. 

 

The Fading Tapestry of a Life Once Lived

The Fading Tapestry of a Life Once Lived

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On September 30, it will be ten years since you died. Ten years isn’t very long in the grand scheme of things. But considering you died at the tender age of four, it feels like so much more.

Memories of you have already begun to fade. Evidence of your very existence is far and few between. Clothes you wore, things you cherished, and art you created all fit into a few small bins. Bins that have long since been packed away with the rest of the things we rarely use. A few cherished items and photos of you are left out to admire.

But outside of our home—and outside of our hearts and minds—your short life went by unnoticed. Unknown to the world except by the few who knew you during those four short years, and whose hearts you indelibly touched.

Recently, we traveled abroad and visited cities that are centuries or millennia old. We explored ancient ruins that were abandoned long ago by the march of progress. Ruins that were literally buried under countless layers of dirt and modern adaptation. Fragile artifacts have to be painstakingly unearthed and preserved. Each one a small clue of lives that have long been forgotten.

Archeologists are left to look at impossibly small fragments of what once was. They merely guess at the most rudimentary details of people who were once so important to their family and friends. Without much to go on, they can never hope to know these people beyond their age, sex, status in society, and maybe a few more inconsequential facts. They’ll never uncover the beauty these people brought into the hearts and lives of those who loved them.

And when our lives come to an end, what then? When our belongings are rummaged through after we are dead and gone, what will they piece together about your life—so spirited and vibrant—that ended so long ago?

What will a box of favorite outfits, a few pairs of shoes, costumes, and other small trinkets tell them about you? Could these things ever convey your sense of humor and adventure? Will they tell of your guarded shyness around strangers, yet decisive bossiness at home? Could anyone who never met you begin to use these excavated objects as evidence of the depth and boundless imagination that vividly colored the world we shared together?

Unfortunately not.

We’ve tried to write down memories of you, but they can’t ever fully convey the rich tapestry of your brief life.

Memories only highlight fragments of who you were and the impact you had on those who loved you. They lack depth and detail of your complex, unique being.

Over a decade since your death, the brightly colored threads which had weaved together to form the story of your life have significantly faded and worn. And they’ll continue to do so as time ticks by.

While your family lovingly cares for your tapestry in our hearts and thoughts, we cannot stop or slow the continual damage caused by the passing of time. Each birthday and anniversary of your death serves as a harsh, sobering reminder of this reality.

No matter how faded or damaged your life’s tapestry becomes, you are a vibrant, brilliant part of our life tapestries. This is the one thing that will withstand the test of time. For the rest of our lives, you remain a constant presence; a beacon of love and a guiding light of purpose.

Finding Time to Grieve Years After Your Loss

Finding Time to Grieve Years After Your Loss

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The idea of finding time to grieve may sound ridiculous. At least for those being crushed by the weight of early grief, especially after losing a child.

But when grief is years or decades old, it isn’t always easy to find time to express and release our constant grief. The grief buried below the surface of our daily activities.

Grief is a bereaved parent’s constant companion. Much like a shadow that clings to us wherever we go. As long as our child is dead, we live with grief. There is no “getting over it” or “moving on.” At least not in the way those terms are usually implied.

Instead, we must learn how to accommodate grief as a fundamental part of life. Over time, the pain of grief feels less intense and overwhelming. Many learn to make needed adjustments so it doesn’t interfere with normal routines and day-to-day activities.

Once you’ve lost a child, the idea of what “normal” means is completely transformed.

Normal includes daily thoughts of a child who is frozen in time. A child who is never able to age as they should. The finer details of that beautiful child and their life become blurred as the years pass. This is especially true and painful when you lose a young child. One that you only got to spend a few wonderful years (or months, days, hours, or minutes) with.

It’s been over a decade since my 4-year-old daughter died. I have certainly adjusted to the new normal of life. I’ve learned how to enjoy and savor what life has to offer despite the gaping hole still left inside me from losing her.

In fact, life has gotten to a place where I find myself needing to make a concerted effort to find time to actually grieve.

As I said before, it’s not that my grief is gone. To the contrary, the loss of a child changes your DNA. You never experience life in the same way as you did before they died. But that doesn’t relegate you to a life of misery and despair.

You can harness your grief in a way where life becomes more profound and meaningful than before. Some become so good at adjusting to living with grief, they simply need to express it outwardly from time to time.

