The 30th Anniversary

When I started this blog my aim was to create a space that could be used to start conversations, possibly even help people understand what they or a loved one might be going through, primarily as a result of perinatal loss, but also more broadly in all aspects of loss. Today’s post is different, it is personal and self-indulgent, yet in some ways it too satisfies my aim, just in a way that is different to my original vision.

 In a world where everything goes your way, today would have been their 30^th Birthday, at least this was their due date. In my part of the world this day is also the end of the financial year. A deeply busy time for those working in finance, which my husband is. He had not wanted this pregnancy and he definitely didn’t want the inconvenience of this birthday. So right from the beginning we were not on the same page about them. This just made the depth of their loss worse. In not making it I was alone in my grief, and as this day rolls around each year I am physically alone too.

After 25 years the grief is no longer  as raw as it used to be, but today I have found myself “out of sorts”, restless and disengaged. I feel as though today I am going through the motions. Usually my “action plan” works well, I know that I treat myself with something, such as a new dress or scarf or a treat to eat (a birthday cake so to speak), then something selfless, like volunteering, or donating to a worthy cause. Write in my diary, maybe a new poem. For the last few years I have attended a church that has a space to light a candle, and I had found this a soothing ritual, but this year I am not a part of that congregation and that step is missing and I am mourning that as well.

I no longer wonder what they may have looked like or what their personalities may have been, I do though wonder want they might have become.

Today though, I have some things I am thankful to them for, because of you, Prudence and Rhys, I know that

• a miscarriage happens twice in some twin pregnancies.
• At 19 weeks you lactate, and that adds to the distress of the loss.
• Forgiveness allows one to keep the marriage vows and to find peace in spite of the scar that is left.
• You taught me that love is not a response, (i.e. I don’t love you because) but an action, (i.e. I just love you).
• I could use my hurt and my understanding to help others in their time of sadness. It opened me to others, it didn’t close me down.
• Because of all of the above, grief is not my only memory of you I am not glad you left, but I appreciate what your being, even for a short time, created.Today I grieve, tomorrow will be a better day, and experience has taught me that.
• 

I am not glad you left, but I appreciate what your being, even for a short time, created.

Today I grieve, tomorrow will be a better day, and experience has taught me that.

Tears at Work

How to negotiate the tears at work.

It seems to me that we all miss the invisible message that appears to be at our workplace doors. “No crying on the premises”. For emotive grievers, returning to work can be one of the most difficult to negotiate, because of this “invisible” clause.

I wrote this years ago, before so many of us needed to work form home.

I am reproducing the original and adding an update for those working from home

I have had some success with a form of cognitive behavioural programme, where designated “crying” times are built into the work day. Depending on your personality and occupations some successful options have been to.

1. Take a walk or run in a local park at lunchtime, (others may think it’s for exercise but the object here is to allow yourself space to cry).
2. If you work in or near a retail centre slipping into moderately busy, lack of attendant change room, not to try on clothes but to find a space for a private cry, might be an option.
3. A movie night when you go out or stay home and watch the most emotional movie, or TV episode, this can be done with others, they may also need an excuse to cry.
4. Park the car a little away from work, so that you can sit in it before or after work and have a good cry without work colleges observing, if asked why you are parking further from the office, a simple “to get more exercise” is often enough to stop those you don’t want to know from asking the annoying questions. NEVER DRIVE WHILE UPSET OR CRYING.
5. If you need to slip out during the day to cry DON”T head to the closest toilet unless you want others to ask the awkward questions, If you can go up or down a few floors, you can have greater privacy, this applies for crying in the stairwell too.
6. Music can help the “tear release” trigger. In fact sad music can be beneficial http://www.sciencealert.com/why-listening-to-sad-songs-is-good-for-you.
7. There may be a coffee shop with a hidden seating area that is just perfect for an uninterrupted cry.
8. Sometimes an object rather than music can be a helpful cry trigger.
10. They may even be cot, pram, bassinet already up or to be assembled and these are all in your “work space”.

