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• Finding joy in the holidays

  The holidays are upon us once again and for those who mourn the loss of a loved one that means navigating the uncharted territory of grief and social expectations. We can all probably relate to the holidays, known for their plethora of rich tradition and social activities, as sometimes being wrought with tension and anxiety. Add to that the heightened emotions of grief and you may have a recipe for disaster.

  I’ve learned that our sense of loss and longing is sometimes exaggerated when special days roll around, bringing with it deep loneliness and perhaps even confusion. This natural reaction to the anticipation of a special day should be honored in personal ways that work best for each of us.

  In the Christian tradition, Advent, the four weeks prior to Christmas, is a time of hope in church communities across the globe. As a wise and faith-filled clergyman recently penned “Hope, which brings joy, is the spiritual attitude of Advent.” He went on to say that without hope there is no joy. That attitude of hope must permeate every season of our grief if we are to find joy once again — not only during the holidays, but also beyond.

  If anyone would have told me that I would ever find joy again after the sudden death of my husband Trent, 22 years ago — particularly around the holidays — I suspect I would have run from the conversation in a fit of disbelief and tears. During those early years following Trent’s death, as I raised my two preschool-aged daughters without their loving father, I did find myself confused, with the rather frightening feeling that I was moving backward in my grief, whenever an anniversary or holiday approached.

  As I went through the motions of that first Advent season, I found myself overly sensitive and at the same time numb to the festivities. Was there hope in my heart? To be honest I don’t recall much of that year — a blessing in my estimation — but I do know that I survived — and revived joy— in subsequent years as I learned how to take care of myself in my grief, particularly during a holiday or special event.

  Paramount to my journey was giving myself permission to feel whatever emotions surfaced. That took some practice as I tried so hard to live up to everyone else’s expectations. As I learned to plan ahead with ways to respond to certain situations I found the holidays easier to navigate. Taking breaks from the festivities helped renew the spirit of hope in my heart so I quickly learned to make quiet time for myself to just “be.”

  When I finally relaxed into my own rhythm — after a couple of years — I noticed that I held some holiday traditions dear and others were exchanged as I made room for Trent’s memory. A few of the traditional parties are no longer on my social calendar but I make sure not to isolate myself as I seek support for my grief.

  Remembering our loved ones in special ways can make the holidays much more meaningful. One special way the girls and I found joy in honoring Trent that first year was to gift his family with dove ornaments embossed with his name. Our family ornament still hangs front and center on our Christmas tree every year.

  I have witnessed others who ceremoniously light a candle at a family gathering, make a photo album, say a prayer or invite others to tell stories. My sister made a special Christmas stocking in memory of her son Adam who died of leukemia. Each year since his death she offers special Christmas stationary on which to write a memory to be placed in the stocking. Your loved one can be forever part of your holiday experience, just in a different way.

  Another way to remember our loved ones that brings joy to my heart is by speaking their names and telling stories of times past. I learned along the way that family and friends sometimes were reluctant to speak about my loss, but when I broke the ice, they usually joined in. For those who choose not to join the conversation, with its laughter and its tears, I just remember that each grief journey is unique and worthy of honoring.

  I’ve also learned that it’s okay to have fun during the holidays even in grief. It’s a way to take a break from the oppression of mourning, connect with your loved one and recapture a little of the joy of the holiday. Even in the loneliness of grief following Trent’s death, I was deeply grateful to have known him and all that my life held in his stead. Take time to pause this Advent season and discover the hope that these expectant days hold even as you grieve. Let the hope stirring in your heart ring in God’s gift of joy this Christmas.

  Posted on December 12, 2012, to:

• Not the whole story

  During a recent conversation about discovering the gifts that grief work can sometimes offer, I was inspired by something my widowed friend said. “Some people say ‘oh, you’ve lost your husband.’ And of course they’re right. But that’s not the whole story.”

  She went on to say that acknowledging only the death of her husband neglected the very essence of the life she shared with the man she missed so dearly. “It doesn’t take into account his life, his gifts and talents, his faith, his likes and dislikes, or how he loved his family,” she lamented.

