Life goes on...by Jo Winkowitsch, in memory of Joslin

It may surprise you to know that as a bereaved mother, I sometimes forget that I am. I don’t forget Joslin, I just forget she is gone. What about you, do you forget sometimes? Denial blankets me at times, even after 10 Christmases celebrated without my dear daughter. It feels strange when I go to Walmart and see something she might have liked and I find myself carrying it to the checkout before I realize she is not here to enjoy the gift. I see someone who looks like her from the back and want to follow her around the store and pretend it is her. Think me insane? If you have lost a child, you probably understand. My sincere excuse is that sometimes our frail beings need a break from the awfulness of losing a child, and it is understandable that we might try to escape to a happier place and time where they lived and interacted with us.

Joslin was 20 when she died of bone cancer. I thought I would die of a broken heart, but here I am. In some ways, my heart is still broken and will always be. (Again if you have experienced the death of a child, you understand). But there is now a resigned acceptance in me of what has happened, (finally knowing there is nothing I can do to change it), and I have grown more used to her absence and to the pain of it. That's what I tell newly bereaved parents, that it will get better down the road because they will get more used to the pain and to their new lives. I am not sure that helps…but it is all I have.

Missing someone you love is one of the most difficult agonies there is, I believe. Friends may try to cheer you up and remind you that your loved one is in a better place, but the reality is, they are gone, and that hurts. It is the hurt that keeps on hurting. It is a chronic pain, and though we might hobble on in life, we find ourselves changed and carrying a burden we didn't desire. But we are forced to carry it. Some of our friends will understand, or at least try to. Others, who I call the “clueless,” will say well-meaning things and attempt to cure our pain. Some days I do better than other days, and those who know and love me accept that.

Joslin would have been thirty years old in January. I cannot imagine her that age. She was barely done being a teenager when she died… Now of course, she would have matured and maybe even had a family. She loved children. Those of you who have grandchildren from the child you lost, does it make it easier for you? Or do you look at the child and see your son or daughter? Is there a constant pain when you wonder what your child would have contributed to the lives of their children? I wonder about that sometimes.

I met a lady a few nights ago who lost her 40-something daughter recently… and I was reminded that no matter how long we have our children, when they die, it is too soon. It is so unnatural for a child to die first. My gravesite waits for me to be laid next to the body of my daughter… and I remember the last time I laid next to her on her bed the night before she died. It seems like just yesterday… and it seems like forever since that day. Time is disrupted when a child dies. Perhaps it will always be strange, and that is part of the "new normal" we must deal with.

Another year beckons… it will be incomplete for me because my family is incomplete and will always be. If you have lost a child you know the feeling. The beautiful blonde haired daughter who made me laugh and cry as she uniquely blessed my life is gone… Gone except for the times I get small glimpses of her in my mirror and for the times I hear her laugh when I am with my grandchildren… They are priceless Joslin rememberings for me And they will have to do, for now.

I count off another year… one more year without my child… one more year closer to heaven… and life goes on, now always colored with sorrow and with joy...

Dec. 2008

A ReWoven Life
By Jk Loring

Here I sit in front of a blank page on my computer. It has been difficult for me to decide on what I wanted to write about as a guest columnist for “Good Grief.” My wish is to help someone, anyone, who is struggling with the loss of someone they loved, whether that be a child, a spouse, a friend, a grandparent, a parent or a sibling. The list is endless. The grief will be different each time because of the variables of who you are, what the person who died was like, what your relationship with them consisted of, and what the circumstances were surrounding the death. Unique, one of a kind, special.

In the past 12 years, loss through death has rattled my life several times. It hasn't made me an expert in any sense of the word. (I don't think we can ever become experts at the mourning process because of the differences in each relationship.) I have simply muddled through the messy process of trying to become whole again. It has made me a deeper, more compassionate person. When someone loses a loved one, my heart breaks all over again.