It can be even harder to grieve in isolation, surrounded by all the hopes and dreams, possibly even the physical changes that you were making to turn your space into your nest.

So these are my adjustments for those greiving at their workspace at home

1. Exercise is still good for you, as well as allowing you space for a cry, but you might want to change the time you so that you are not encountering as many “prams and bumps” that only add to your disappointment, aloneness, and grief.
2.  Shopping centres are not the bastions of safety that they may have been for a stroll or a cry in. Having to adjust your mask to blow your nose or deal with a soggy mask (which reduces its effectiveness) only exposes you when your immune system may already be stuggling
3. If you can safely have friends around to watch a sad movie or listen to sad music with to allow you the space to cry, by all means but if that is too unsafe in the current environment, then do it vitually, organise with friends to watch a movie or listen to a playlist at the same time and share your thoughts together, in one of the face to face or messenger services. Sometimes it doesn’t have to be a sad music or song you may need  an uplifting movie, a chill out movie, a scary movie and ditto music, to keep you together or help you fall apart. The important thing is the connection to friends and family who will support you in this. It also helps change the memories in your space.
4. Sitting in the car, a safe capsule anywhere away from your home/office can be very helpful BUT DON”T DRIVE while upset.
5. Crying in the loo at home only attracts your animals or partner, and youmay not need this “break” to release tears. Have a shower, no-one sees or hears the tears then.
6. Still stands
7. I hope you are blessedwith oe of these, even the walk to pick up coffee is a great tension break from your home/office space
8. Still stands
9. I want to add 6. Change your home environment around a little, new pot plant, a fun, print or throw anything to start reclaiming the space when you are ready can help you cope in your home\work space again

Unfortunately tears may fall, no matter how hard we have worked at keeping them at bay, always make sure you have a steady supply of tissues, and at least a co – worker you can trust enough to help cover for you, or be there for you.

Even when working from home, letting a trusted workmate or having a good friend you can call when everything gets too much is still important. You are not superwoman or a machine, you have had a difficult time. You are still a great worker, an efficient person, you just need to find the space in your busy day for the business of grief as well as the business of living and working

Remember you are not responsible for others responses.

I love this song by Rob Thomas about tears and peoples responses – Her Diamonds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNCgfrjKcqs

Liminal Time

A few weeks ago I read somewhere about this experience of Liminal time in grieving, that time when we don’t know about the fate of someone.

In the last few days, with the Volcano in the Pacifc cutting off communication to Tonga, and another missing child, my own encounter with this space has been reawakened, I believe the correct term for this is it’s been triggered.

My heart truely breaks each time this happens not for me as my time has been but for those forced to step into this waiting time. I hope they are stronger than I was, I pray that they have a protective community around them.

For me life slowed and sped up in Liminal space.

It’s like standing on the edge of the beach with your toes gently being caressed by the tiny breaking waves and next you are dragged out to sea by the most unexpected wave, pushing you out, turning around.

It’s like taking a big breath in and then holding it for longer than you ever thought possible, every nerve, every muscle straining to start up again.

It’s like being wedged between two rocks unable to squirm or wiggle just feeling suspended.

I couldn’t dream or hope, as somehow I knew the inevitable answer, but I couldn’t or wouldn’t face the inevitable conclusion, standing in this limbo space was better than where I knew I was about to be flung to next.

I couldn’t stop the knife that severes so severely that a new you will need to be created.

For me there was no pain, no feelings, all of that was yet to come, and perhaps I didn’t really want to move to that space yet.

But eventually, for some, the answer comes.

As expected and the first stages of grief wrench you quickly and firmly from this strange time of suspended animation.

If I was to put a colour to it. It would be pale grey.

If I was to put a speed to it, I would call it slo-mo.

I dread liminal space. I dread not knowing.

Strange how grief, in all its comfortable familiarity feels a safer space than liminal time.

If you are in it.

