Anticipation of a Difficult Day is Always Worse than the Day Itself

Anticipation of a Difficult Day is Always Worse than the Day Itself

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Starting this week, there is a rapid succession of difficult days ahead. That is…I anticipate they’ll be difficult.

This week my youngest son will start Kindergarten. It’s something his older sister dreamed of doing, but didn’t live long enough to do. Next week we will celebrate another of her birthdays without her. She would have been 10. Four weeks after that marks the anniversary of her death at the tender age of four. In the days that follow, I’ll be expected to celebrate my birthday, which fell on the day before her memorial service the year she died.

All of these days carry with them the anticipation of being a grief trigger.  Anticipation can work one of two ways. It can imagine the best-case scenario, or it can imagine the worst.

So when we anticipate a difficult grief trigger, it brings up all the worst-case scenarios our imaginative minds can conjure up.

The first year after losing someone is the hardest. It was for me. It’s hard because your mind has no point of reference to compare to. The first holidays, birthdays, and anniversary of their death (angel-versary, devastation day…whatever you prefer to call it). They’re all anticipated as so painful, you can’t imagine how you’ll survive them.

So let’s get this straight: your anticipation of a grief trigger causes your mind to imagine a worst-case scenario. And since it doesn’t have a reference point to compare to, it compares it to the actual event that is causing the trigger. Your mind tells you the trigger will likely bring you right back to the pain you experienced on the day you lost your loved one. So you find yourself in an anticipatory panic even though you’ve already survived the worst pain imaginable.

In reality, our minds are our own worst enemies. So what do we do about it?

That first year, I felt like cancelling all holidays in an attempt to avoid the pain I knew they’d bring. We couldn’t because we had other young children who expected and deserved the celebrations. So we attempted to change tradition just enough to make them feel different.

For example, for that first Thanksgiving we accepted my brother’s dinner invitation, but requested a few simple things. First, we asked to keep the invite list as small as possible (his family and ours). Second, I requested to sit at the end of the table so that if I felt like I was about to burst into tears, I could easily excuse myself and quickly slip out of the room to be alone. Third, we requested to skip the “what are we thankful for” question tradition. Just thinking of that question that first year made my blood boil with anger.

For the first Christmas after her death, we opted for an artificial tree. It still looked like a normal Christmas for our young kids, but in my mind it was different. While we didn’t buy presents for Margareta to place under the tree, we did buy a wind chime to place in her stocking and then hung it at the cemetery later in the day. We kept to ourselves that year; just a small normal dinner at home. The day was filled with difficult emotions and we thought it best to keep to ourselves and focus all our attention and energy on our kids.

We had more options on Margareta’s birthday and the first anniversary of her death. I scheduled vacation days from work on both those days because I couldn’t imagine being able to function in any meaningful way. For months in advance, I agonized over what to actually do on those days.

I didn’t know what to do to make the horrible pain I imagined any easier. Every time I thought of it, I felt overwhelmed.

How do you “celebrate” a birthday of someone who isn’t there to celebrate it?  You can’t ignore it. After all, you want to acknowledge the birthday of one of the most important people in your life. Do you buy presents and then donate them? Do you make a cake?

And then one sleepless night a few weeks before her birthday, it came to me. Margareta loved ladybugs. I would buy live ladybugs and we would release them at her grave on her birthday. So we did. Seeing the chaos of hundreds of ladybugs escaping the confines of the container they had been held in and exploring their new home injected some needed lightness and smiles into a heavy day that was full of sadness. Releasing ladybugs has become a yearly tradition on Margareta’s birthday. One that will continue for the rest of my life…and perhaps her brothers’ lives too.

As for the anniversary of her death – a vivid reminder of the worst day of my life – I planned to do nothing. And nothing was what pretty much what I did that day. It was an uneventful day. And, of course, wasn’t nearly as painful as I anticipated.

Since that first year, my anticipation of the pain that will be triggered on these difficult days has softened.

Each year I have a larger cache of reference points my mind can compare them to. And each year, the level of pain I anticipate lessens. That is not to say I don’t still feel pain and sadness on these days. But I know that pain pales in comparison to what I felt at her death and in that first year after. And I know that I have survived the worst pain I ever could have imagined. So pretty much anything else is manageable in comparison, right?

I will continue to make taking care of myself a priority on these trigger days that lay ahead of me.

