Srength and Courage

I'm opinionated.  I have trouble holding my tongue.  Eventually, I will comment.

Grief, however, is a subject I truly try to hold my tongue on. 

My grief has been commented on by so many.  I know, then, why the heck do I write a blog?  (Or maybe I should say, why did I since my updates are very outdated.)  My blog, I realized, resonated.  It explained, expanded on and gave life to feelings I couldn't explain in words thus allowing others to "see" my grief instead of just assuming I was strong.  I hated that comment.  You are so strong.  What the heck else could I be?  I digress.

Logically I know my experience has been analyzed, criticized and supported maybe not all at once, but essentially that's what I have felt.  I have read and heard harsh words that I will attempt to refrain from addressing and quite honestly I know others have been said that I have not been privy to.  Really, I try to take a "hope it never happens to you" attitude.  Not in a mean way, more in a, I don't want you to have this judgement or this pain or have to understand why I have made the choices I have.  I don't want anyone to know the crushing loss of a husband.  To stand on their back deck screaming into the rain as strangers look on from within their house.   

Ok, here it is.  My Point.

Watching grief from afar is interesting.  An acquaintance died suddenly last fall leaving her husband and two small children.  Another acquaintance from high school died after an ongoing illness leaving a husband and small son.

Mostly I have watched these experiences unfold and transform with a prayer on my breath and beams of strength being sent into the universe from my heart.  Reading and thinking about their experiences made me sob.  The mere act of watching from afar has made me cognizant of many things but really, mostly it has made much more clear to me the experience had by others who are not truly at the epicenter of the death but who are close by.  They are the people suffering greatly, trying to support those at the epicenter yet navigate their own life challenges as presented by the death of this loved one.  

This morning I read a brief post from a widower who has decided to date.  He commented that many won't understand.  All I could think was, "ain't that the truth."

It was a difficult desire to explain and defend (at times).  Then it made me angry I should even have to defend it.  I'm not crazy, I never was.  I never put myself or my children in harms way.  I was vocal about my grief, I was processing and reprocessing.  I was reading and trying to lead my children.  I was honest.  I was angry when people around me doubted my ability to navigate.  Now I wonder what they saw, what they felt.  At the time, all I could think about was that I was the one who was here.  Chris was gone and now it was time to support me.  Chris had God on his side, he no longer needed the loyalty of friends and family.

A little too simplistic, I know.  And wildly harsh.  

Now, I get it a little better.  Everyone needs to have their grief experience honored and acknowledged.  It's hard to understand anothers grief because you just are not them and purely are not meant to understand.   

Truly I was lucky that in all of it I only had two real fall outs...ugly, drag out, mean word fall outs.  Sadly, I will admit I haven't forgiven the hurtful words but do hope they both have had their opportunity to move through their own personal journeys.  Grief is debilitating and harsh judgement is sometimes the fall out of that reality. 

Perhaps this is point number two.  Life is hard.  It's our job to look at those in our world and acknowledge that their journey is important too.  Strive to support and love everyone through their own journey.  Acknowledge that everyone reaches their destination in a different manner and via their own path but no matter what, it is what is right for them.

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. -Lao Tzu

Arrival

It arrived so suddenly though I had expected it, waited for it with an anxious heart.

At the moment it arrived, I wasn't ready.  My mind tried to tune it out, change the path, avoid the destination.  I was waiting but I was not ready.

"I don't want you to go to heaven."  My kiddo sat trying to hold back tears with tiny sausage fingers.

Did that give it away to any of you?  Owen.

Me:  "I'm not going to heaven sweetie, I am staying here with you to be your mommy,"

Owen:  "But I was a baby once and I had a daddy that I loved and he went to heaven."

Yes, I gasped too.

I gasped so audibly that the air in the room rushed into my heart and opened the wound that I have spent much time tediously mending into a usable condition.

Owen's tiny little sausage fingers almost clawed at his eyes that were brimming with tears.  He was sad.  So simple.  In that moment I couldn't help but wonder why he felt the need to cover the crying.

We talked honestly about heaven, about his daddy, about being sad.  I told tiny fibs about staying here with him forever.  I sent out silent prayers to God that he make that part true. Really I begged.  It's my nightmare.  Nothing can happen to me.  Not now.  No cancer, no car accident, no ailment I can't cure with Tylenol and a nap.  Nothing.

Crushing is the weight of that conversation.

The follow up...I knew it was coming.  And it did.  On the next night.

Perhaps it's the song I sing at bed time, on his request.  We call it Serenade.  The Dixie Chicks call it Lullyby.  The lyrics ask, "How long do you want to be loved?  Is forever enough because I'm never, never giving you up."

Never giving up.  That's sort of my motto.  Hours after Chris died, I vowed I would not let this world fall down on them.  I would never give up.   

The follow up went a bit like this, Owen: "I'm sad.  I want my daddy here not in heaven. I love my daddy."

Me too buddy.

I do what mommy's do.  I reassured my sweet boy that his daddy loves him so much, that his daddy watches over him, that we can still love people who are in heaven and they love us in return and we feel it.

It's as simple as that.  The arrival of feeling.  Previously it was all fact.  Daddy is dead.  Daddy's heart was not working right and nobody knew it.  The associated feelings are now present in the mind and heart of my little man.

It's in this moment I recall the conversation with a friend who lost her mom at a very young age.  Her insight.. grief is evolving.  We grieve and re-grieve in different ways over time depending on circumstance and age.  I knew it was true by simply living the past 2 1/2 years watching Maya's every word, every nightmare, every story.  But Owen had yet to arrive.  His arrival has rocked my boat and made me question my ability to steady three ships in the storm of grief.   

The arrival of Owen's grief, I was waiting but I was not ready.