I would say I am a relatively positive person, who has been through a lot of grief in my life and who knows that my faith is something that always seems to carry me through to tomorrow. Some days I wished I could just ignore what has happened to me and press forward and some days I can cry at every thought or with every person I talk to and nothing seems as important to me as the loss that I am carrying right at that moment. It can be exhausting and very distracting from the things that you need to actually do or accomplish that day. But just like that saying, "it is what it is."
Grief comes in all forms and sizes and magnitudes. Everyone handles their grief in their own way. Just like pain. Some of us are tough on the exterior and big old babies inside. Some of us wear our pain on our sleeves and some of us just are so emotionally unstable at times you never know what you are going to get. This my friends is why it is important to be kind, to be patient and to have empathy for others. Never mold them into the expectations you have for yourself or what you think society sees on how grieving people should respond, the time it should take for someone to be happy or "get over" their grief. I believe you never truly get over grief and you need to surround yourself with the people who understand that, because you just might have that freak out moment years from now that those you love better understand, even if it isn't the way they would handle their emotions, their expectations of yours should not mirror their own expectations of themselves.
I told a friend the other day that I don't even know how I will be emotionally some days when I wake up, how can I possibly expect someone to be ready for my mood swings at all times of the day, when the least expected thing can send me into an emotional whirlwind- and I can't even put my finger on why. Dropping coffee creamer shouldn't send me into a crying spell but it can. And why? Steve didn't even like coffee. Sometimes you will recognize your triggers and sometimes you just feel like you are losing your mind for the oddest things.
No matter what, some days the most positive thoughts cannot even stir me from the aching and heartbreak my mind and body have endured. Throw a child who is grieving into that mix and you might as well check me into the mental clinic on some days. Remember I am a fixer, I want to fix his pain right along side mine, but I recognize that I can't. It isn't fixable.
I like to be busy. I always have from a young age, my coping mechanism for my losses I have endured. Also I never liked to nap as a child, I never wanted to miss anything, I was always jumping to the next project that allowed my mind to work, I think I was probably ADD but that is a different blog topic.
Busyness keeps me looking ahead, it keeps me focused on tasks, some might say I am too busy, I volunteer for too much, I say yes too often, and so on, that I need to just take time to veg, relax, cry, mourn. While this is all good advice, I have never been one to sit in that box for too long, being still often creeps me out and frankly stresses me out even more with cooped up things to do in my head.
When I am busy, I am distracted, when I am distracted I am less sad. It is ok to be sad, it is ok to recognize my pain, but I cannot live in it every moment of every day or I would be miserable. I am still here, God needs me for something and I need to fulfill my service to Him, whatever that looks like, my journey isn't over so I should enjoy finding out. I have gotten better over the years honing in on what I say yes to and what I don't. I was involved in a lot of activities I can remember my whole life. I was the PTA president at my son's school for 4 years. It was a big commitment, I love challenges, I let it go for 2 years and realized that I missed the joy it brought to me to be involved and I committed again this year. Timing was probably not the best with all that has happened to my family over the last 3-4 months I still organized a fantastic back to school event and then they closed the campus again to visitors due to COVID and therefore the busyness slowed down again, also good timing. I am in the midst of my annual Cookies and Cocoa with Santa event at the school and it is giving me something to look forward to.
Pain is a funny thing. I have a novacaine sensitivity and I remember as a kid my mom teaching me mind over matter. We would do these exercises to avoid pain and fear and to concentrate. She must have learned this from her dad. I remember the first time my grandfather taught me how to be not ticklish on my feet. My feet were so ticklish! It is weird how our memories come to us from long ago and other things we want to remember we just can't. I was probably about 6 and was laying on the couch in our living room. He had me close my eyes and he would tickle my feet as he had me concentrate on something else while I repeated over and over "I am not ticklish I am not ticklish, I am not ticklish." To this day my feet are not ticklish. I can't say that for some other parts of my body, I remember the first time Steve found a spot just about hip level that would send me into the giggles like no other. From then forward he needed to laugh or a release from a hard day, or he wanted to release my stress he would always find the spot, my laughter caused his laughter and the world would be right again.
Throughout the years, my mom instilled in me whenever I was fearful, whenever I expected pain, teeth filling, shots, blood tests etc that I needed to pick a spot on a wall, to concentrate on going on an adventure in my head, some times it included riding a horse through a field of daisies, sitting at the feet of Jesus in a rocking chair telling a great story, and other things she had me picture in my mind to distract me. To this day I don't get novacaine when they fill my teeth. I got a tattoo yesterday and Paxton's friend asked if it hurt. Yes, well sort of it did but I was able to sit still not flinch and take my brain somewhere else while the artist drilled ink into my forearm. "Mind over matter" my mom would say, over and over again. It is engraved in my head to this day.
And to this day I am able to escape my situation, my uncomfortableness, my pain, and even use these exercises to fall asleep when my mind is otherwise jumbled up by so many thoughts I could clearly run a marathon. Don't get me wrong, I don't run, unless bees or a lion are chasing me.. LOL.
