Grief Rewound 4
I have many half finished blog posts on gardening: propagation, cover crops, tinctures, etc, but I’m just not feeling it. I need to stay with what’s true for me. This loss has really shaken my world.
I find myself either in competence mode, when I’m getting things done, and not feeling much, or submerged in the depths of grieving. Grief seems to sneak up and tap me on the shoulder when I least expect it.
Before losing my mom, in the last five years, I lost two cousins who were very close, so I am no stranger to this.
Still, it’s hard to believe that I will ever get back to “normal.” I asked Dave if it was this bad when my cousin Melissa died, which was completely unexpected, and he said that it was worse. I find that hard to fathom from here.
I believe that my mom is better off, and that her soul/spirit is still around, but I miss her so much. Weekends are especially difficult, because they have been dominated by my time with her for so long. It’s ironic that sometimes I resented missing out on doing things when she was alive, and now, when the weekend rolls around, I feel empty and unmotivated.
I just paid off some of my mom’s last bills, and it was hard. It’s as if, if the bills still exist, then she does too. Going from being overwhelmed by her paperwork, to feeling sad that it’s going to be over soon is something I never would have expected.
This thing called grief seems to come in waves, and I sense that they will get deeper before they roll off. I need to make time to take it easy and be with those feelings. I was out on the garden, talking to my neighbor who lost her mom last year. She told me it took her a year to feel ok. She has a beautiful glow, but I remember when her grief was written on her face, that walking wounded look that I sometimes see in the mirror.
I know I will move through this. It’s important to me to continue to acknowledge what a passage it is, and to move in my own time. I also know that sometimes it will not be on my mind at all, and I need to enjoy those times fully as well.
I do find comfort in those time-honored traditions of lighting candles and sage, putting out fresh flowers and pictures on an altar. It has also really helped me to write about it here. Have you ever lost someone? What kind of rituals gave you comfort and memory?
A couple of years ago, I lost my brother. It was the most devastating loss I had ever experienced. He died suddenly and tragically at 49. I felt as if I was in a dark and bottomless pit for a very long time. Many days, I would call my husband in the middle of the day to beg him to help me find the joy again. I was utterly lost. I don’t really know what it was that pulled me out of it…except time and trying…trying to live. I sincerely hope that you find yourself again, but I know that you must take the time to just be in it for a while. Take good care of yourself!
Thank you so much for understanding. This is not where I am all the time, but it doesn’t take much to put me there. In a world where everything is moving so fast, it really helps to get validation from you and others who have come out the other side, and know that it’s something that you can’t rush through. I’m so sorry for the loss of your brother.
My mom died on Christmas Eve 2003 from cancer. I think of grief as a necessary time for allowing the relationship we have with the person who is gone to transform within us. In this way grief is like a cocoon. The relationship with your mother will never be absent from you, but it will be different.
I do bereavement work with improvisational quilt making and the clothing of the beloved – I call it Passage Quilting.
I’ll be at the wordpress camp on Sunday. I like your blog.
Hi Sherri! I am inspired by the work that you do. It seems really fitting to do passage quilting with my mom’s clothes, they were so much a part of who she was. Both my grandmother and my mom were expert seamstresses. My earliest memories involved me standing on top of a low coffee table with the two of them speaking in Greek, pins in my grandmother’s mouth as they hemmed a skirt they made for me. My mom organized a quilt for the history of our town when we moved from the city to the suburbs. I just got my first sewing machine recently, but haven’t learned to use it yet. Sadly, I didn’t learn from them. I’m pretty sure I will be at wordcamp on Sunday too, unless I’m too tired from Friday and Saturday. I’ll send you an email before I leave, maybe we can meet up. I really like your blog too, beautiful!