Grief

This is something that's been on my mind a lot lately... and the funny thing is, as soon as I had, in my mind, a plan for my next few blog posts... this one just wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it.  Sometimes things make you very acutely aware that GOD is doing the work here... we are just 'willing vessels' through which He can work.

So many people have been grieving lately, especially in the adoption corner of my world.  People have lost mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles... on and on, I couldn't name them all if I tried, and this is only within the last few weeks or so.  And most heartbreakingly of all... some people have lost babies.  Sometimes they are babies they got to hold and love before they went home to Jesus.  Sometimes they are babies who just couldn't hang on any longer... leaving waiting families to mourn a child they never actually met.

And indeed grief has been a major player in my life in the past few years too.  I will be one of the first to tell you that it is HARD, and it just plain STINKS!

There are different kinds of loss.

There's the loss you feel when you lose someone you never really got a chance to know... like the loss I feel when I think about my Uncle Tony, my mom's little brother who passed from cardiac complications to down syndrome when he was ten years old.  That was forty years ago.  I never met him.  I know him only through pictures and stories.  But I still miss him.

'Little Tony' not too long before he died.

There's the loss you feel when you lose a grandparent... maybe the one that always snuck you an extra cookie, or the one who read you bedtime stories as a child, or the one who had the neatest old toys and puzzles, or the one with the lamest jokes (Sorry Grandpa T, you know it's true!) ...or the one who drove two and a half hours to help take care of you when you had the chicken pox for three weeks (also a true story).  You know they had long full lives and it's time for them to go, to move on to a better place... but it doesn't make you miss them any less.

My grandparents at their 50th anniversary

Then there's another loss... one that some people don't understand but is no less real... when you lose a pet... a furry little pal who had become like a member of your family.  I lost my one year old kitten suddenly at the end of July.  I still can't think about it without crying... it was so unfair, so sudden, he was just a baby and I loved him with all my heart... that wound is still fresh.

This was taken the day before he died.

And then there's another one... one that I have been struggling with for over a year... the grief when you lose someone you loved, someone who was a big part of your life... far too soon.  You watch horrible scenes you had never imagined living play out before your very eyes.  Sometimes it gets so dark that you're not sure the sun will ever come out again.  You sob.  You lean on loved ones.  You pray.  You sob some more... as I am doing as I type these very words.  These... these are the kinds of wounds that don't just heal.  They leave scars.  Big ones.  And sometimes, at the lightest provocation (the drop of a name, a place, a photo, a food, an activity)... the scab gets ripped off and the wound feels fresh again.  Like it was still just yesterday.  You ask God why.  Sometimes you get angry, and that's okay.  Sometimes you wonder how you'll ever manage to put one foot in front of the other and live your life in the absence of someone you loved so dearly.

My best friend Angie (left) and I (right) a few months before she died, on 7/15/11.

Losing her has been probably the single hardest thing I have ever been through.  The things I thought were life-altering and terrible as a child pale in comparison.  Bullied at school.  Parents divorce.  Loss of friendships.  None of it could touch the heartbreak of losing my best friend, my confidant, the one who was always there for me even when she had enough on her own plate.  We were there for each other.  I used to tell her sometimes that I felt bad for talking about my problems when she was so sick... and she'd reply "No, don't!  It helps me to help you."  And so it was.  We helped each other and ourselves through being there in thick and thin, until the very day she lost her more than five year battle with an aggressive pediatric cancer.

The first couple of days after she passed away, I was almost numb.  It was too much for me to process.  I all but shut down for a couple days.  Then the visitation and the funeral came.  I stood up to read a poem I'd written for Angie.  She'd asked me to when she knew she was going to die... she came to me and said "Will you read your poem at my funeral?"  Imagine hearing those words from your best friend.  "My funeral".  Those are not things 20-year-old women are supposed to think about.  I almost didn't cry while I was reading it.  Almost.  I only slipped up once, and then the numbness took over again.

But the weeks that followed the funeral were the absolute worst for me.  I had panic attacks, wondering how I could get by without my best friend.  I felt like the world expected me to be 'over it' or 'normal'... and I just wasn't yet.  I felt like everyone else wanted to tell me how to grieve.  I needed someone to tell me that it was okay to not be okay.  Everyone heals in their own time.  Fittingly enough, it was Angie's own words that were my greatest help through this time.  Before she'd passed away, she'd written us a letter and told her hospice nurse - no one else.  The day she died, the nurse asked us if we'd found it yet, and we hadn't, but we knew where to look... and there she had left us this beautiful document on her computer titled 'last letter'. I want to share a few of her comforting words with those of you who are also walking through the valley right now:

"So I want you to cry and hurt and yell and scream if you need to. But I don’t want you to cry forever. I want you to turn around when you’re ready and seize life with all you’ve got. I want you to remember, if anything, for my sake, that life goes on and you’re a precious part of it."

There are kinds of grief I haven't experienced.  I've never lost a child, before or after birth.  I've never lost a 'significant other'.  I thank God that I have never lost a parent... because I still very much need mine.  The list goes on - for as many people there are who grieve, there are that many kinds of grief.  None worse or better than the others... just different.  No two the same... like snowflakes.  If you think about it, why *would* we think that everyone grieves the same?  We're all different people, different personalities, different lives.

So my message tonight is really... to whoever you are... for whoever you're grieving... in whatever way you're doing it... you're doing it right.  And the sun does come out again, I promise.  That's not to say it will never storm again... but the sun will come back every time.  Regardless of your circumstances, it's okay not to be okay.

And in turn if you know someone who is grieving right now, even if you feel like you've said it a million times, please let them know that you're thinking of them, that you're sorry for their loss, and that you're available to help.  These comments come pouring out of the woodwork immediately after a loss, but after a while people start to 'go back to normal' and the person who is grieving is left, often at a terrible point in their grieving process, feeling more alone than ever.  Keep saying it.  I love you.  I'm here for you.  Please tell me if you need anything.

We can no more make grief 'go away' than we can make the moon and the stars and the sun go away.  But we can make it a little bit easier... by reaching out to one another.

One of my favorite quotes:

"We are, each of us, angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another."  ~Luciano de Crescenzo