One of the ways we learn to adjust to life without our child is by compartmentalizing our grief in order to function in the world around us.

Over the years, grief becomes like those various piles of clutter that build up around your house. The chore of having to sort through them and figure out where things belong and what to get rid of is uncomfortable and taxing. So you shove the “clutter” away just to get it out of view. Of course, with the intention of sorting through it some other time.

But before you know it, your emotional compartments are overflowing. Just like those piles of clutter in your house. And cramming more “clutter” into them becomes more and more difficult. That clutter of unwanted feelings from grief is like pressure building up under a volcano or earthquake fault line.

You know that at some point the pressure will become so great, it will have no choice but to erupt. And it can erupt with a force that can destroy everything in its path. Just like in those old cartoons, the closet will become so overstuffed that when you open the door to put something else in, you’ll become buried in the avalanche of unwanted clutter. Or in this case, emotions.

The best way to deal with grief as the years pass is to find smaller, healthy ways to let off steam. Relieve the pressure building up below the surface before it becomes destructive.

It’s like pulling out a small pile of that emotional clutter and going through it. No matter how bothersome, stressful, or painful it may feel. And then repeating the process little by little, again and again, over time.

For me, I usually turn to writing about how it feels. While I write on a public blog, for others it could be in a journal or a letter to your child. Other times I find the simple act of walking quietly in nature releases some of the pressure.

Other options might include sharing your thoughts with a support group or counseling — online or in person. Or maybe doing something in honor of your child, like volunteering or donating. Some may choose to look through pictures and create an album or scrapbook.

Whatever it may be for you, it’s just important that you make the time to process your feelings before the pressure gets anywhere close to erupting.

There’s no right or wrong answer to how you choose to express your grief after many years have passed.

You do whatever feels right for you. The important thing is that you do it. And you can take some amount of comfort in knowing that you’re never alone on this journey.

All you need to do is look, and people who are experiencing the same journey will always be there for support and help along the way.

Living in the Shadow of a Child’s Death

Living in the Shadow of a Child’s Death

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What does it mean to live?

The fact that our hearts are beating, blood is flowing, and brains are functioning as we read this means we’re alive, right? But for those of us who have lost a child, I have to wonder if we’re really living?

It doesn’t matter their age or the circumstance of our child’s death.

We stop living when we hear those horrible words, “Your child is dead.” In that dreadful moment, we go from living to merely existing.

Our hearts still beat and our blood still flows. Our brains still think. But every last ounce of our energy and existence is now focused on accomplishing basic functions “normal” people take for granted.

Things like getting up in the morning when all we want to do is hide under the covers in bed. We lay there waiting for our own life to end so we can be with the child we just lost. Or remembering to breathe when we’ve held our breath too long. We hold it trying to fight back the avalanche of despair and flood of tears that threaten to smother us if we let them loose. Things like eating, bathing, or venturing into the outside world. None of those things seem to hold much use or meaning to us anymore.

In some unfathomable way, we continue to exist despite not wanting any part of a world in which our child no longer lives.

Many bereaved parents feel this way for months and years after their child has died. We hear pleas from family, friends, and the outside world to “move on” with our life. In other words, to get back to being the person we were and living the way we once did. But bereaved parents often have no idea how to transition from merely existing to living once more in a world without their child. And some parents simply no longer want to. And for those who don’t, I completely understand.

Years ago, I heard those horrible words, “Your daughter is dead.” On that day, I began my existence as a bereaved parent. And it took me a long time to be able to embrace the idea of living in this world that my daughter is no longer a part of.

So what exactly is the difference between existing and living?

The answer is not so simple. Every person is unique, so every person’s definition of living is unique. And that definition is subject to change over time. My personal definition of living has changed since Margareta died. The act of living for me now has three basic components.

First, I have come to accept that pain is an inevitable and inescapable part of my life. But I can lessen it by recognizing and focusing my energy on the love, joy, sweetness, and opportunities of life that surround me. That is, if I take the time and effort to look for them. Unlike the early days of my grief, I no longer believe the destructive idea that embracing the good things in my life somehow means I’m “okay” with my daughter’s death.

Second, every person on this planet has something they are inherently good at. And I have learned to embrace what I am talented at and passionate about and then using it to help others. In doing this, I become part of something larger than just myself and my existence. It provides purpose and meaning in my life. And finding purpose and meaning has been the biggest source of healing my grief over the years.