  After contemplating this wondrous bit of wisdom — from a newly bereaved and deeply wounded widow — I found that she was right on target. Those of us who have lost a loved one know that their death is not the beginning — or the end — of our story.

  There is no doubt that our loved one’s death changes us forever — we must begin to write a new and different type of chapter for our ongoing story. But as we grieve our loss we discover that facing our future requires affirming the foundation of past memories that we built over time with our loved one. We grieve in hopes of discovering healthy and appropriate ways to create a “new normal” where the memory of our loved one finds it’s rightful place.

  My friend’s lament was founded on her belief that others did not know the story of her life with her husband prior to his death. Their life story, like many, was a record of eloquent accounts of love and laughter, pain and sorrow, challenges and triumphs. Earlier chapters included meaningful dialogue between the couple as well as parenthetical quips on the joy of parenting and faith-challenging health issues.

  Each story of loss begins with the richness of life. That which gives body to our characters and creates our plot is the stuff of memories that sustains us in our loss.

  As I review my own grief “story’” that continues to evolve from that fateful day in fall of 1990 when my own husband Trent was killed in an accident, I find that my life story is now written in chapters that I categorize as “before Trent’s death” and “after Trent’s death.” Silly as that may sound it makes logical sense to those who have suffered a life-changing event.

  Before my husband died I was a wife and stay-at-home mother of two. I enjoyed my family life as well as my participation in community life. I gathered with friends during the daylight as we witnessed our children’s growth together and embraced my role as wife after work hours when Trent could be home with his family.

  Following his sudden death I penned a dark chapter of loss and confusion. My identity as wife was rewritten as I discovered that my role in life had changed. My stay-at-home status eventually translated to full time work outside the home and my social support shifted with my grief.

  As I look back on those early days after Trent’s death I can now see that the grief itself wrote my story for many months as I did the hard work it called for. Those chapters are still painful to review, but now after 22 years, I can look back and see the gifts that have immerged from between the lines of the grief that encompassed me after Trent died.

  One such gift that I have accepted is that each life story is ongoing, with its twists and subplots, and that loss is only part of the saga. My friend was right — our loss is not the whole story. No, the memories we hold dear in our hearts are the life accounts we can revisit whenever the need arises. They are the content that sustains us in our grief. But as we find hope and new purpose in life after our loved one’s death, we continue to compose our own poetry. We are each the author of the rest of our own unique story. The future we face as we mourn our loss holds the blank and ready pages on which we will write the legacy of our beloved dead. Let’s make it a heartwarming page-turner.

  Posted on November 14, 2012, to:

• Parent loss stings at any age

  It seems that in the general scheme of things there is a natural order to life and death. At least that’s what we all tend to cling to. Those of us who are parents hope to die before our children, but not before our appointed time. But what of us adult children who experience the loss of our parents?

  My dad died while on vacation at the relatively young age of 72. I never got to say all my heartfelt goodbyes to him before he died, though we spoke on the phone briefly before his departure. I was comforted to know my mom was with him when he died.

  It was odd to know that my dad was gone and I prayed fervently for the repose of his soul and for my mom in her grief. And all the while I missed my dad, my mom remained a steadfast compass in my own grief. Three years later my mom died as well. I was blessed to be part of the group that cared for her after her stroke and was able to be with her as she drew her last breath.

  The three months that she lay paralyzed and unable to speak, though painful for all, were bittersweet gifts to me as I was able to speak to her all that my heart held, something I had thought I would have time to do with my dad. And then one day she was gone. I recall in vivid detail the moments following my mom’s death when my oldest sister, who stood near me with rivulets of tears marking her cheeks, keened, “Oh, gosh, now we’re orphans!”

  My five siblings and I were all in our 30s and well established each in our own adult lives. But in a way she was right. It doesn’t matter when we lose our parents. There is a part of us that may feel a bit ungrounded or lost in the world that no longer holds our folks.

  My siblings and I tried to honor each of our parents after their deaths with specifically planned visitations and Masses of Christian burial. And we were grateful to receive the loving support of church and community as we buried them those three years apart.