I can tell you that each of us, at one time or another, will have to walk this road. Unless we cut off every relationship we have ever had and run off somewhere alone for the remainder of our lives... we will experience grief. It is unfortunately a part of life. When I look back on my life, I think of all those I have lost to death. Those relationships were so full of love and laughter and hope. That is why it hurt so much to lose them. I think of Garth Brooks' song back in the early 90's "The Dance"...... it talks about the end of a relationship. One of the lines was something like, "but I would have missed the dance." How true that is of death. If we had never had the deep relationships, full of life, pain, love, laughter, sorrow, disagreements and just the daily life stuff, we would never feel the heart wrenching pain that comes from death. If we would never love... we would never grieve. We would also lead very lonely and unfulfilled lives.

I've learned that words aren't necessarily needed. "I'm so sorry" will usually go so much farther than a lot of words. The more words we use, the easier it is to say something dumb or insensitive. Not that we mean to add hurt to pain, it just happens. Hugs, holding a hand, sharing tears, heal the heart so much better than advice. If you have experienced people trying to help you and saying the wrong things, forgive them and let it go. If to do that, you need to confront the statement, do so in love. If they have never experienced grief, they just don't know. People don't mean to be mean; they just have never been where you are. It is in those times that the grieving process can seem almost worse than the death. The death has separated you from the one you love, and the grieving process often seems like it separates you from everyone else.

Rarely is healing a clear, precise process. It often involves a lot of crying, anger, crying, denial, crying, confusion, crying and a whole lot of prayer. In my case, obviously, I am a crier. The process is on its own time table. The grief process is longer for some than it is for others. No one should tell you when you should be over it, that is a choice you alone have. When everyone around you goes back to their own lives, you will see who has been changed by grief along with you. They are the ones who call a lot, just to see how you are doing, the ones who listen while you pour out your heart and don't try to correct you, and they are the ones who cry with you

Our society is very uncomfortable with death and grief. Death we have to deal with. Grief lasts much longer than most people want to deal with. It is uncomfortable, emotional and there aren't a lot of firm rules. If you run and hide, ignore it, or stuff it, it is very patient, it will wait. Five months, five years or five decades, it will still be there. It doesn't care how long, it waits. As it waits, it will slowly taint your life with fear, sarcasm, bitterness, and loneliness until one morning you wake up to realize grief is still there. It has stolen more than just the person you loved, it has stolen precious years of your life. Not dealing with grief allows it to steal your health, your peace and your deepest relationships. Instead of being able to share what is on your heart with the people you love, you find yourself avoiding subjects and walking on egg shells.

It takes courage to go through the whole grieving process and not get hung up in one place or another. With a loved one gone there are so many empty places in your life. Everything that was once so normal becomes painful, emotional, and disconnected. A song, a food, a smell of aftershave, a favorite place, a certain time of day, all these things and more can be triggers to pain, tears or anger. It is okay to cry. My mom used to say that tears were like baptism, there to wash your heart and your soul clean again. It is okay to be angry and express that anger to God, He is big enough to handle it. Even when you come to the conclusion that you aren't angry with God but He sure must not like you much, He can heal that too, if you let him. He does love you. And He knows what you are dealing with. Remembering those we loved will bring so much healing to our lives. The memories, the laughter, the stories and the tears…those things are the things that bring healing. Talking about those you have lost with people who listen may help you heal much more quickly than stuffing all those memories and feelings.

Will our lives ever be the same again? No. Will we ever be happy again? Yes. But our lives will never be the same. They will be different. Hopefully, they will be deeper and rich in the hope of eternity. The pain doesn't go away but we learn to let it make us love deeper, live passionately and laugh at every opportunity.

