Several weeks ago, I shared a post about the holidays being potentially terrible (click here to read) and how we can best prepare ourselves for the series of days between Halloween and New Year’s Day.
I shared some insights on strategies that have helped me over the years, knowing that there is no one thing that makes holiday time bearable when our children have died. I suppose I was trying to mentally prepare myself, as well as share with you, in the hopes that we would not feel like a train runs over us every day between now and January 1.
I have been practicing all of the suggestions I made, such as making time for my grief, donating to causes that are personal and making sure to get rest. But here I am at 3:56am, hours after I have woken up and realized there will be no going back to sleep. My heart is racing. I feel like there is a cinder block hovering over my chest that has not completely fallen on me, but is repeatedly grazing the surface, as if to let me know it can crash on me at any moment. I’m stuck in a grief storm.
I know it won’t last, or it least that it won’t continue to dominate my consciousness at this level of intensity indefinitely. I know, because I have lived through so many grief storms, and the sun always eventually comes back out. A friend calls. Zach smiles at me. A holiday card comes from an old friend. The sun sets in a way that paints the sky with orange and pink and reminds me “this” is not all there is.
But even with the knowledge that the intensity (not the pain) will pass, it is still like being under water trying to reach the surface and gasp for air, but being unable to get above the current. Grief is an insidious experience. It’s like taking all of our intelligence, instinct and brilliance and channeling it into sheer pain. We don’t do it on purpose. It just happens. And the more skilled we get at trying to protect ourselves, arm ourselves and drive on, the more crafty and clever grief becomes.
This is an especially difficult post to write. And that is exactly why I am writing it. Because I know that if I can’t breathe, and my children died long ago, there are so many parents who are also suffocating in the glitter and glitz of the current holiday spirit. And there are so many children of parents who have died, siblings of brothers and sisters who are no longer at the dinner table, so many friends absent from the egg nog punch bowl that are missed. I don’t want to agonize alone.
If none of this resonates, I am sincere when I say: “Good for you.” You have been spared. For now. Hopefully for a long time to come.
But for the rest of us, I sincerely say: “You are not alone…We are not alone.” Grief is idiosyncratic, and comes in as many forms as we humans do. But the thing we all share, the Universal connection is that we can’t do a damn thing about our losses. We can’t bring our loved ones back. We can’t embrace them or feel their skin. We can’t get back the time. Our losses are permanent, irrevocable, and forever. And even if this is all we have, we still share this in common.
If you are grieving, be patient with yourself. Kindness is a beautiful thing, and sometimes we forget to aim it toward ourselves. I have no checklists of ways to feel better this morning. Only the message that we can survive, and we are never alone in our despair. Even if these words only connect with one other broken heart, I know I am not alone.