  But I must admit the support for parent loss is not as long-lived as for some other losses, such as spousal loss or losing a child. And I believe it has to do with the natural cycle of life and death. All of us expect to lose our parents and our adult lives do go on after they’re gone. But that doesn’t make the loss any less painful.

  In the first few months after my mom’s death I found myself overcome on occasion with a deep longing and a little bit of fear — a longing to talk with my mom again about everyday life issues, as we always had, and fear that I would not navigate this life well without my home compass. In my heart of hearts I always assumed that she would be there. After all she was my mom!

  I found that as I mourned my mom’s death I had to grieve many associated losses as well. I lost my safe place to fall, my compass, my best friend and mentor. She had always been there to comfort me when I needed it, celebrate my victories, encourage me when I had lost hope and love me through it all.

  When we lose our parents, we also lose the person who loves us like no other can.

  Parents are, for us, a mirror reflecting the substance from which we identify ourselves first in life. They are our first-line cheerleaders and at their death we must rediscover who we are outside of their all-encompassing love.

  Some of us may have unresolved issues concerning our relationship with either of our parents. Of course it’s beneficial to work through any issues with our loved ones face to face. However, it’s never too late to forgive any wrongs you feel burdened by, even after death. I believe my folks did the best they could with what they knew.

  My family of origin dynamic changed quite a bit after my folks had died. Our parents’ home was the central gathering place for holidays and special events. The “clan clearinghouse,” my mom would say. Since our parents’ deaths, my siblings and I have tried to make a special effort to host family get-togethers and we’ve found new reasons and places to make memories together now that our parents are gone.

  And though we still feel our parents’ absence we have learned to share stories of the past when we can to keep them alive in our hearts. Through the shared tears and laughter we have come to understand that our parents raised us to believe in the beauty of life, both earthly and heavenly. They would want us to be true to family and enjoy life while we can.

  As I recall my cherished memories of my parents, I am encouraged by the traits I value in each of them and hope that I, too, will live the legacy of character and virtue they have left in their wake. Their memory will forever be a mainstay in my heart.

  Posted on October 24, 2012, to:

• An unusual and complicated grief

  One day not long ago my 24-year-old daughter Emily and I were driving along a well-traveled country road — the very road on which my husband, Trent, had been killed in an accident 22 years ago. As we reached the fated intersection where the crash took place, I crossed myself, as I’d always done, sending a prayer to the heavens for my dearly departed. A moment later Emily’s quiet voice broke the silence.

  “It must be hard to relive dad’s accident every time you drive through this intersection,” she said, startling me with her attentiveness. We’d driven this way countless times before over the years with no exchange, but that day she seemed particularly in tune to that life-changing event of long ago.

  With the intention of offering a simple “yes,” I instead found myself stepping back in time to that fateful day. I relayed to my sweet and open-hearted daughter how I learned her dad had been killed more than three hours after the fact on that hot summer morning. I relived the funeral process and the pain I felt seeing my children, four and two at that time, stroking their daddy’s face as his lifeless body lay in the funeral home for viewing.

  As I told Emily my grief story in painful detail, the tears that flowed surprised me — not my own but those of my daughter who had begun anew to mourn all that she had lost. “I never knew those things,” she said softly.

  I explained to her that I had only shared what I thought was appropriate for her understanding level in the earlier years.

  “Oh,” she responded, quietly processing the events she had been too young to recall. And after a long silence she opened her heart to me. She told me that she was heartbroken for me for all that I had experienced in the wake of her dad’s death and all that I had lost. And with the new information I had shared, she now recognized much more of what she had lost.

  Emily was two when her father died. Now as a young adult she mourns the fact that she has no concrete personal memories of what her dad was like or the experience of being with him, though she has heard countless stories of his love for her and treasures photos of their short time together. “I can’t mourn for my dad, the person,” she revealed through her tears, “because I never knew him.”

  But, she added that she mourns deeply the hole his death left in her life. She mourns the fact that she had no dad to accompany her to the father-daughter dances of her youth. She misses the relationship of trust and love that could have been. Her life has been void of the guidance with boyfriends only a dad can give his daughter. And on whose arm, she lamented, will she walk down the church aisle on her wedding day?

