Grief

Grief is a subject that has taken a good bit of my attention lately. Perhaps it started when I lost the school. It was unbearable grief. Grief that kept me in bed. That grief was tied to failure so perhaps that’s was part of it.

I didn’t know what to do or how to deal with it. I saw my counselor for years. She assured me I was acting on my best and finest intentions, but that didn’t help my grief. Perhaps the only thing that helped was time, friendships and taking on a new sport, tennis. I can see my progress 10 years later but it still hurts.

The next blow was about 6 years ago when my husband had an affair. Before you gasp at my sharing of this, know that this is just my process and not meant to hurt my husband. He’s had his own process. When I found out, my world spun out of control. The pain was like nothing I had ever felt before. It was excruciating. I would have stayed in bed forever and cried but I had children and they needed their family. They needed their Mom to be strong. So I was. But that grief…. The loss of so much. The marriage survived the affair but I barely did. To this day I still struggle with nightmares and extreme grief. Again I’ve seen my counselor, but the pain is so deep. I survived through the love of my children and my incredible friends. But I haven’t thrived. I’ve survived.

Then Covid hit. I didn’t really have personal losses from Covid but we lost our business for a year and a half. It all felt so unfair. I had more grief but no real place to lay the blame.

In May of last year we lost our beloved Uncle Bobby to cancer. He was my husband’s uncle. He was such a happy guy. He was a light in our family. Within a week or two of his diagnosis, he was gone. He was such a wonderful Uncle to my husband and after losing both parents, his family is slowly becoming smaller. This was an unexpected grief and I didn’t know what to do with it.

Then in June of last year my best friend of 30 years died of cancer. I wasn’t ready. I went into the mode I always go into. I’ll take care of it. I handle it. I think in some ways in was my way of honoring her. In some ways it was a way to avoid my pain. I don’t know how to process the fact that she’s not there. I can’t drive by her house. I have trouble looking at her pictures. In some ways I feel stuck.

In August my Mother died. She hadn’t spoken to me in over 6 years. Some of it was because she was falling into dementia, some was because of who she was. Whats strange is that her death has affected me in other ways. I have nightmares about her screaming at me. I condemn myself for not being able to deal with her meanness. I deal with the grief of my childhood all over again. I feel like a terrible child who didn’t honor her mother. Don’t get me wrong, I tried to honor her. I just didn’t succeed at the end and I had to protect my own children from her. But I don’t grieve my mother. There is a peace with her passing that I can’t understand, but certainly a longing to have a different ending to the story.

In November my best friend from High School, Stacey told me she was moving to Tennessee. We’ve had our children together, we have grieved together and celebrated together. We’ve attended each other’s weddings and now our children’s weddings and baby showers. This one, I couldn’t process at all. She wasn’t gone from this earth but she was far from me. I sat at her house a few weeks before she left and as I looked at her tears rolled down my face. I couldn’t express how I felt and I’m not much of a crier, but that day I couldn’t hold back the tears. I know she’s just a phone call away, but for me it hurts.

So as you can see I’ve been dealing with different kinds of grief for a while now and in different ways. Some days, I just stay in bed. Some days I just watch ridiculous old shows. Some days I go to the beach and cry my heart out to God. Some days I’m normal, or at least can act normal. I do feel like energy has left my body and it takes so much to muster it up sometimes.

Don’t get me wrong, I have my amazing grand babies and my children and their spouses. I have the most incredible friends you could ever ask for. I am blessed, no doubt. But what I’m trying to say in my own way is that grief isn’t one size fits all. You go through it the way you need to. If it gets bad, throw out a lifeline in the form or a text or phone call. There is no right or wrong way to go through grief. My sweet cousin-in-law works out. That’s how she deals. Another friend hides in her hole. It’s different for everyone and THERE IS NO TIME LIMIT. The words “you should be over this by now,” need to be taken out of your vocabulary (and everyone else’s for that matter). It will probably always hurt to varying degrees. So give yourself permission to grieve. In the Jewish religion they have a dedicated time of mourning. We all need to allow ourselves a time of mourning for as long as it takes, with our incredible friends and family checking in on us every once in a while. Everyday will be different.

I have many friends dealing with similar losses. I’ve had friends loose spouses, siblings, parents and even children recently. I don’t have any great words of wisdom for any of them, but my wisdom wouldn’t help anyway. There is no magic. Nothing can be said to take the pain away. Sometimes you need to hide, sometimes you need to run, sometimes you need to crawl in a hole, and sometimes you need candy. Whatever you need is absolutely ok. We are going to be ok. In the meantime, send candy!