My prayers.

If you have moved through it.

May it strengthen not weaken you.

May it never pass your way.

Grief : A lived experience

When we grieve, all of us grieves. Every sense as well as emotion responds.

Sometimes the recording of our grief requires more than words, more than prose.

I can not show you the scents and sensations but I can take you with me on a visual journey, of my my grief.

It might help to know that my brother drowned, but since then I too have been drowning in grief. This is my visual documentation of my first long happy seaside walk in 20 years.

I hesitated briefly, took one foot off the grass and set it on firm wet sand, little by little I stopped looking at the sand and looked at the horizon. A prayer, and then a long look at the water, the waves crashing.

It smelt of the smell of the sea, of salt spray, of fish, of sunshine. Of childhood.

It felt bracing and warm, wet and slippery. The march storm that stole up that day crept to mind, but I shock it aside to stay in this moment.

I could taste the salt in the air. The taste reminded me of my tears.

I could hear the thunder of the waves as they hit the resistance of outcropped rocks, and the rush of wind. Was it them or the birds that sounded as soulful with despair as I remember being filled.

I felt alone and full, I felt happy and sad.

This is what I saw.

Listen to this as you look https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2VnnmYxA38 for a better sensual experience.

two went for a walk, but three walked the beach together as it once was. RIP

Anger and Grief

Late at night I saw a news report on the aftermath of the latest London terrorism attack, that touched me more than most. It was a young woman whose boyfriend or ex -boyfriend had died in the attack. The British Government had officially released the names of the dead and announced the loss of another life. Her response was one of pure grief in the anger stage. And I have seen plenty of people in that phase over my time as counsellor but what struck me was that she was aware of her anger but was fighting against it turning into something bigger, an anger that she could not control. Not many people are so honest with that fight and yet it is a common expression and response to grief. I have spoken previously on not responding to the darker forces of grief, the ones that if we act upon become destructive not constructive to our creation of life without the loved one. Our heightened need for companionship, and anger is another one.

This young lass was doing the right things, she was talking openly about how she was feeling and she was being listened too, no one was telling her that she couldn’t think like that, she was being received as she was. This is the most important aspect of listening to someone who is grieving, LISTENING and not judging, feeding back their responses with a “Did I hear you right did you say you were feeling……”,is a much better response,” than I can’t believe you said that”. When we lovingly respond in the first manner we give them a chance to

1) feel free to be honest with themselves, not just you

2) to put words to the emotions and move it into the higher functions of the brain away from a primal emotive response

3) to hear what they are saying and giving them an opportunity to understand themselves or revise their response.

Sometimes just sitting with a grieving person who is not ready to put word to emotion can be the most healing thing you can do. Little actions such as a cuppa or a tissue may appear for those of us who like to “DO Something” insignificant yet they can be the most significant thing you can do.

Don’t forget that some people, the affective grievers, will not cry or put words to their emotions, they need to Do, to make a memorial, volunteer their time to a worthy organisation, send flowers, etc. So get alongside them and give them a hand. You might then be the recipient of the small nugget of truth these actions glean for them.

What does Christian Easter teach us about Grief.

Easter in the Christian protestant church is ending. The day of Pentecost marks the end of the Easter season, which started with Easter Sunday.

On Easter Sunday, we return to the stories of resurrection, we hear of the grief as well as surprise of Jesus’s friends and loved ones, often referred to as disciples. We also see the differences between, emotive and affective grievers

For the next 40 days, we hear again the stories of the disciples encounters with a risen Christ, but also, we hear of their grief. Now not so raw as on that first day, but dominating conversations, actions and responses. We see disbelief, a well-known grief stage, from Thomas. We hear of the confusion of disciples as they see or don’t see a risen Christ*, reminding us that to “see” the dead person again, is not uncommon during this stage in the grief response. We also see those around us having different responses, as the disciples did.

From a grief point of view, this stage is about adjusting to the loss of the earthly presence, and these bible readings now describe grief responses, as well as tales of faith and tradition.

