It is possible to grow more in a year of grieving than in several years of life with few difficulties or problems.
Friday, December 23, 2005
A purpose in sorrow
I just read this...and while I don't like to admit it because it just doesn't seem fair, there's no way to dispute its truth:
Friday, December 16, 2005
A Mother's Love
I've heard it said and repeated many times that no one can love you like your mother can. I recently found this...
There is a force in this world that is greater than any other I have ever witnessed. It is beautiful in its sweet tenderness and awesome in its unconquerable strength. It is so touching it can bring you to tears, and yet so powerful it would frighten you should you ever be on the wrong side of its wrath as it seeks to protect and defend. It has had immense influence on humanity down through the ages, working its wonder on the world one person at a time. It is in itself proof of God, for there could be no other source for something so pure and precious, magical and meaningful, gracious and generous, tender and true, powerful and passionate, life-giving and life-affirming.
What is it? A mother's love for her child.
Archived Entries
Because I've had a couple people ask, I wanted to post that I've been keeping this journal since March of this year, so the entries listed to your right are not all there is. Click on the link that says "View Archives" and you can go all the way back if you want.
Where have I been...
I can't believe it's been over two months since my last entry. So much has happened, and so many times I've felt the need to start typing it all out here and haven't had the time or was afraid I'd put myself in a funk by talking about things. I'll see what I can remember.
I went to the first funeral this year since my mom's. It was for my boyfriend's grandmother on his dad's side. I unfortunately never got to meet her. It was incredibly hard being there, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do when the people you love need you. I really had to focus my attention harder on their family rather than letting my thoughts settle on the deja vu or my own pain. I was really glad to be able to be there for my boyfriend and his dad. I do remember thinking when we had to watch them start to lower her casket that I'm so glad my mom chose to be cremated. It's a morbid thing to talk about, I know, but necessary, and I'm glad we did it the way we did...I don't know if I could have handled it any other way. I suppose for some, burial represents something or gives more of a "closure," but I'm really not sure...everyone grieves differently and things affect people very differently. All I know is that I am thankful I did not have to see my mom lying in a casket or attend a graveside service for her...even though I was with her when she died and held her for a long time afterward, I did not want to see her body at a funeral. Enough of the morbid...I don't know why I even started writing about that. I also remember while sitting in the service, the pastor's words really struck me in some way, and I went up to him after everything was all over and he was about to leave and through my tears asked him to pray for me because I didn't want to be angry at God anymore. I've gone through this struggle between blaming him and seeking him ever since Day 1 when she was diagnosed. Sometimes I will have a couple days where I think I've finally let go of my anger towards him, and then something will trigger it again. Anyway, a couple weeks after the funeral, we went to eat dinner with his dad and stepmom, and his dad gave both me and my boyfriend's brother's girlfriend (who is also my friend and also lost her mom much too young) each a bracelet that had belonged to his mother. He saidhe knew she would have wanted us to have them even though we never met because she would have loved us so much. I think that was one of the greatest honors I've ever received. My boyfriend actually got to choose which one I got, and he happened to pick out the one that perfectly matched a necklace that my mom used to wear to work almost every day when she was a secretary.
I'm sure a lot happened before Thanksgiving, but I can't remember anything. That's why I'm mad at myself for not doing entries the moment I feel the need. I don't want to forget anything on this journey for some reason. I want to be able to look back several years from now and compare my feelings and thoughts to the words I've written here. I spent Thanksgiving at the beach with my boyfriend's family. It was a beautiful distraction. I was not ready to come back home. Everyone was so happy and loving and the beach is so beautiful that there was really no way I could dwell on my pain for those few days...it was blissful. It doesn't mean I didn't think about her, and it doesn't mean I didn't tear up now and then when something would remind me of her. But it sure was nice to have that break. Seems like I was the one who made the biggest deal of Thanksgiving around our house growing up - I'm hard set on traditions and find a lot of comfort and security in them. So that particular day was not as difficult as it otherwise might have been. One thing that did continually play at the back of my mind, however, was that last year I was going to prepare a big Thanksgiving meal for my parents and boyfriend and bought all the stuff...but that was right when she started throwing up a lot and couldn't hold down food. She hadn't even been diagnosed with cancer yet...we thought it was anxiety and nerves at the time. Little did we know when we got her to the doctor that it was something else entirely. Why she couldn't have gotten a little sick sooner than she did so that maybe we could have bought some time by catching the cancer earlier, I don't know...but that's usually the nature of lung cancer. There are almost never any signs or sickness, so people have no idea they have it until it's too late...they go in for something unrelated and something funny shows up that concerns the doctors. So obviously I never got to make or share that last Thanksgiving dinner with them. It wasn't her fault; I just wish we'd had that. For her birthday weekend this year, just a few weeks before she died, she spent the weekend at my house with me...we did nothing at all but lay in my bed and read silly magazines and talk. I fed her. Sometimes we napped. She said it was the best weekend of her life...
