Change

Life brings change.  Life is change.  Change brings grief.  Change is grief.  It can be like a flower pushing through asphalt.  Hard work can bring beauty.

Good Grief, Greta!

Grief can be a good thing.   I am experiencing that dichotomy this week.  I am grieving my little girl, Greta Louise, as she celebrate her 18th birthday.   Soon she will be venturing out of the safety of home  and exploring the vast opportunities that the world holds.  As I think about her spreading her wings, I know I will grieve not having her with me everyday. However, I am excited to see how her gifts will make a difference in the world.
The sadness that I feel as Greta turns 18 is  good grief, because it speaks to the gift that she has been to me each and every day, it honors my love for her and it makes me treasure who she is as I wait to see who she will become.
This week,  I am feeling the dichotomy of grief as I say goodbye to my sweet little girl and celebrate the beauty of a young woman who will grace the world with her presence.

Spring Flowers

My tulips and crocus were seeking sunlight as they peeked through their winter blanket of leaves.  It is highly likely that they will need to go into hiding again when we get another blast of Minnesota winter.

I was hit with a blast of winter's grief this week.  The spring flowers of healing sought cover when a firefighter came into the office to do an inspection.  He inquired about the picture of Dave in his fireman's gear. I proudly said, "That is my brother."  Looking closer he said, "Steamboat Springs, Colorado.  Nice. Will you ask him if they have any openings?"  Frozen by a cold blast of grief,  I  welled up with tears and said, "I can't.  He died."  His eyes glassed over  and I felt the rawness of winter's wind return as I remembered David's funeral. The church isles were lined with big strapping firefighters standing at attention with tears rolling down their cheeks.

It has been seven years since David died.  Life is once again filled with spring flowers, but every once and a while winter returns and the flowers seek a protective blanket.  My family covered me with the warmth of their love and the snow melted fast.

A Powerful Poem

This powerful poem,  Allowing Grace, by Judith E Prest  invited me to allow grace today.

I am dancing
balanced on the edge
between worlds,
memories telescoping
playing simultaneously
with dreams and reality
a festival of images

I accept death
inviting it as a beginning
I am watching my mother's illusions
collapse around her
piling high in the hospital bed
filling the space so she barely has room
I am watching her hang on,
hands clawed with arthritis,
frozen on the wheel of her life
grasping, seeking, resisting...

I sing lullabies in my head
I float above the room
out the window, between bare branches
follow the river of migrating blackbirds,
rise with the moon
dance with the wind

Somewhere the child I was is wailing
I grieve the loss of mother
accept that for now I am mothering her
and myself as well

I hold her hands
feel the bones so near the surface
sense her spirit not yet unbound
release my claim on her being
releasing with love
enduring, dreaming, dancing with spirit

I imagine heartbeats:  hers fainter, mine steady
all centered, aligned with the universe
praying for patience, praying for endurance
praying for the gift of
allowing grace.

bleoved on the earth:  150 poems of grief and gratitude

Flashlight of Gratitude

Frequently families I am journeying with in the dying process ask me, "How do you do this all the time?"
Often I respond by saying it is on honor to share such sacred time with people and to walk with them on holy ground.
Today I stumble upon a new answer.   In her book, Attitudes of Gratitude, M.J. Ryan quotes a friend who said, "Gratitude is like a flashlight.  If you go out in your yard at night and turn on a flashlight, you suddenly can see what's there.  It was always there, but you couldn't see it in the dark."
Spending time with people at the end of life is a flashlight of gratitude for me.  It shines light on the things that can easily go unnoticed: laughter shared with a friend, the sun sparkling on snow, a hug from my kid for no special reason, a meal shared with loved ones and an appetite to enjoy it,  the bird's song as an alarm clock, the freedom to move,  a smile from a stranger.
I am grateful for the work that I do, because it makes my life brighter.

Quote of the Day

A woman whose husband recently died said, "Don't mind me.  My brain is in the blender."  That perfectly describes  the cognitive impact of grief.

Denial has gotten a bad rap.  Elizabeth Kubler Ross did wonderful work in raising awareness about death and dying.  However, I think our cultural misunderstood her work to mean that denial is a bad thing that a person needs to move out of as quickly as possible.  By companioning people through the dying process, I have come to see denial as coping mechanism.  It is a wall of protection that people need until they no longer need it.  If we bulldoze the wall down in an effort to get people to except the harsh reality that they are not yet ready to face, then we leave them with no means of protection.  Rather than bulldozing through a person’s wall of denial I have found it is better to stand with them behind the wall giving them courage to take the wall down brick by brick as they are ready.

I like what Melody Beattie says about denial in her book, The Language of Letting Go.  She writes, “Denial is a protective device, a shock absorber for the soul.  It prevents us from acknowledging reality until we feel prepared to cope with that particular reality.  People can shout and scream the truth at us, but we will not see or hear it until we are ready.   We are sturdy yet fragile beings.  Sometimes, we need time to get prepared, time to ready ourselves to cope.  We do not let go of our need to deny by beating ourselves into acceptance; we let go of our need to deny by allowing ourselves to become safe and strong enough to cope with the truth.  We do this, when the time is right.  We will know what we need to know, when it is time to know it.”

The truth of the statement, “We will know what we need to know, when it is time to know it,” was played out in a woman who was living into the reality of her mother’s death.  Four months after her mother died she said to me,  “I think of her as being on vacation.”  She was expecting me to say, “Are you crazy?  Your mom is dead.”  I could literally see her relief when I said, “That is ok.  When you are ready to think differently you will.”  Six months later she is thinking differently.  The wall came down brick by brick and she is now using those bricks to rebuild a new life without her mom.