When God first started to heal my heart, He brought to my heart Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." At that time my family and I were going through a period of 6 years in which we lost five people that had been woven into the material of our lives. The last thing it looked like was plans to prosper us and not harm us. About that time I had a dream of a beautiful woven tapestry that was hanging on my living room wall. Suddenly, among the different colors and textures, threads started to fall out. It left the tapestry with huge gaps and empty spaces. It looked impossible to repair. Ruined and destroyed, it hung there for everyone to see, not looking at all like the beautiful piece of art it once was. I cried over it, I tried to pull it down, I started to question. Was it something I did, how did this happen, why, why, why? I started to look for threads that could fill in the empty spots. The right texture, the right color, and size just couldn't be found. I tried different things but nothing worked. I had come to the point where I knew there was nothing I could do to fix it. At that point I fell to my knees and gave it up to God. I could see Jesus walk up to it and gently touch the edges. Softly He began to weave tiny threads into the tattered tapestry. At this point I realized that the tapestry represented my life and what I was going through at this time. Slowly he was weaving His thread into my struggling, wounded life. So thin and so delicate were the threads that I could hardly see any progress. I closed my eyes just for a moment. When I opened them again I could see the new weave. It was far from fixed but the shimmering golden threads gave me a sense of expectation, a renewed hope. Even though it was not what it was before, I could see that He had a plan to make it a beautiful piece of art once more… never to be the same again, but from this point forward, possessing a color and a richness that was not there before.

That is what God wants to do when our lives are shattered and tattered and torn. If we will just allow Him to come into the situations of our lives, He can (and will) fill in the empty spaces with rich threads of His abundant grace and mercy. So it is when we lose someone we love to death. Only He holds the answers. Only He can fill the empty spaces of loss. There is only One who can make us whole again. His name is Jesus, Lord of lords, King of kings, Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.

Through the whole walk of grief, I know that He was the one companion who never left me and never misunderstood me. He saw me crazy and a mess but never judged me. He saw my heart and knew my cries. He gently put me back together again and filled in the gaps with His love, patience and hope. I am changed. I will never be who I was before death came, yet I am becoming more and more who He made me to be from the very beginning. My life is being rewoven by the Master weaver.

Is it Grief or Depression?

By Jo Winkowitsch

When our daughter died of cancer, we were of course sad. I began my journey through grief thinking I would feel better as time went on. But after about six months, my grief became a deep hole I wondered if I would ever climb out of. What I thought was probably normal grief became a constant, dark, heavy blanket I felt covered by. I became more and more weary of living. Finally, a wise person suggested that I might be depressed, and I sought help. Eventually my life became one I could enjoy again. But it took time and effort.

Through my experience I came to see that it can be challenging to distinguish between depression and grief. Many of the traditional signs of depression are also present in those who are grieving. This article will attempt to point out some of the similarities and differences. Perhaps it will help you or someone you love.

Grief is a very real and painful experience. It is the price we pay for having loved someone. It is extremely complex, consisting often of sadness, anxiety, fear, doubt, guilt, loneliness, helplessness, and despair. A griever can experience sleeplessness, loss of appetite, an inability to concentrate, and extreme physical weariness or exhaustion. Grief can be understood as the physical, emotional, social, spiritual, behavioral and intellectual changes that occur in response to a loss.

Symptoms of Grief: Symptoms may include any or all of the following: * Unintended weight loss or gain of 10 or more pounds * Ineffectiveness at work or thinking * Inability to function well * Loss of interest in things that previously interested you * Feelings of worthlessness or hopelessness * Insomnia * Obsessive thoughts about death or suicide * Hallucinations Symptoms of Depression: If any of these or other disturbing symptoms persist constantly for several weeks, you may be developing clinical depression. Often it is helpful to speak with a pastor or friend or grief counselor about what you are feeling. Sometimes it is necessary to intervene with medicine, due to the intensity of the symptoms.