Finally, living means consistently trying to be brave enough to keep pushing beyond my comfort zone. Knowing every day may be my last, I must push the boundaries to find new ways of thinking, situations, activities, and adventures that feel nourishing and supportive.

I won’t lie. These things aren’t easy. Depending on how I’m feeling and what is going on at any given time, they can be downright hard. They take continual effort, practice, and intention. And above all, they require me to believe I deserve to be living after the death of my daughter.  

For bereaved parents, that belief that we could ever deserve a life with happiness, joy, meaning, and purpose once more is one of the hardest to come by in the shadow of our child’s death.

We must overcome the innate feeling that we failed at the most important part of our lives. We failed to protect our child and keep them from harm – no matter what the circumstances were. It is what keeps us awake at night and makes us think we don’t deserve to feel happiness ever again. It’s what keeps many bereaved parents stuck in despair and hopelessness. They resign themselves to merely existing instead of living.

I can’t recall the moment I started to truly believe I deserved to embrace life once again. But I know it took a lot of hard work processing my grief. And learning to let go of the immense guilt I felt over my daughter’s death. It took reaching out to a network of grief support organizations.

I know full well that living my life will require continual effort, practice, and intention for the rest of my days.

And that’s okay. I do it because I know I deserve to be happy. And because the family that remains by my side deserves to have me fully present in their lives. I do it in honor of my daughter. As long as I am living my life, she is my guiding light, my inspiration, and forever in the forefront of my thoughts. And that’s where I want her to remain. 

The Wound Time Won’t Heal

The Wound Time Won’t Heal

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We’ve all heard it.

“Time heals all wounds,” sounds incredibly hopeful for someone who’s drowning in grief. Except when time doesn’t heal your wound.

Later this year will mark eight years since my 4-year-old daughter, Margareta, died. She died exactly 29 days after her fourth birthday. That means we had 1,489 glorious days to spend with her — the only daughter in a family full of boys.

One of my grandmothers died last year at the age of 98. My other grandmother is in her 90s. Based on those genes, I can probably expect to live until close to a century old. If that is true, Margareta will have been alive for about 4% of my life.

4%. 0.04. A small fraction by most measurements. A blip in my overall life. Except that she’s anything but.

Coming up on eight years since her death, she will have been gone twice as long as she lived. The small details of her life are already being lost to time. And yet I still think of her every day, multiple times a day. This isn’t a bad thing. Every time I think of her is an opportunity to celebrate the love between us.

But lying just under the surface of my day-to-day life is the endless pain that surrounds the memories of my daughter. 

Anything can trigger it. My chest tightens. My breathing pauses. The tears begin to well up behind my eyes.

I find myself suspended in a bubble of torment while the world goes on around me — not caring that my daughter is dead and that I have to live in that reality for the rest of my life.

A friend told me a story once. She was waiting in line at the grocery store. An elderly woman in front of her — perhaps in her 80s — was staring at the cover of a magazine that featured an adorable baby boy. A smile grew on the woman’s face.

“He looks like my son,” she said to no one in particular. The clerk ringing her up paid little notice.

“He was so beautiful,” she said with pride. Then her tone changed. “He died when he was a baby.” 

The clerk looked bewildered; said nothing and continued ringing her up. 

My friend tried to comfort her by acknowledging her son and her loss. But the woman was lost in the simultaneous love and grief she had for her child who was only in her life a few short years well over half a century ago.

I can see myself in that woman. Forever juggling the overwhelming love of her precious child with the crushing pain of having lost him so long ago. I can feel her despair; the need to tell complete strangers that he existed. That he mattered.

Can time really heal all wounds? No. Not this wound. Not in this lifetime.

But really…it’s okay. It doesn’t have to relegate us to a lifetime of depression and despair.

The wound that won’t heal can transform itself into a continual reminder that this life of ours should be lived. Not just in a get-through-each-day kind of life, but a life that recognizes the gift that each day brings…because we know all too well that the next is never guaranteed.

With dedication and intention, we can turn a wound that forever remains open into fertile ground. From that fertile wound grows new meaning for our life.

The warmth and depth of our love is the brilliant sun that shines down on our fertile ground. The tears we shed is the rain that helps our garden grow. 

Our garden of grief grows resilience, compassion, and purpose.

We grow.

We grow for our children who didn’t get to.