With years of reference points to draw from, I’m better able to steer my mind away from imagining the worst-case scenario, and instead try to visualize the best-case scenario.

For example, I know I’ll feel sorrow on the first day of Kindergarten because my beautiful daughter never got to experience its excitement and joy. But in the meantime, I’m imagining those same feelings for my son, and anticipate being able to share in his happiness.

As for the upcoming anniversary of her death, I still plan to take that day off. These last few years we have consciously decided to do something that we think Margareta would have enjoyed. We do this in an attempt to shift the focus from the pain of her death to the joy she brought us while she was here. I also anticipate knowing that whatever feelings come my way that day, I’ll deal with them the best I can.

Regardless of how new your loss is…just keep reminding yourself that anticipation of a difficult day is always worse than the day itself.

The Big Lie of Happily Ever After

The Big Lie of Happily Ever After

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We first hear it as little kids in our bedtime stories. When we’re older, we see it repeated again and again in countless movies. We’re even told we can buy it in endless advertisements. But it isn’t real. It’s all a big, perverse lie that can do real damage in real lives.

What is it, you ask? It’s the human fantasy of “happily ever after.”

The idea is so alluring we quickly get sucked into its web of deceit and empty promises. Little girls are particularly vulnerable to its grasp. They meticulously plan for Prince Charming’s arrival — as we have been promised in Disney movies.

We know the perfect job is just around the corner. The one where we’re paid handsomely for doing what we love for people we respect — and who respect us. We look for our soulmate knowing they’re out there waiting for us. Our happy little family living in our dream house is on the horizon. No fights or arguments. Everything is effortless. Just pure bliss and ease.

We sit and wait. We wait a lot longer than we expected to. But we don’t give up hope. Day after day; year after year. We are secretly convinced that happily ever after is a real place that we can get to. And will get to. It motivates us and picks us up when we’re down. It gives us a reason to keep moving forward through the murkiness of life.

Until one day the fantasy blows up in our faces and reveals the devastating truth. There is no happily ever after.

For many of us, this ugly truth is revealed when we lose someone who meant more to us than life itself. Someone you cannot imagine living without — and who is never coming back. In my case, that dark day of realization came crashing down on me the day my 4-year-old daughter, Margareta, died.

It came without warning. It was accompanied by a scream of sirens and frantic attempts to save her. We tried to beat it back to the depths it came from, but it came nonetheless. And in a matter of hours – after more than three decades of waiting for it – the certainty of happily ever after disintegrated before my eyes.

It was like that scene in the Wizard of Oz. The curtain had been pulled back to reveal that the great and powerful “happily ever after” is just a construct of ordinary people who live lives that often feel difficult and painful. And they dream of turning fantasy into reality.

Our realization that happily ever after is never going to happen leads to anger.

The grief of losing someone – and losing all our hopes and dreams that came with them – is compounded by the anger we begin to feel from being lied to our whole lives. And lied to we certainly were. Not just by others; we lied to ourselves too.

For some, this anger can all but consume us. We rail against the unfairness of it all. Not only are we feeling the impossible pain of losing someone we can’t imagine living without, we are enraged at the realization of all the time we wasted on that stupid fantasy. Angry that we could have been focused on what mattered most: time spent with our loved ones.

We think of all those extra hours we wasted at the office trying to get that promotion or raise. When we could have been spending time with our family. That is time we will never get back. We think of all those moments where we felt stuck waiting for a better life.

All the while, we could have been happy appreciating what we already had…before we lost it all.

Eventually, the anger will subside. It may take more time than you’d like. Months or years; not days or weeks. It may feel like you’ll never get there. But you will. You will eventually give yourself permission to shift your focus away from the anger of being lied to toward all the love that still resides in your heart and in your mind.

After suffering a loss of this kind, we tend to see the world in a new light. Things we used to think were once so important no longer seem worth our time and energy. The drama and frivolity that used to occupy so much of our life is now seen as a useless waste of time.

Others who didn’t suffer this type of loss may not understand our new perspective. They may resent us for it and tell us to move on with our lives. They may distance themselves from us. But their issues are out of our hands; we simply no longer have the energy to spare on it.

Without happily ever after to focus on, we can finally see what really matters to us.

We can simplify our life and readjust our goals. We can focus our energy on what matters most. Right now that is probably limited to one basic thing: surviving. But eventually, it will lead to a life worth living once again. And that is no lie.