Grief changes. In most cases, people progress through the symptoms of grief, and these symptoms slowly diminish over time. People may periodically experience intense times of grief (an acute grief reaction), but the overall intensity wanes. Grief is often experienced in waves, which is usually in response to a specific loss. New waves of grief may be predictably triggered in response to recognizing a new loss or part to your grief, or unpredictably triggered by incidents that happen (for example, hearing a treasured song or noticing a stranger's resemblance to a loved one). The ability to feel pleasure is not lost in persons who are grieving. Most will still look forward to special occasions and visits from family and friends. Depression often causes a stuck state. It can become pathological. There are persistent grief symptoms that don’t go away, covering all aspects of a person’s life. This is characteristic of what depression is. A depressed person often loses all joy in living, and loses hope that they might ever enjoy life fully again. Seek immediate help if you or someone you know is talking about committing suicide, homicide, or is engaging in another destructive behavior.

Social Interactions when in Grief: People who are grieving often need social interaction to help them through the grieving process. Social support enables patients to tolerate the pain of loss while providing the necessary assistance for feeling and talking about their grief. Social Interactions when Depressed: People who are depressed often do not derive pleasure or solace from social interaction and may appear isolated and withdrawn. While temporary social withdrawal might serve a purpose in the grieving process (as in taking time to review life and consider choices), it contributes to a worsening spiral of isolation and depressed mood in persons who are depressed.

Agitation with Grief: Persons who are grieving may be agitated during the early stages but usually respond to support and counseling. Agitation and overreaction often diminish or resolve with time as grief is dealt with. Agitation with Depression: When agitation is present in persons with depression, it may persist without much response to supportive measures. Overreaction can become even more extreme over time, often with little provocation.

Grief and depression, as distinct but related processes, can result in intense suffering. Fortunately, much can be done to help people deal with grief and depression. Grief can be supported and facilitated, and depression can be treated. Whether grief or depression, it is important to work on the causes or underlying issues, and not just the symptoms you are experiencing. But recognizing and knowing the reactions to grief and their duration can help you to know what kind of help you need.

Good Grief
Whether death is sudden or lingering.
By Jo Winkowitsch and JK Loring

Each person's path will be uniquely influenced by the bereaved person's personality and history, their relationship to the one who died, the manner in which the person died, and other factors as well. To better deal with the similarities and differences in different kinds of death, I have invited a friend to write this article with me.

Introductions: I, Jo Winkowitsch have experienced prolonged illnesses of my father and daughter which led to their deaths. The goal of these articles is to inform and help people recognize and deal with their grief. I think that Grief can be a rude intruder into our lives in different ways, depending on the circumstances surrounding the death. We’ll explore that a bit in this article.

Hi, I am JK Loring. I was asked by Jo to write about sudden death of loved ones, having experienced it twice. My prayer is that in sharing parts of my story you will be blessed and encouraged.

(JK) I wish I didn’t have anything that qualified me to help write this article on the subject of sudden death, but unfortunately it showed up on my doorstep twice. It has changed my family. It has changed our lives forever. We will never be the same.

In 1995, we experienced the sudden death of a young friend who I was very close to. When we received that phone call, our world fell to pieces. It shook the very core of our family and pierced our hearts. Why? Had we done something to make God angry? What were we supposed to do? How would we ever recover? How could our lives go on?

No time to say goodbye, no time to make things right, no time for one last hug.
It was over.
My phone ringing late at night took on a life of its own.
How could I keep this from happening to my sons? Could I keep them safe?
Fear became a huge issue for me.
The visitation, the funeral… all a blur. Grief happened. As layers of loss hit, we felt
anger, raw emotions, felt crazy, and had tears. But we slowly healed. Life became life again.
And even sweeter than before because we had known loss.

I wish this is where the story ended.

On Christmas Eve of 1998 I once more lost one of my best friends instantly in another car accident. My reconstructed world shattered.

A second time of loss makes everything so much more complicated and painful. How could a loving God let this happen again, I wondered? I thought, “Not again, it must be some kind of mistake.” A silent scream started to grow in my heart.

In losing someone suddenly it is as if your arm has been ripped off. It feels like an awful nightmare that makes you wonder whether it will all be gone when you wake up. But instead, the nightmare goes on and you realize that this is your new life. As shattered and fragile as it is- this is it. Reality.