On a different note, I started at a new job about a month ago. It's amazing how your life changes once you are doing something for a living that you truly love and enjoy. You get a renewed sense of purpose and fulfillment. After a long, hard stretch of not having a job and working harder than you can imagine to find a new one, I finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel that my boyfriend kept promising me was just around the bend. When you go through something incredibly scary and difficult, you really learn to appreciate the thing you've been waiting for even more than you could have before, had you not just gone through a period of fear, depression, and waiting.
When December hit, I was actually a little bit excited about Christmas...I decorated my house and put up my tree. Christmas WAS a big deal around our house, mostly because my mom felt it was important to give that to a child - the wonder, the anticipation, the security. It's not that she and my dad didn't care about Christmas. But I think most of the extra mile they always went was for my benefit. As I'm sure most kids do, I always woke up extremely early every Christmas morning, even all the way through high school...I'd go into my parents' room and wake them up because I just couldn't stand the waiting anymore. Of course, it probably hadn't been that long since they'd went to bed cause they'd stayed up all night trying to assemble things. My mom always wrapped some presents and left some "new" ones unwrapped in front that were from you-know-who. We had a collection of mismatched but very special ornaments that I loved to get out every year and reminisce over. I don't even know where all of them came from. Many were my own elementary artwork - the clothespin reindeer, the sand dollar, the clay pots that had been turned into bells. I drew a lot of comfort as a child through that yearly repetition and also from watching my mom transform the house for Christmas and decorating the tree withher. The magic of Christmas morning and all the anticipation were so special to me. We always celebrated as our little family, and I'm having a hard time being flexible and accepting that things are different now. I'm struggling with the fact that I'm not a child anymore and don't have a child of my own to surprise, so most of that magical feeling is gone. The real meaning of Christmas still rings true for me, but it's like mourning a whole other loss when it hits you that Mom isn't there to create that magical feeling anymore. I feel especially guilty because last Christmas I was so depressed over her sickness and some other things that I basically sat in the dark all day and cried...I could have done that this year instead and actually spent the day with her while I had it to spend. I feel really horrible about that...it was like I just couldn't handle seeing her that way on that one day. But as I said earlier, you do things you have to do even when it's hard...and I should have. I did clean up her whole bedroom and did other things to make her feel special for the holidays. I guess I should stop feeling guilty because I know with certainty that she doesn't hold it against me. It just hurts so bad knowing she won't be physically present this year for such a special day. (On a cheerful side note, when I just typed the word "physically," it made me think of the movie Madagascar where the lemur king sings about being phys-i-cal-lee fit and it made me smile.) I don't know how I'll handle Christmas this year, where I'll spend it, or who I'll spend it with. I have plans made that I would really like to carry out and try to enjoy being with the many people still in my life that I love. You just never know what your frame of mind is going to be til the time comes.
The other day I heard a Christmas song on the radio that talked about counting your blessings instead of sheep when you can't sleep...it annoyed me because I couldn't get it out of my head, but it did sound like something my mom would have said. She was always saying stuff like that. I remember not long after she died, I saw a church sign that said to count your blessings, and I was driving down the road and yelled, "God, how do you expect me to count my blessings when you've taken away the very thing that was most important to me?" I was so mad at what I'd lost that I couldn't even see anything I still had. So the other night I couldn't sleep (and hadn't slept good in several nights) and remembered the annoying song, so I tried it, and before I knew it, I had slept all through the night. I don't know exactly what brought me to the point of feeling like I could thank God for anything again - time? The Christmas season? I don't know. I've been so angry at him. But part of me can't forget the things I was taught as a child and the way I've felt him looking after me all my life in spite of circumstances.
Knock on wood, but I have been finding that my heart is softening some toward God again...I can't completelly let go of the things I've experienced in my own life where I sensed an overwhelming knowledge that God was looking out for me. Is it the passing of time that has brought it on? Or the Christmas season and I just can't help it? I think it's that and also some movies I watched recently that hit something home for me...the Narnia movie and, curiously enough, Walk the Line, the movie about Johnny Cash. Watching the portrayal of Jesus' sacrifice through Aslan the lion, I couldn't help but tear up and think, "That's what you did for me." And watching Johnny Cash's life, the hard, hard things he went through and the years of searching and messing up but eventually being redeemed...it really got me thinking. The other day I said to myself, "She would have died whether you had God in your life or not, because bad things happen to everyone and no one is immune...doesn't make it right or even fair, but it's reality...so you can choose to go through this with his help or without it...if I have access to such comfort and love, why would I refuse it?" I was completely unable to think anything like that several months ago. Granted, who knows how I'll feel tomorrow. Grief is the most up and down rollercoaster you could possibly end up on. But, and I can't explain it, I sort of feel him reaching out to me and drawing me toward something beautiful.