Lost in the Forest of Grief

Lost in the Forest of Grief

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There is a common expression, “You can’t see the forest for the trees.”

It means you can get so caught up in focusing on what is right in front of your face, you lose sight of the bigger picture or perspective. It is very easy to do.

Every day we must react to the multitude of things that are thrown our way. Things from our job or many other responsibilities. If you’re anything like me, your mind is almost constantly churning. I often feel overwhelmed by all the different things that seemingly need my attention every minute of the day.

It’s easy to get stuck living moment to moment, seeing only the “trees” that represent the immediate activities and emotions of your life. It’s often hard to view the entire forest that represents your overall life.

We can lose sight of the path we have taken so far, and the direction we want to head in the future. And we can unexpectedly be thrust into a life we didn’t plan for…or want.

My 4-year-old daughter, Margareta, died suddenly in 2009. And I found myself transplanted into a thick grove of new, unfamiliar “trees” in the forest that is my life.

These trees were big and scary. They grew so thick and tight, they blocked out any trace of the light from the sky. While I had some sense of direction in the previous area of the forest I inhabited, this grove of trees filled me with an indescribable pain and left me groping in the dark. I desperately tried to find a way out and back to the area I was before. But I could find none. I was lost in the forest, overwhelmed with grief.

Each humongous tree that surrounded me represented a painful feeling or emotion that I was forced to grapple with.

These trees signified feelings of guilt, helplessness, hopelessness, isolation, disbelief, despair, torment. And too many more to list. Every time I tried to force my way out of this grove of trees, I was just left bruised and battered and stuck. It exhausted me to the point where I would just fall down and sleep for long periods of time.

After remaining in this grove for quite a while, my eyes adjusted to the darkness. Now, when I looked, I could make out the trees in the distance that once surrounded me. But they were out of reach. There was no path I could find to go back. It was all irrevocably blocked by the horrible reality of Margareta’s death.

I resentfully resigned myself to the understanding that I was stuck in this grove of darkness and despair. I tearfully understood that the life I once led would never come back. Once you feel this level of pain, it is like innocence lost forever to the harsh realities of life.

Then a strange, unexpected thing happened.

Instead of fighting to escape these trees of grief by squeezing my way out, I forced myself to accept them.

I embraced them as a representation of how much love I still have for my daughter. In doing this, I discovered I could climb these trees; grasping each limb on their thick trunks. I worked to express my feelings about those trees in counseling, support groups, and writing about it. Each time I did, I could climb a bit higher to where the branches thinned out and let light and fresh air in.

Over the course of several long years, I climbed all the way to the top of that grove of trees. And from that vantage point, I could see that all hope was not lost.

I could see the forest of my life. The path I had taken to get here and different ways I could move forward and out of this thick grove of grief trees. But it would take work and dedication. It would take a new perspective on the meaning and purpose of my life. And a willingness to accept that it will never be the path I intended to take.

I slowly climbed down the outer branches of that grove, trusting that they would not break and let me fall. I climbed down with a new understanding. While all of these trees in my forest of life appear to be separate from above the ground, their roots are forever intertwined below it. These intertwining roots of good and bad, love and pain, happiness and despair strengthen my forest and keep it alive and thriving. We cannot truly understand and appreciate each of these feelings without having experienced their opposite.

So as I continue to make my way through my forest of life, I find that I experience things on a deeper level than before.

I choose to focus my attention on the trees that bring the most meaning to my life. These trees usually represent relationships, passions, and feelings of purpose.

I no longer am certain of the path my life will take, but I know that no matter what happens there will always be a way forward. And if I get lost among unfamiliar trees, I will once again embrace and climb them to remind myself of where I came from, where I am now, and where I can go from here.

And you can too.

Do They Even Remember Your Name?

Do They Even Remember Your Name?

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Margareta.

For the four short years you were in our lives, your name was spoken more times than I could ever possibly count.

Not just by me, your dad and brothers, but by a multitude of family and friends. We spoke it, sang it, and wrote it every day. You corrected people on the pronunciation of your name by emphasizing every syllable. “My name is Mar-Gar-Eh-Tah.” Your name was part of the daily fabric of our lives. And we took it for granted that it always would be.

And then one day…it wasn’t.

On the day you died, a wave of shock and despair hit everyone who knew you. It took our breath away and left us speechless. Nobody seemed to know the right words to say to make sense of this sudden tragedy. But they tried their best to offer us comfort. They showed their support in condolence calls and cards.