I have learned that you need to go through the whole process of grief, no matter how messy or painful or difficult. The reward is healing. My advice is to not let anyone tell you how to mourn or what to do. Mourn as you need to. I have realized that death will be different even if the circumstances are the same. It is different for each person you lose. It will be as different as the person who died, and the person who mourns, for the relationship will be different for everyone. The experience will be different, even if the circumstances seem frightfully similar.

The arm is gone.

(Jo) I think that a sudden death generally doesn’t give one much time to adjust to the reality of impending death, and this complicates the grief process. When death occurs suddenly it causes a trauma that interferes with understanding and accepting the reality of the death, possibly causing one to feel as if the trauma of the death is a reality “too terrible to bear”. It seems that usually the intensity of the first pain is more intense when the death was a surprise. As JK wrote, in a sudden death there is no time to do or say much. Before you know it, the one you loved is gone. In sudden death the grieving person will probably need to go over and over the trauma of the suddenness and the awfulness of what the death means to them, in order to try to accept the reality of the loss. Sometimes writing a letter to the one who died can be a helpful thing, releasing any final thoughts, sentiments or questions.

In lingering deaths, there is pain in the waiting, especially when the person is suffering or weak or wants to die. Joslin, my daughter, was considered terminal for 9 months so to me it felt like the arm that she represented was being sliced off me bit by bit.

I did struggle with acceptance of Joslin’s death especially before she died, wondering too how a loving God could let such a thing happen. During the course of time I read books about death, I journalled, I received counseling, I prayed, I cried, I wrestled with God. But the end result was the same as what JK experienced… “the arm is gone.”

In Joslin’s case, there was still trauma when she died, but she and those who loved her had time to say goodbyes and all the things they wanted to say before she was gone. (Not everyone took advantage of that, but they did have the time to do it.) Everyone was forced to grow accustomed to the fact that the chemo treatments had not worked and she was dying.

But even though we faced death for many months with my dad and daughter, when they died there was still the shock and disbelief that comes with the loss of someone you love. I still wanted to have one more hug, say one more “I love you”, laugh at one more funny joke. But their lives on earth were over. They were gone.

Mixed with that shock was an initial relief that the suffering was finally over when she died. In my case, it took several months before the deep sad came, as I faced my new life without my child.

Through Joslin’s illness we got a lot of support from people. There were calls and cards for us, benefits held and many gifts given to us. In the case of a sudden death there are gifts too, they just come in a more condensed version.

In 1991, Worden, Leick and Davidsen-Nielson described four basic tasks that the bereaved individual needs to achieve in order to integrate their experience of loss into their life and move toward investing in a new life without the lost loved one. These four basic tasks, no matter how the person died, are as follows:

1) Accepting the reality that the person died and is not returning. Often this takes 6-12 months to accomplish.

2) Working through the pain of the grief. The pain experienced at the loss of a loved one is composed of many intense emotions. Eventually the painful triggers become less frequent and may become intense mostly during anniversaries, holidays, and special events.

3 Finding a place for your memories. Keeping your loved one as part of your life is important and good. How that is done will vary from person to person.

4 Accepting your new life with its losses, and going on without your loved one. This work involves the need to take on new roles and make new kinds of contacts in the world..

(Jo) Bottom line, death is difficult no matter how you experience it. The purpose of this article is not to say one way is worse than another, but to help in understanding some of the differences and similarities of different grief experiences. I hope and pray that your own grief journey will be gentle and bring healing to you.

When is it going to end?
by Jo Winkowitsch

Sad, lonely, angry, confused, guilty, bitter, rejected, helpless, afraid, worried, disappointed, resentful, jealous, inadequate, vindictive, depressed, lost, abandoned, betrayed, sorrowful, better, so-so, relieved, okay, not bad, hopeful, peaceful, reassured, thankful, secure, insecure, unloved, loved, encouraged, joyful.

Hmmm. Do I sound confused? These emotions are all a normal part of the grief journey. I wrestle more with these things on special days, and in anticipation of the holidays. I miss those who won’t be joining me for a celebration.

