Grief and Loss

My mom died. Seven years and ten days after her mom, my gram died. This was the first year since my gram’s death that I did not fall into a deep depression. This was the first year that I was on top of my grief. And then one week after the anniversary of losing my gram my mom went into the hospital. As I was watched the doctor franticly look at her notes and then my mom, the look on her face said more than anything she could speak.

I sat against the wall in the hospital room I thought about the day. It was April 17^th. We were having my gram’s service April 17^th seven years before. It was 2:00pm when I connected those dots. I could not keep my tears in. I knew what was happening. I had to leave the room, because I did not want my mom to see me cry. I rushed down to the waiting room and let the tears out. I sent my brother a text to let him know what was happening. The time stamp was 2:07pm. My gram’s service was held April 17^th at 2:00pm.

Why was the universe testing me? Why did this have to happen now? Why did I have to start the grieving process over? There were too many thoughts going through my head. I was not ready to lose her, not yet. I wanted to talk to her to tell her the things that I had been working on. I wanted to tell her that I hurt, but I understand now why things happened the way that they did.

On April 18^th we were called in to her room to say goodbye as she was having a heart attack. She was still awake and able to speak. I told her “I forgive you Mom, I love you.” She responded in a few words and was asleep, never to speak any more words. We were called in to say goodbye to her a few more times that day, each time I told her that I loved her, once kissing her forehead.

My anticipatory grief was setting in. Days before we thought she just had the stomach bug. I had not gone to see her the last couple times because she did not want to get the kids sick. And now we were saying goodbye over and over again. Each time we said goodbye she would become stable and we were told she was improving. Part of me hoped that she would pull through and part of me knew she wouldn’t. I wanted to keep hope and faith alive but I also wanted to be prepared for what was coming next. It was like walking on a tight rope, not wanting to look down, but knowing you have to.

After two long days of waiting and hoping for the best we had to make a choice. Do we keep letting her fight, or do we let her go? We let them try everything, and she was surprising us each time. They gave her a 1% chance of surviving the first surgery, and she did. They gave her a 10% chance of surviving the night, and she did. We hoped she could fight it; that she could beat it. Medications were at their max and she was failing. She was in pain. If we let her keep fighting we would have lost her. We decided to stop all life saving measures and transition to comfort care.

Within minutes she was gone. We said our goodbyes to her as she departed her Earthly body. The four days that this took place were excruciating. A waiting game; hoping that we would get good news, but knowing we wouldn’t. I didn’t want her to suffer, but I wanted her to live. That is a hard choice to make. I felt selfish letting her linger just for us. We initially wanted it for her. We knew that if she had a choice she would want to live too. So we did everything that was offered to us. We did everything and it still was not enough. Regardless of our choice she was going to die. It was just a matter of moments. In the big picture her peace was worth more than those moments.

I don’t have regrets, only that she was most likely in a lot of pain. We did not know that until after she had been suffering. We did what we could do and we were there with her when she needed us. She went peacefully and quickly once the medications were stopped. We followed her wishes the best we could with little to no information as to what she wanted. She never wanted to die so she never talked about her wishes.

Seven years after losing my gram and drudging through the thick, painful, at times paralyzing grief I was given a reprieve to try to live without the pain and then I was given another major loss. Another loss that could have sent me down the ugly, black spiral I had just climbed up. This loss has been different. My grief has been different.

My mom and I were not close. I spent my whole life longing for her love. She gave me the love I had looked for as she clung to her life. In her final moments she gave me what she never could before. I am not sure if my pain is subdued this time because of the distance that separated us; or if because she left me at peace with our past. I am sad as I think about what never was. And I find myself thinking of things I want to tell her and forgetting that she really is gone. I don’t know the difference. I just know that it is easier. So far. I also know that grief is ever changing. I know that it is different. I know that it is tricky and I know I cannot out run it.

As my mom was still alive, fighting for her life I looked down and saw my gram’s ring on my hand, on her arm. I was brought peace knowing that she was there helping me and also there for her daughter.

My mom was 62 years old when she died; my gram was 62 years older than me. My gram was 34 when she had my mom; I was 34 when my mom died. As I sat and thought there were a lot of connections like this. It made me see that we were all connected, but more importantly that the big picture is already mapped out. Things are preplanned and we are just along for the ride. Good or bad; if it is meant to be it is going to be. Life is always going to be; until it is not. It is what you do in between the being and not being that matters most. It is time for me to be the most that I can be in my time I have left.

 

Six years ago I wrote this about how I was feeling after the loss of my gram a year after the loss.

You would think that after taking a full 3-credit college course and getting an ‘A’ would make me a little more in tune to my own grieving process. The fives steps they tell you that are all apart of what grief is, right? It should be easy for someone that has been educated in this subject to at least notice the stages within oneself. Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Looking back at the past 15 months I can see times where I have dabbled within each of these steps. I can also see where I have gotten so close to Acceptance and ran just as fast away from it. Thinking that if Acceptance is had than there is no where else to go.