Here is a saying that I've had on my fridge for several years...I conveniently overlook it most of the time because sometimes it'snot comforting...but sometimes it is:
I've also come across this web site, which was apparently made because of Sept. 11, and it has some really wonderful quotes and thoughts on grief, suffering, and healing:
http://www.journeyofhearts.org/jofh/kirstimd/911_quote.htm
I think that's about it for now. To anyone reading this who is also a motherless daughter, I wish you a sense of peace and calm and, most of all, hope this Christmas.
I went to the first funeral this year since my mom's. It was for my boyfriend's grandmother on his dad's side. I unfortunately never got to meet her. It was incredibly hard being there, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do when the people you love need you. I really had to focus my attention harder on their family rather than letting my thoughts settle on the deja vu or my own pain. I was really glad to be able to be there for my boyfriend and his dad. I do remember thinking when we had to watch them start to lower her casket that I'm so glad my mom chose to be cremated. It's a morbid thing to talk about, I know, but necessary, and I'm glad we did it the way we did...I don't know if I could have handled it any other way. I suppose for some, burial represents something or gives more of a "closure," but I'm really not sure...everyone grieves differently and things affect people very differently. All I know is that I am thankful I did not have to see my mom lying in a casket or attend a graveside service for her...even though I was with her when she died and held her for a long time afterward, I did not want to see her body at a funeral. Enough of the morbid...I don't know why I even started writing about that. I also remember while sitting in the service, the pastor's words really struck me in some way, and I went up to him after everything was all over and he was about to leave and through my tears asked him to pray for me because I didn't want to be angry at God anymore. I've gone through this struggle between blaming him and seeking him ever since Day 1 when she was diagnosed. Sometimes I will have a couple days where I think I've finally let go of my anger towards him, and then something will trigger it again. Anyway, a couple weeks after the funeral, we went to eat dinner with his dad and stepmom, and his dad gave both me and my boyfriend's brother's girlfriend (who is also my friend and also lost her mom much too young) each a bracelet that had belonged to his mother. He saidhe knew she would have wanted us to have them even though we never met because she would have loved us so much. I think that was one of the greatest honors I've ever received. My boyfriend actually got to choose which one I got, and he happened to pick out the one that perfectly matched a necklace that my mom used to wear to work almost every day when she was a secretary.
I'm sure a lot happened before Thanksgiving, but I can't remember anything. That's why I'm mad at myself for not doing entries the moment I feel the need. I don't want to forget anything on this journey for some reason. I want to be able to look back several years from now and compare my feelings and thoughts to the words I've written here. I spent Thanksgiving at the beach with my boyfriend's family. It was a beautiful distraction. I was not ready to come back home. Everyone was so happy and loving and the beach is so beautiful that there was really no way I could dwell on my pain for those few days...it was blissful. It doesn't mean I didn't think about her, and it doesn't mean I didn't tear up now and then when something would remind me of her. But it sure was nice to have that break. Seems like I was the one who made the biggest deal of Thanksgiving around our house growing up - I'm hard set on traditions and find a lot of comfort and security in them. So that particular day was not as difficult as it otherwise might have been. One thing that did continually play at the back of my mind, however, was that last year I was going to prepare a big Thanksgiving meal for my parents and boyfriend and bought all the stuff...but that was right when she started throwing up a lot and couldn't hold down food. She hadn't even been diagnosed with cancer yet...we thought it was anxiety and nerves at the time. Little did we know when we got her to the doctor that it was something else entirely. Why she couldn't have gotten a little sick sooner than she did so that maybe we could have bought some time by catching the cancer earlier, I don't know...but that's usually the nature of lung cancer. There are almost never any signs or sickness, so people have no idea they have it until it's too late...they go in for something unrelated and something funny shows up that concerns the doctors. So obviously I never got to make or share that last Thanksgiving dinner with them. It wasn't her fault; I just wish we'd had that. For her birthday weekend this year, just a few weeks before she died, she spent the weekend at my house with me...we did nothing at all but lay in my bed and read silly magazines and talk. I fed her. Sometimes we napped. She said it was the best weekend of her life...
On a different note, I started at a new job about a month ago. It's amazing how your life changes once you are doing something for a living that you truly love and enjoy. You get a renewed sense of purpose and fulfillment. After a long, hard stretch of not having a job and working harder than you can imagine to find a new one, I finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel that my boyfriend kept promising me was just around the bend. When you go through something incredibly scary and difficult, you really learn to appreciate the thing you've been waiting for even more than you could have before, had you not just gone through a period of fear, depression, and waiting.