Do you ever wonder when the roller coaster of grief will get to the end so you can get off? Reality has set in when we come to understand that we get to ride it until the end of our lives. Death’s effects don’t go away. One of our jobs as grievers is to adjust to those effects, and find our way in our new life.

Dear reader, we each get to decide how we will spend our days. How will you deal with all the emotions and thoughts that now ride with you as a result of the loss you have experienced? It seems good to consider a few things.

There are reminders all around that Mother’s Day is close, and Father’s Day is just around the corner… If you have lost a child or a parent, these holidays likely will be more complicated and painful for you. One of our daughters has died, and on special days we miss her more as we notice the emptiness she used to fill. Although we have two living children, we think about what might have been and wonder how differently our lives would be if Joslin were here with us. We ask ourselves what our grieving hearts can do with the chronic pain of grief.

If you are a griever, I would like to encourage you today to consider what feels right for you. It may be your first Mother’s day or Father’s day without that special person who meant so much to you, or it may be your 20th, it doesn’t matter. The pain is there, isn’t it? Give yourself permission to grieve in a way that is healing and helpful. Grief follows no rules and there are many different ways to deal with it. Don’t let someone tell you what you should be feeling or what you should do. Try not to do that to yourself, either.

Many people are helped by talking about their pain, or talking about their loved one. It might be helpful for you and for those who care about you to know which days are painful for you. Perhaps taking a walk or journaling might help you. Do you want to write a letter to the one you are missing? Maybe releasing a balloon will help.

Some grievers would rather find a way to distract themselves from the finality of their loss. Their goal is just to make it through the painful days and they find ways to avoid the pain to get through it. They might want to take a mini trip away where no one knows them. They might stay home to avoid seeing happy, complete families enjoying their day together. But if you are one of the ones who just tries to make it through, remember that it is not healthy, long-term to hold back your emotions and ignore your pain.

Giving yourself permission to do what is right for you might be the best thing of all you can do for yourself. What do you think will work for you? Sometimes it is in trying something that we find out about ourselves and what we need or don’t need.

Making it through holidays and special days is an important thing to learn. This will be my 8th Mother’s Day without Joslin and I still struggle with missing her. Sometimes it seems like just yesterday she was here and it seems a lifetime ago she left. Grief has a way of messing up your sense of time.

This I do know… I will miss the girl who loved to surprise me with food I liked, and laughed at my jokes. I will miss how earnestly she sought the perfect card or gift for me. I will miss what she would have brought to our family by her strengths and personality. I will remember her as I get out the cards I saved from her over the years. I will reread the last two which she gave me during her cancer fight, the ones which speak to me of our deep relationship which is there whether she is here with me on this earth or not. I will celebrate the life we shared. I will mourn our separation. I will look forward with hope to being reunited someday. And I will hang on as I experience the ups and downs of grief… remembering that one day the ride will be over.

May God bless you mothers and fathers, you sons and daughters. I am thinking right now of those who have lost, and those who still have their special ones here with them. Hug and love those you can while you can. Today will soon be gone. May we pay attention to the important things in life.

Good Grief…
What if you don’t mourn?

By Jo Winkowitsch email: jowink55@milfordcable.com


A friend suggested I write about what it looks like when one doesn’t mourn. At first, I thought that was a silly thing to spend time on. It seemed that it would be obvious to everyone what it would look like or feel like to not be able to mourn or grieve. I have wanted my articles to focus on what might help people find comfort and help on their grief journey, and this just didn’t seem to fit.

But the more I have thought about it, the more I wondered if this might not, in fact, be a very good subject to discuss here with you. Some of us seem to struggle with mourning. Mourning is the outward expression of an inward reality. Jesus said in Matt. 5: 4, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall receive comfort.” Some of the most important goals of mourning are to find comfort and hope in a very difficult and painful place, to understand and endure the losses that death has caused, and to find your new way in the life that you now face.

