It’s been a little over two years since my father passed on. I can honestly say that time had to be the most difficult period of my life. My dad was a good man and he and my mother had a very compassionate and caring relationship. They were both getting older but managed to take very good care of each other. So when he suffered a massive heart attack at the age of 81 it took us all off guard.
In reality my Dad passed very quickly but those two weeks at the hospital was a medical rollercoaster that was torturous. On day 4 of his stay he seemed to be stabilizing and recovering, the nurses moved him out of intensive care. We thought for sure he’d be recovering and coming home, but within 24 hours his conditioned took a turn for the worst. As the days passed we all knew that he was not going to get better. The hospital moved him out of ICU to a regular hospital floor with minimal care. The medical staff had given up on him. And now it was only we, his family, who weren’t ready to let go. At that point we were already grieving. Every decision, from increasing his morphine drip to the type of wood for his casket was a marching dirge to the inevitable. Trying to balance my own sadness with my mothers despair was difficult. Those final days were hard on everyone. His passing, my mothers grief, her expectations of me in dealing with her grief, her expectations of what my level of grief should be and my daughter’s sadness was confusing, disconcerting and overwhelming. But all of that was insignificant for what was to come.
Two weeks after we buried my dad, a friend of my eldest daughter, overdosed on pills and died. It was a double dose of grief for her and a grief overload for me.
I was finding it difficult to function day to day in my own life. I remember standing in the mirror looking at my reflection and I did not recognize the person staring back at me. I thought for a time that I might never be me again. I might never recover and certainly not be able to manage the responsibilities of being a single mom. Suddenly I was forced to compartmentalize my own grief and deal with my daughter’s multiple losses.
The mighty power of mommyhood took over as the weight of my loss took on a deeper more powerful meaning for me in my desire to ease my daughters pain. The pain and guilt that I felt for not having been the best daughter or not saying “I love you” enough was replaced with 100% compassion for my child and her sadness. I learned that I had to deal with the fact that my pain and sadness for losing my father was not how my daughter would feel about her grandfather. Losing a peer had far more impact on her than losing a elderly family member. At first it bothered me. She was moved to tears every time she thought about her friend, but didn’t feel the same way about her grandfather. I was hurt. I realized that I was behaving like my mother. She wanted me to feel the anguish she felt for losing her husband and I couldn’t and I couldn’t understand or explain that to my mother. I also realized that I couldn’t expect my child to feel the same grief I felt for losing a father. I also came to understand that for her, her friends passing made the fragility of human life palpable and real. While most teenagers are certain of their invincibility my daughter was faced with the reality of her own mortality. Helping her, listening to her and allowing her to grieve for her friend helped me move through my own grief. It also helped me cope with my mother’s expectations of me. I allowed her to have her sadness and depression, I was compassionate and understanding without allowing her to guilt me into feeling as much as she felt. I needed to be strong for my daughter I could not fall apart.
Together my daughter and I found solid coping skills. In an odd way both passings gave us common ground and an open space for communication. I allowed her to feel the way she needed to feel for her friend and her grandfather and I allowed myself to grieve too. We both allowed the idea of death to enter our thoughts and to discuss each of our loved ones passing openly. We wondered if maybe the two guys connected in heaven. Maybe they had a talk and shared thoughts about my daughter. We gave each other permission to not always “be on task”. If homework didn’t get turned in on time, it didn’t. If dinner wasn’t ready, it wasn’t. If we couldn’t rally for another back to school night it didn’t matter.
The traditional rituals of honoring someone’s passing became a part of our lexicon and for several months. After the burials we attended memorials, lit candles, wrote poems, remembered the memories and listened to lots of music. We made keepsakes for our loved ones and verbalized all the memories aloud.
The adage that “time heals all wounds” is true. As each day passed I felt more myself and my daughters daily bouts of tears subsided. I could see in the mirror that the light I had lost slowly turned back on. I took a new job, my daughter resumed her focus on school, grades and having fun with her friends.
We learned to allow the empty spaces to remain. It is okay to feel the loss, to miss the ones we love but it’s also okay to move on with our daily lives. We make plans, we have fun, and we laugh. Our loved ones would have wanted it that way.
Your Grass is Green