If you could only live one day inside my head, you might pack your bags and get the hell out of town...organizing my ever racing thoughts is half the battle it is so busy up there. I am always one step ahead in my head that sometimes I say too much and talk to fast, but my intentions are always good. I often have to stop and breath just to keep up with myself.
The stories we create in our head can often work to help heal our broken hearts. Pain is something that everyone has to handle, whether it is physical or emotional, it exists. Everyone experiences pain. We must first learn to recognize what triggers our pain and look for the support, the comfort and the outlets that you need to minimize or live alongside it. I am not suggesting dangerous outlets, harmful to you or others, just forms of coping that exist and work for you, just as we all don't grieve the same we all don't cope with the same methods or practices that may work for our friend or neighbor either, find what works for you.
I have been reading a lot from a grief counselor regarding living alongside your pain. She isn't telling me to get over it, to find a solution, to relinquish it, or to make it disappear completely. She says that grief is not a problem to be fixed, you need to find a way to live alongside your grief. To go on with it in your life, almost like a parallel. And this includes remembering and celebrating the person you are grieving as often as you want to.
I know loosing so many people prior to now, I would still have sad and melancholy moments where grief will come over me, even after years of the person being gone. Certain times of the year I would be sadder than others and I still experience these times now. I have a friend who is still grieving the loss of her son 18 years later and every year she goes through a deep sadness that overcomes her even when she least expects it and it can last several months she said.
My first real experience with loss other than someone elderly was my best friend when I was 11, she battled brain cancer for 3 years. I had a feeling that week she was going to die and I knew the day she died before anyone told me. I have a great sense of intuition about a lot of things and I can usually be pretty spot on when my feelings come regarding loss. I am not psychic by any means but I am in tune with certain things. Sometimes it feels like an advantage, like after my first date with Steve, when I got home and called my friend to tell her I met the man I was going to marry, I did 6 years later, or like the time I didn't want to get on a plane to Utah for work and my boss insisted I go Sunday night instead of Monday morning and I tried to convince him otherwise, yes, that plane's engine blew in the air on the way and we had to turn around and come back... needless to say my intuition said not to get on that plane! I survived thank God or I wouldn't be here to tell you this story.
Feeling a loss for someone down the road, after years and years and years, just shows that connection and love you have. This is truly love, a love that you no longer have to give to that person. I look at it this way. Think of a jar that is so full and under pressure it cracks, things leak out and no amount of tape or glue can fix it, you have to transfer the contents into a new jar until that one becomes too full. It is like we have an abundant amount of love stored up and saved for each particular person in our life and once they are gone the love is there still stored up to give but we have no one to give it to and sometimes it just explodes from being so full that we are overcome with sadness at the exploding moment, which can sometimes last a lot longer than a moment. Oh you can give love to others, you can spread love and joy to so many people, but it will never be the same as the love that you had for that person.
Steve didn't really wear his feelings for me on his sleeve, he wasn't what I would call a great source of a constant reminder of his undying love for me, from the outside he may have seemed not as into me as I was into him, he showed it in other ways, he provided for us, took care of our home and left us with such a gorgeous space that sometimes I don't even want to leave my home, he was very physically bonded with me that others never saw and when he gave me a card for my birthday, an anniversary or Valentine's Day, he took his time to make sure it said exactly what he felt and he always wrote the nicest, thoughtful messages and they always made me tear up because I knew that he truly felt the way he said and he loved me with his whole heart. A lot of times his signature included, "I love you very much, Steve." He sometimes forgot the word you when he wrote it, lol, he probably said it in his head and it just didn't get put on the card. I wanted to tattoo this on my body with the flower from our wedding that my cousin designed, just for us, over 18 years ago. I had always wanted a tattoo with that flower anyway I had been talking about it for years.
I completely changed my mind because I felt "I love you very much" was just to long of a tattoo for me. I already have believe in my father's handwriting, Love in my mothers, I had gotten the word faith in the shape of a cross when Steve was in the hospital.... so I decided Hope was a great word of strength to add to my list. It is a little more symmetrical with the other 3 words and locations and searching through all the cards I saved from over the years, I found it several times in his handwriting, picking the prettiest font as I read. The tears poured as I re-read all the messages he ever sent me, good tears. Tears of love, tears of memories and tears of hope, hope for a future that Paxton and I can enjoy together, making new memories, cherishing old ones and living a life of abundance and purpose going forward. I now am marked with faith, hope and love, the greatest of these which is love. I have a lot of love to give and I will continue to pour it into everything I do.
If you made it to the end of this really long blog, I wish you hope for your future in whatever it is that you are trying to deal with, whatever challenges, pain, grief, sadness you are faced with, whatever encouragement you seek, I hope you find what you are looking for. If you have someone in your life who is grieving, just be there, check on them often, listen, and love them. You don't always have to worry about saying the right thing, sometimes you don't need to say anything at all for your presence to be recognized and appreciated.
" Be the thing you loved the most about the people who are gone." - Unknown
Psalm 62: 5-6"Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken."
You inspire me. Love to you and Paxton.
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