If you read these columns and are seeking to deal with your grief, then you may be unable to relate to what I am about to write. But possibly there is one of you reading who needs to consider what you have done with your pain and the sadness which came as a result of a death of someone you loved. Do you feel emotionally constipated?

Come with me, if you will, to consider what Martha M. Tousley of http://www.groww.org/ has to say about how people will grieve:
“Thinkers experience and speak of their grief intellectually and physically. Remaining strong, dispassionate and detached in the face of powerful emotions, they may speak of their grief in an intellectual way, thus appearing to others as cold and uncaring, or as having no feeling at all.
Feelers experience a full, rich range of emotions in response to grief. Since they feel strong emotions so deeply, they're less able to rationalize and intellectualize the pain of grief, and more likely to appear overwhelmed and devastated by it.
Still others may experience profound grief and have very strong feelings about it, but for one reason or another are unable or unwilling to express it. ”

Do you recognize yourself in one of the descriptions? If you are a thinker who won’t or can’t think, or you are a feeler who won’t or can’t let yourself feel, or for some reason you are unwilling to express your emotions or deal with your pain, what do you think will happen? How have you dealt with your grief? I’d like you to ponder that a bit.

Some of you might be thinking right now, “I am doing very fine without wallowing in my pain or falling apart, thank you very much.” If that is true of you, then please know I acknowledge that you get to choose how you ride out your own roller coaster of grief. If you are doing fine, then I am glad for you. But just perhaps one of you is someone who, for some reason, won’t even acknowledge the ride exists because of a past loss or huge pain.

You might be more like the person who chooses to put everything away that reminds you of your loved one, so you don’t have to think about them or miss them. Sometimes you might think that you don’t miss them anymore or don’t even feel the pain of loss. But try to talk about them, or think about them and what happens, are you overwhelmed with pain and sadness? Does that convince you all the more that you should not think about or talk about the one who has left you?

Are you like the man who knows how many days it has been since his beloved wife died 10 years ago? He reads her journals for long periods every day and his life revolves around missing her. He says he knows his grief is stuck in only being sad but he chooses to not move on with life. It is just too painful to think that life might go on without his partner constantly at his side all day.

After the fog of shock and denial lifted at the beginning of your grief, you might have been flooded with unfamiliar or too familiar feelings that paralyzed and incapacitated you. What you did with grief determines whether you are healing and adjusting to your loss and the pain, or not. Perhaps you are like the lady had lost her son ten years before. She said that at the time of her son’s death she couldn’t get the sad to come out, and later, when she was ready to grieve and needed people to listen and help her, they thought she should be over her grief. She needed to do the grief work of mourning to deal with her pain. And she found out that it is never too late to do that.

I believe that mourning is a necessary part in the process of adapting to your losses while learning to figure out your new life. You might choose not to do it, or you could have gotten stuck in your grief in a way that keeps you from moving forward. Are there things you won’t talk about or think about? Do you find yourself trying to protect your heart from further pain or loss? Does your pain seem to prevent you from enjoying and trusting what you now have or the joys of where life and relationships could take you?

At the beginning of our grief we are made to feel numb and unable to let the reality of the death and its consequences sink into our lives. Later, when we able to feel again and to do the work of grieving, it is our choice whether we are willing to feel and deal with the pain, or not. If you don’t mourn when you feel sadness, then I believe you will likely miss out on being able to fully embrace life and the potential it holds for you. I think that those who could have been comforted by you, as you shared what brought you comfort, will miss out. I am afraid that some of you who don’t deal with your pain will turn to addictions to try to cover and mask your pain.

Mourning is work each one does individually. People can and should come alongside you to support and help, but ultimately it is up to you to be willing to get on the outside what is on the inside.

May I encourage those of you who might refuse to talk about or deal with your pain that there is a better way. If you believe it won’t help to express your pain, I challenge you to try it. If you think you have healed and no longer are bothered by your grief, I encourage you to try to talk about your loved one and the losses that have occurred in your life. And let me know how that goes, if you will. This is a big subject, one I think might be good to revisit after I hear from some of you.