Many quoted the bible, and offered us sayings they thought would soothe our broken hearts.

“God needed an angel.”

“She’s at peace in the arms of Jesus.”

Others just spoke their hearts in the simplest way possible.

“I’m so sorry for your loss. I don’t know what to say.”

“I can’t believe she’s dead. I feel sick.”

No matter the words spoken and whether they resonated with me or not, I felt supported. I felt our family wasn’t alone in our horror.

But then the funeral was over and everyone went home to resume their lives. The cards stopped coming. The phone stopped ringing. And yet our grief was just beginning. It didn’t end the day we buried you. It grew.

How could we go back to living our normal lives if you weren’t here to live it with us? And how could the earth keep spinning? How could people keep going about their daily business – laughing and happy – when everything in our life had been ruined? The feeling was maddening.

Occasionally we would get a call to see how we were doing. But it was never about you.

It was always about their concern for us and how they could help support us. They didn’t mention your name. While I was filled with gratitude to know that people still cared, all I wanted to do was talk about you and how your absence in our life was suffocating.

Over time the calls of concern stopped coming and were replaced by invitations to get back to our previous routines. We were invited to parties, dinners, outings, etc. We were encouraged to get back to the land of the living. At first, we often declined, but the invitations kept coming. And your name was virtually never mentioned.

Years after your death, your name is rarely said. Virtually the only way I can still hear your beautiful name – Margareta – is if I say it. I have to bring you up in conversation.

It makes me wonder whether people still think of you. It makes me fear that you are already forgotten.

After all, you were only here for four short years.

I’m not the only one who feels this way. This is a common topic – and source of despair – at grief support groups. Those who are bereaved live in a world where those we love remain at the forefront of our thoughts. This isn’t just in the first few months or years after your death. It is for the rest of our lives.

We may even get chastised from family and friends who want us to get over your death and get back to being the way we were before you died. Like that will ever happen.

I’ve heard many times a few theories of why people never say your name.

First, they think it will remind me of the pain of your death. As if that pain has ever gone away. If they only knew that hearing your name eases the pain…even if just for a brief moment.

Second, they don’t know the “right” words to say. I suppose it is a twisted interpretation of the phrase, “If you don’t have something nice to say don’t say anything at all.” To which I reply, even if they say something that doesn’t come out quite right, at least they’ve shown me that you’re still on their mind.

One of the greatest gifts someone can give to me is the act of saying your name.

Not waiting until I bring you up in conversation. Or only mentioning you on your birthday or the anniversary of your death. But any time they happen to think of you . Even if just for a brief second. I’d love to know that outside of our immediate family, we’re not the only ones who still think of you, love you, and acknowledge that you existed.

Margareta. How I love hearing your name.

A “Grand Plan” Doesn’t Comfort Me

A “Grand Plan” Doesn’t Comfort Me

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I don’t know how I learned it, but at a young age I was introduced to the concept of what death was “supposed” to be.

It went something like this: you live a long, full life and then when you are so old your body stops working, you die peacefully – and painlessly – in your sleep. My vision of death was nice, neat, and acceptable.

The problem was that my ongoing experience with death over the course of my life didn’t seem to ever fit that ideal mold.

As a child, I heard about relatives who were old – but not that old – dying of things like cancer, heart attacks, or accidental deaths. I learned about my grandfather being killed during WWII when my father was only 2-years-old.

Before the age of 10, I had to face the ugly reality that the teenage daughter of one of my parent’s friends was dying of leukemia. Another of my parent’s friends – who I knew well – died after being thrown out of a car that lost control when her son fell asleep at the wheel.

The uncomfortable reality of death hit home as a young teen when a boy I occasionally babysat drowned. I vividly remember staring helplessly at his lifeless body on display at his wake. As a young adult, I sat with silent tears in my eyes at the funeral of a cousin in her early 20s who had died suddenly and unexpectedly from a blood clot in her leg.

I could go on and on.

The fact is death is sad and tragic, and mostly unfair.

Deaths that don’t fit that ideal mold of dying peacefully in very old age leave us with many unanswered questions. Questions that can be summed up in one word: Why? It keeps us up at night. It tortures us. And eats at the very fabric of our being.

For those who seek to comfort us, there is a common answer many offer in hopes of soothing our endless ache. I’d heard it many times before. But I never gave it much thought until I found myself on the receiving end after my 4-year-old daughter’s sudden death.