  Emily went on to admit that though there seems no logic to it, she feels guilty that she can’t mourn his loss as those who knew him do.

  Emily’s sad but authentic admission of grief brought me to a new understanding of her grief journey. I have discovered that a child learns of death on his/her own cognitive level of understanding with the help of compassionate adults. And each developmental stage they reach brings a new and broader understanding, typically causing a different and sometimes more complex level of grief to surface for them to face, even years following a loss. Emily literally has lost her dad again and again as she entered each new life stage.

  As I continue to witness my daughter’s unusual and complicated journey of grief I have seen her grow in compassion and grace. And as she tells me her ever-evolving story of loss, I am grateful to feel a new awareness taking place within me — and I hope within her as well.

  So, look around you. Is there a child or young adult that needs a safe place to tell their story of grief with all its confusion and pain? A listening ear and a compassionate heart is all that’s needed. They will do the rest. Or perhaps you might need to tell your story and acknowledge a loss from long ago that has been swirling in the hidden recesses of your heart. Find a compassionate listener and accept the grace of healing. Together we can all find peace.

  Posted on September 18, 2012, to:

• Treasures in the wilderness

  I’ll be the first to admit that I am an outdoor kind of girl. I enjoy the warmth of the sun and the wind on my face while biking or running. Hiking in nature brings me a real sense of God’s presence, whether in an open field or along a mountain path. My husband Trent and I were active nature enthusiasts before he died and I’m delighted his legacy lives on in our daughters.

  I will also be the first to admit that following Trent’s death 22 years ago, nature — and life itself for that matter — turned harsh and cold — a veritable wilderness. Grief, I’ve found, can be like a wilderness stretched out before us with crooked paths traversing a vast emptiness and dark secret places where pain can hide.

  I went from hiking two by two on a sunlit path to limping alone in the darkness. And in this wilderness of mine it seemed there was little, and sometimes no light among the trees and brush. The darkness brought with it a despair that resembled a heavy burden almost too difficult to bear.

  And all the while as friends and family beckoned me with their consoling words, “Life goes on,” and “You’re strong, you’ll survive,” I realized no matter how I struggled, I couldn’t leave the path through grief’s wilderness that Trent’s death had set me on.

  Initially I was so overwhelmed by the empty space Trent’s death left in my life that I had no vision of what the future might hold for my little family. Nor did I care. But my two sweet daughters reminded me daily that even in deep sadness life was for the living.

  So I traversed my path through the dark nights, stopping here and there to face whatever challenge or decision I encountered. Many times my days were so dark that the only thing I could do was follow my heart. But eventually I began to discover treasures in the wilderness. Though I made mistakes along the way, each decision I did make showed me that I could create a life that was livable without Trent. I had tapped an inner strength that I never realized I possessed.

  The torrent of tears I wept over my family’s loss forged rivulets along my path, exhausting me along the way. But in time I uncovered another treasure as I learned that my lamenting proved not only a physical release of tension and sadness, but a spiritual release as well. I cry now with gratitude and grace.

  And after much more difficult grief work, I began to see other challenges — startling me like so many frightening noises in the dark, such as navigating as a single in a couple’s world, finding assistance with chores I was unable to complete and even meeting new friends — become for me precious signs of life as I limped out of the woods back into the light.

  And as I became warmed by the light, I began to discover a new purpose for my life. Second only to my cherished role as single mom came my desire to reach out to others in grief. The ministry for widows and others in grief I have become part of is truly a treasure of the wilderness to me.

  In grief we may travel through a wilderness where the pain of loss is very real and the emptiness vast. Hope may seem lost for a time. But as we move in the darkness, feeling our way as best we can, dapples of hope light our way toward healing. And those treasures we come to discover along our journey are those things that build for us a new life where we can once again find purpose and joy.

  One of Trent’s favorite authors, J.R.R. Tolkien, once penned, “You can only come to the morning through the shadows.” Truer words cannot be found about grief and its dark path toward hope and healing. And eventually, life once again becomes a treasure — different, yes, but a treasure none-the-less.

  Posted on August 22, 2012, to:

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