Memories…

Our daughter, Joslin, died in 1999. She was 20. It still bothers me to say or write the word “died”. Sometimes it still surprises me that she is not part of a family gathering, as I look around at the people. When I am visiting about my family, my mind and heart gropes around for a new Joslin story. Although there are no longer any new ones about her to share, there are new stories being created as we celebrate her and invite the memories and who she is and was to come into our present lives. That’s a good thing, I believe. Sometimes part of the pain of grief is an acknowledgement of the lack of memories you got with your loved one. Death has a way of reminding us of what we got, of what we didn’t get, and what we won’t get.

Here are some examples of what I mean:
*A grand-kitty died this week... Joslin loved animals. I wondered out loud with my granddaughter if Joslin got to play with Sleepy now, in heaven. (For those of you who are wondering, that might not have been a helpful thing, as Kasi glared at me and said, “That’s NOT fair!”).
*A birthday party for a grand-nephew… A wedding for a niece… I think of how Joslin loved to be part of parties and fun. We miss the opportunities to fit Joslin into the special memories as they are created.
*A snow day yesterday… I remembered the countless times my children and I made cookies and watched movies on such a day. I missed my children, all of them, and the years when they were young and in my care. I look at the snow and I remembered the fun we had when we lived by a hill we could slide down on our sleds. I remember all the times Joslin and I had to deal with snow issues when she was fighting the cancer beast.
*I anticipate a family vacation in a few weeks… Acknowledging that if I could have one wish, it would be to have my family complete, with our dear Joslin physically there with us. My tears remind me of how special and unique Joslin is, and each one of us is.
*I made chili… remembering the times we made food together and all gathered around the soup bowl to spend some good time together. I thought of the foods and treats each one of my children liked to make and liked to eat. Oh yes, and I thought of those foods which became stories about the horrors of Jo’s cooking. I laughed and cried.

Memories… they make me smile and they make me sad.
Such a sweet and sour dish we are served in our grief.

I have been changed since Joslin’s death catapulted me into the group I never wanted to belong to. I am now a bereaved parent. New days and happenings are colored with the realization that nothing is as it was before her death. And nothing will be as it was before. My life has been changed. Even the good times seem flavored with sad as there are losses associated with Joslin not being able to physically be here. So why think of the memories if they make me sad? That is a good question, one I have wrestled with. For me, I know the seasons of happy and sad are all tied together in keeping Joslin a part of my life.

I must admit that some days the grief is heavy and difficult and I grow tired of it, as I acknowledge that I will carry it until the end of my life. I don’t think a person ever gets over a major loss in their life. What I think is that we grow more used to carrying it, and we learn what works for us as we feel our pain and hold our memories. Time heals by helping us grow more accustomed to grief’s place in our life and to the changes which have occurred.

I recently read an article where someone said, “Pain is pain. It is all alike.” I don’t believe that. For each of us, our grief journey will be different. The level of the intensity of our pain will be different. My father died a couple months before Joslin died. With his death, my grief and losses is not at all like what I have experienced with Joslin’s death. My husband and I both lost the same daughter, but our grief and how we deal with our grief is very different. Each of us has a unique loss to deal with when someone dies, as we all have a unique tie to that individual.

If you have lost someone significant to you, you know what I mean. I wonder what sort of memories and grief triggers you have to deal with. What do you do with your grief and memories? I continue to hope and pray that those of you who are burdened with grief will have friends and family who will listen and come alongside you.

In those times when you are hit with pain, I hope you find ways to deal with it so you don’t miss out on the good things of your present life. That is something I have to work at. Our memories can remind us of unfinished business we need to attend to today in our current relationships. Our memories can remind us of the blessings we once had and are thankful for. Our memories can help us hold more important these days, as we pay attention to how we live them out. Our memories can remind us that we are just passing through this world, and that each day is a gift from God.

May we remember and live, with hope…