While there are variations, most often I was told, “It was part of God’s plan that we cannot understand and aren’t meant to know.”

Now I know the people who offer this condolence of God’s “grand plan” truly believe it and think it comforting. But to a person who has just lost someone they cannot imagine living life without, it often falls short of being a source of comfort. In fact, depending on the person and the circumstances, it can unintentionally cause a great deal of distress or even produce outright anger.

Here’s why a “grand plan” doesn’t comfort many of us: it most definitely wasn’t part of our plans.

And now our plan is forever ruined and irreversible. We are left with an excruciating, bleeding broken heart. And we can’t imagine a “grand plan” has any purpose other than to leave our lives in darkness and utter devastation. In the immediate aftermath of such a death, we see no silver lining, no hope, no purpose, and certainly no opportunity for lessons or growth.

Years after my daughter’s death, I no longer feel anger towards those who try to reassure me by reminding me of God’s grand plan or that my daughter is in a better place. I understand those words are the only thing they know what to say after such an unthinkable loss. And those words probably brought them some sense of safety and comfort in a situation that made no sense.

Whether or not I’ll ever be fully and utterly convinced that there is a grand plan, the sentiment will never offer me relief from the pain of losing my only daughter.

I’ve grown tremendously as a person since her death and have learned a lifetime of lessons in these past years. But I still ache for her and long for a future I’ll never have. I am still left with the reality that my plans were shattered the day she died, and I’ll always regret not having a future in which I get to watch my daughter grow.

Why We Can’t Just “Move On”

Why We Can’t Just “Move On”

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I and many people I know are suffering from a broken heart.

Now this may not seem like a big deal to you. After all, people get broken hearts all the time. Most of the time people get over it. Eventually, their attention turns towards finding new love to invest their time and energy in. Sooner or later, their heart heals — and hopefully the wiser for it.

Unfortunately, these are not the type of broken hearts I am referring to.

The kind of broken heart I am talking about is so severe and so devastating, it can never fully heal.

It is caused by losing someone whose absence leaves a gaping, endless hole in your heart. A hole that simply can never be filled. It is caused by losing a person who could never, ever be replaced and who can never, ever come back. In my case, it was caused by the sudden death of my 4-year-old daughter in 2009.

Oh, I hear all you doubters out there. You see on the news that people die every day. And from your point of view, their families and friends seem to get over it and move on with life. So why can’t we?

Some of you may think the people who can’t seem to let it go are just a bunch of “poor me” types who want attention. You may even be friends with some of us. Or more likely, used to be friends with us. You probably can’t fathom why we still feel the need to attend support groups, visit the cemetery every week, or randomly break down in tears – for years after the death. Many of you feel compelled to tell us how we’re supposed to get over our grief.

If it were only that simple.

So, why? Why can’t we just get over it and move on with our lives as if everything was back to normal?

Unfortunately, there isn’t an answer I could put into words that would ever satisfy you. Maybe the problem lies in the terminology being used. We may be suffering from a broken heart as you would define it. But it’s more than that. It might better be described as a broken soul or a broken spirit. Maybe it’s best to just cut out the noun. We are simply broken. Until you actually experience this type of loss, you’ll never fully understand.

So maybe the better question is: why does it bother you so much?

Is it the tears that make you uncomfortable? Does our demeanor hamper your care-free lifestyle? Is it the in-your-face reminder that you will die someday – and maybe much sooner than you plan to? Whatever your reason, you need to know that if you feel compelled to tell us what we need to do and how we need to do it, you’re not doing us any favors or speeding up our grief process. You’re just adding to our pain.

The fact is if you had enough patience, you’d see that over time people like us are better able to reintegrate into “normal” life. We learn to smile and truly experience happiness again. We don’t cry as often – and when we do, we can usually wait until no one is looking. Eventually, we may even convince you that we have finally moved on with our lives. But behind the scenes you better believe that the pain is still there.

The longing never goes away. The regret is here to stay. Painful reminders that such an important person in our life is missing constantly surround us.

We don’t just think of them on special occasions; we think of them daily. Some days we may think of them every hour or every minute. This is how we keep them present in our lives. This is our personal memorial to the overwhelming love they brought to our lives when they were here. Do you really want to take that away from us?

Instead of focusing on the idea that we should move on with our lives to make you more comfortable, maybe you could focus on learning how to look the other way and not let our grief bother you so much.