It is almost as though without my Gram in my everyday life that I am not living, nor do I really want to at times. I will live but I will not be alive. People say stay strong for your kids, and I am trying, but it really isn’t that easy. I’ve had to be the strong one my whole life and my rock, the only person that I had to help me stay strong has gone. Without her I can feel myself start to crack, crumble into dust that is the sand that the world has been walking on. I have never ever in my life admitted that I am weak or that I may possibly need help, but I have hit the bottom and if I go any further down I know that getting back up will be a massive struggle.

There is a period in my life, that looking back on, all I can see is blackness. I didn’t know then that I was depressed. All I knew is what was. I think back to that time and I do not want to go back. I know that my Gram would want me to grieve and get over it. I have great comfort in knowing that I will see her again, even greater comfort in knowing she is still here with me. Since she died I have not felt like she was completely gone, and I think that may be the only thing that has keep my head above water. The day before she died she gave me her Jade ring, her good luck charm and no matter how hard I tried to give it back to her she would not take it. That night I looked at in on my finger and knew what her plan was.

It was a plan that I had feared my whole life. I can remember lying in bed at her house crying myself to sleep hoping that she would be alive in the morning. Her death had always been my biggest fear. I did not think that I could ever live without her. She was my soul mate; we had an instant connection from the time that I can remember. She was where I always wanted to be, she was my best friend, my everything. She has been taken from me and I am left here wondering what the hell do I do now? Everyday is a struggle and a journey until the next day.

My gram was an amazing woman who lived her life to the fullest. She was given 2 weeks to live after a massive stroke 18 years before she died. I was the only one there when she was having her stroke, and she kept it together long enough for me to go get help. We had always been there for each other when we needed it the most. That is what makes this so hard. The hardest thing I have ever had to deal with and the person I counted on is not there to help me through it.

I was recently told that I am depressed. I knew this and I didn’t. I knew that important things were no longer important and I knew that my whole body ached. I have all the classic symptoms, the ones that I learned about in high school and college, but I didn’t want to acknowledge them. I guess I thought that if I made them into no big deal they would go away. The commercial about depression that says “depression hurts,” it really doesn’t make any sense until you are depressed. It does hurt, a lot and all over.

As I step back a little from my world of sorrow I see the way my Gram lived; just that; she lived. She lived every day to the fullest and when they told her she was going to die she basically laughed at them and went on her own terms. A few weeks before she died, after her son, my uncle passed away she told me she was ready to go. She said that she knew that I no longer needed her. She said her job here was done and she was not afraid to die. I tried to tell her that I was not okay and that I couldn’t imagine life without her, but she would not hear it.

We tried to plan a funeral for her, but I kept putting it off. I really couldn’t bear the thought. I had also had plans on writing her Memoir to get some of her amazing stories on paper, but I put that off too. I had it in my mind that if that was written she could go. I had all kinds of these thoughts on how to make her live forever, obviously they didn’t work.

At the hospital, the morning she died I went into her room and saw her lying there, so helpless yet peaceful. I had always thought that seeing a dead body, especially hers would be impossible. It was not, I did not want to leave her there. I kissed her and held her and smelled her. I leaned over her and watched my tears hit her forehead, and I was hoping for a miracle, like in the movies. I know it sounds stupid, but I really was hoping that my tears would bring her back to life. She was laying in one of the new hospital beds that adjust to body weight, and for a spilt second I thought she was breathing. It was amazing. For that second I thought she was back. But she wasn’t. I held her hands and caressed her arms, kissing her forehead. I did not want to leave because I knew it was going to be the last time I would ever see her body again. The one the comforted me for so much of my life.

I felt horrible leaving her there, I wanted more than anything to be able to push her out of her room in her wheel chair and have her home again. Instead, I walked out carrying the bag of her belongings. That was an awful, empty feeling. The next few days are a blur. I wanted more than anything to communicate with her. I just wanted to talk to her. I would say one last time, but once will never be enough. For my birthday that year I was able to have a séance with three other people. She was not strong enough to really communicate much, but she was able to tell me that she was okay and that she hated leaving me. She was also able to help take some of the guilt I had been feeling away.

I wanted so much to dream of her, to communicate that way, but each morning I would wake up with nothing. Until recently. I have been having dreams occasionally; they are so nice it is hard to wake up. I know that she is really there with me and that is how I find life bearable.

But to get to the much needed point, I am ready to start living life again. She was/is the person I most want to be like and letting depression swallow me whole is not going to get me to that destination. Even from death she is helping me through this tough time. I think all I needed to remember is that even though she is not here physically, she will always be here helping me along the rest of my journey. I was blessed to have her in my life for as long as I did. I am really looking forward to grab a hold of Acceptance and embrace it; it is what she would have wanted.