When December hit, I was actually a little bit excited about Christmas...I decorated my house and put up my tree. Christmas WAS a big deal around our house, mostly because my mom felt it was important to give that to a child - the wonder, the anticipation, the security. It's not that she and my dad didn't care about Christmas. But I think most of the extra mile they always went was for my benefit. As I'm sure most kids do, I always woke up extremely early every Christmas morning, even all the way through high school...I'd go into my parents' room and wake them up because I just couldn't stand the waiting anymore. Of course, it probably hadn't been that long since they'd went to bed cause they'd stayed up all night trying to assemble things. My mom always wrapped some presents and left some "new" ones unwrapped in front that were from you-know-who. We had a collection of mismatched but very special ornaments that I loved to get out every year and reminisce over. I don't even know where all of them came from. Many were my own elementary artwork - the clothespin reindeer, the sand dollar, the clay pots that had been turned into bells. I drew a lot of comfort as a child through that yearly repetition and also from watching my mom transform the house for Christmas and decorating the tree withher. The magic of Christmas morning and all the anticipation were so special to me. We always celebrated as our little family, and I'm having a hard time being flexible and accepting that things are different now. I'm struggling with the fact that I'm not a child anymore and don't have a child of my own to surprise, so most of that magical feeling is gone. The real meaning of Christmas still rings true for me, but it's like mourning a whole other loss when it hits you that Mom isn't there to create that magical feeling anymore. I feel especially guilty because last Christmas I was so depressed over her sickness and some other things that I basically sat in the dark all day and cried...I could have done that this year instead and actually spent the day with her while I had it to spend. I feel really horrible about that...it was like I just couldn't handle seeing her that way on that one day. But as I said earlier, you do things you have to do even when it's hard...and I should have. I did clean up her whole bedroom and did other things to make her feel special for the holidays. I guess I should stop feeling guilty because I know with certainty that she doesn't hold it against me. It just hurts so bad knowing she won't be physically present this year for such a special day. (On a cheerful side note, when I just typed the word "physically," it made me think of the movie Madagascar where the lemur king sings about being phys-i-cal-lee fit and it made me smile.) I don't know how I'll handle Christmas this year, where I'll spend it, or who I'll spend it with. I have plans made that I would really like to carry out and try to enjoy being with the many people still in my life that I love. You just never know what your frame of mind is going to be til the time comes.
The other day I heard a Christmas song on the radio that talked about counting your blessings instead of sheep when you can't sleep...it annoyed me because I couldn't get it out of my head, but it did sound like something my mom would have said. She was always saying stuff like that. I remember not long after she died, I saw a church sign that said to count your blessings, and I was driving down the road and yelled, "God, how do you expect me to count my blessings when you've taken away the very thing that was most important to me?" I was so mad at what I'd lost that I couldn't even see anything I still had. So the other night I couldn't sleep (and hadn't slept good in several nights) and remembered the annoying song, so I tried it, and before I knew it, I had slept all through the night. I don't know exactly what brought me to the point of feeling like I could thank God for anything again - time? The Christmas season? I don't know. I've been so angry at him. But part of me can't forget the things I was taught as a child and the way I've felt him looking after me all my life in spite of circumstances.
Knock on wood, but I have been finding that my heart is softening some toward God again...I can't completelly let go of the things I've experienced in my own life where I sensed an overwhelming knowledge that God was looking out for me. Is it the passing of time that has brought it on? Or the Christmas season and I just can't help it? I think it's that and also some movies I watched recently that hit something home for me...the Narnia movie and, curiously enough, Walk the Line, the movie about Johnny Cash. Watching the portrayal of Jesus' sacrifice through Aslan the lion, I couldn't help but tear up and think, "That's what you did for me." And watching Johnny Cash's life, the hard, hard things he went through and the years of searching and messing up but eventually being redeemed...it really got me thinking. The other day I said to myself, "She would have died whether you had God in your life or not, because bad things happen to everyone and no one is immune...doesn't make it right or even fair, but it's reality...so you can choose to go through this with his help or without it...if I have access to such comfort and love, why would I refuse it?" I was completely unable to think anything like that several months ago. Granted, who knows how I'll feel tomorrow. Grief is the most up and down rollercoaster you could possibly end up on. But, and I can't explain it, I sort of feel him reaching out to me and drawing me toward something beautiful.
Here is a saying that I've had on my fridge for several years...I conveniently overlook it most of the time because sometimes it'snot comforting...but sometimes it is:
We enjoy warmth because we have been cold.
We appreciate light because we have been in darkness.
By the same token, we can experience joy because
we have known sorrow.
I've also come across this web site, which was apparently made because of Sept. 11, and it has some really wonderful quotes and thoughts on grief, suffering, and healing:
http://www.journeyofhearts.org/jofh/kirstimd/911_quote.htm
I think that's about it for now. To anyone reading this who is also a motherless daughter, I wish you a sense of peace and calm and, most of all, hope this Christmas.
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