Even in grief there are gifts.

I've been grieving for a long time.  It started two years ago with the end of my marriage and a life I thought was mine, and now it is the loss of both parents in the space of 2 months to the day.  Mom left our lives on April 15 when she went into long term care with Alzheimer's and Dad died of a broken heart on June 15.  So my brother and I are now left to each answer the question grief insists you ask yourself, "So, now what?"

I think the one lesson we all learn is that there's no fast-pass through grief.  I, of course, learned that the hard way during my divorce thinking I could skips the stages and move quickly into a new life....and no.  We typically associate grief with death but in reality it's the suffering of a loss and every one of us has felt it.  This time I've decided to feel the pain and listen to what it has to say, really I have no choice because it never shuts up!  

The first thing my pain said to me when I was packing to rush to Denbigh to be with my brother was, "What will I wear to the funeral?  I've gained weight again and there'll be so many people who haven't seen me since I left 40 years ago, and why, oh why couldn't I have kept my divorce weight off???  I looked good then!"  So, yes, one of the first things I felt after hearing about my Dad's sudden death was panic and then shame.  Shame that in one of the worst moments in a person's life I worried about looking fat. Still grappling with that one.

Then my pain fed me the line that everything for the funeral needed to be perfect which sent every insecure fiber of my being into overdrive. I convinced myself that I could handle everything on my own and not fall apart.  Still haven't fallen apart yet, so that's not going to be pretty when it happens!  

We decided not to tell Mom about Dad for obvious reasons.  After "seeing" Dad at the hospital I went to visit Mom at the residence.  I searched her ever increasingly vacant eyes and felt a huge wave of sadness and then a huge wave of gratitude; Mom would be spared the pain.  She was shocked that I had come to visit her all on my own, after all I'm only 10.  Grieving the loss of someone who still walks the earth is the grief that never ends and that's what killed Dad.

"After life care" is the gentle term used for the paperwork that has to be done when someone dies.  About a month before he died I was reading Mom's POA, Dad was reading over his Will and said it was good. He then told me that when he died I would have to look after everything.  This is where feelings of anger towards Dad have come up.  For someone who was always, and I mean always, right and dotted every "i" and crossed every "t", how could he have missed that he neglected to remove Mom as his executor! I understand he was grieving and beyond worn out but the extra hoops I now have to jump through from the bank to HydroOne are so frustrating!  And almost every change has to be made in person so that means 7 hours of driving for me.  I feel guilty for feeling frustrated.

I also feel guilty about the few times I put myself first and opted to stay home for a weekend instead of going to Denbigh.  My logical brain tells me that I made those decisions knowing that self-care is important for all care-givers but now all I can think of is one time after spending 2 days with him Dad begged me to stay another night and I didn't. 

And then there's the guilt of feeling resentment. I was just getting my life back and starting to feel on solid ground again and now the ground beneath me feels anything but solid.  Guilt is extremely versatile, it can be served as a main dish but also pairs well with other negative emotions.

And then there's the precursor to all negative emotions: fear.  As I've mentioned in past blogs Dad, like many of his generation, lead a fear driven life and instilled that quite nicely in his children.  He was a Warrior parent, if a crisis hit he was the man you wanted on your side.  He would circle the wagons in an instant and make you feel safe.  Who's going to circle the wagons now?  Apparently I am but where in hell do you get wagons these days??  Costco? Some days I find myself crippled with the fear of inadequacy and must force myself to get out of bed.   Thank you again to my cat Stuart who can be quite insistent.

I just realized a gift this very instant.  As I was writing some of the words above there was a voice in my head that kept whispering,"That's no longer true."  Grief has forced me to question my life long belief that I'm not capable, that if a time came for circling the wagons I would not be up to the task.  The reality is I was the one who circled the wagons around the family when we needed it and Dad knew it.  And he also knew Mom would continue to be encircled for a long as she lives.  I need to revise that part of my story.

Another gift of grief (and writing) is as we are forced to face our feelings it becomes very obvious what we still need to learn.  How glaringly obvious is it that my ancient wound of "not being good enough as I am" has not healed?  But as embarrassed as I am to write down my panicked thoughts about not wanting to look fat at my Dad's funeral, I did it because my desire to heal is stronger than my embarrassment.  

Grief is complicated, unpredictable and insidious.  Because it's tied to every negative and fearful thought we have about ourselves it forces us to question everything we've come to believe.  And that's the gift of grief.  We perhaps don't recognize it as a gift because it's wrapped in pain but it is a gift.  Or maybe it's more like an Escape Room and you can only get out once you've answered all the clues and found the right key to the lock.  Either way, you can be released if you choose it.

Now to answer the question, "So, now what?"  To loosen the grip grief has on me I've adopted a spiritual philosophy which states we can choose to look at all situations through a lens of fear or a lens of love.  I see now that for most of my life I've looked at situations through the lens of fear and have the battle scars to prove it.  But now I choose/try to look at all situations with love and the moment I do I feel a shift in how I feel!  When I feel weighed down I look for the love and feel lighter, feelings of weakness dissolve and strength shows up,  resentment is replaced with compassion, and when I feel overwhelmed and drowning, focusing on the love lifts me out of the current and fills me with peace.  Pretty big gifts, right?

During the past two years I have been so blessed to have shared similar life-altering stories with so many of you and continue to do so. It's like we're all in an Escape Room working together to solve the challenges laid in front of us in order to navigate our way to freedom and we've finally discovered the key......and it's love.