Ascension Day marks the end of this period of adjusting, and like us all when we are grieving marks the realisation of something new, a life broader than we thought it would be, or the realisation that the hurt is less dominant during our waking hours.

Then on the Day of Pentecost, like the disciples, we to will reach a time when we feel the “winds of change” and the “cleanse of fire”, we realise that our grief is giving birth to a different life. We must decide if we are we ready to step forward and embrace it? and be transformed by the process?

Yes, the Easter season is not exclusively about grief. There is so much more to explore in the season.  But grief is there too and therefore it invites us to review where we are at in our own grief process, gives us an opportunity for pastoral conversations, and places the legitimacy of grief firmly within the seasons of faith and living.

 

 

*John 20:11-21:4. 24:13-49.

Grief in my home town

In general I have not specified where in the world I live because I have found that grief is a universal experience, and though culture may influence the way we express ourselves, grief works it’s way through us in similar ways no matter who we are or where we live. Unfortunately my home town was torn apart yesterday by the act of a single individual, and it is personal, not just because it is my home town, but because my daughter was moments away from being at the “wrong place at the wrong time”. So today I am very grateful that we are not one of the many dead or injured. But that is not to say that we escaped unscathed, my daughter saw  her first dead body yesterday. Now I admit that we have been incredibly lucky, that acts of violence against us have not been our way of life, but the things that have been seen can not be unseen. I am a grief counsellor not a trauma specialist, but I am seeing signs of grief in her and notice that in myself I too am moving through the grief process, though I was not in the city centre at all yesterday.

Perhaps one of the things parents everywhere dreads is the knock at the door by two police offices, but the message I received from her yesterday has to be a close second, it said “i’m alright Mum, not run over or shot”. At this stage I did not know anything was amiss, a did though feel as though the wind had been knocked out of me. It took another 15 minutes before messages started to pop up on the internet, and the 24 hour news channel, suggesting that something was happening in our city that was far from the usual events of the day. From the side lines yesterday afternoon was a long day. I can’t even begin to understand her confusion and the sights that met her as she approached her work, for what should have been the usual afternoon/evening shift.

Despite the chaos she had just witnessed she did her job yesterday, the events she happened upon she had shared with a fellow worker who she was walking with. Her section is a tight knit bunch and they stayed close to each other, until the company closed it’s doors for the day early and sent their employees home. This section then took themselves for a drink in the unaffected part of the city, and then she came home. I picked her up from a train station on our line, unsure what she needed, to be home or maybe have friends over or go out, I was ready for anything. She decided she wanted a special meal out, so off we went, mixing our conversation between the events of the day, and ordinary everyday pleasantries, nothing forced, gentle conversation about a truely incredible day. We came home to watch a TV series she enjoys and I stroked her hair and and held her the way she liked when she was younger. She went to work today and fulfilled her job requirements. Her section had no-one reporting in ill, and as the memorial created just outside the front door of her work was filling with flowers, her day unfolded as usual. Other departments were well down on staff, not every department had supported each other and debriefed in both the affected, and a safe environment, in  such a natural way as her section did.

She is though, mystified why anyone would want to leave flowers or visit the area. Others need these expressions so that they can move forward in their grief, and she does too as it is a source of anger, a step in the normal grief process. She went through disbelief yesterday it seems to have been her first grief response. As for me I’ve been through shock and trying to make sense of the events. We have more to come, and come they will like everyone else, but in their own order that is right for each individual.

This also appears on Blogger

Families at Grief

For me this Christmas and New Year have been bookended by funerals. The sadness seems at odds to the happiness of the Christmas season, and yet as a Christian it is oddly appropriate that someone of faith, who inspired others in faith should be called home by the one who gave the gift, we are celebrating now. I sincerely feel for the spouse, children and grandchildren now though, especially as they were all anticipating another Christmas or New Year to be together. I can imagine presents yet to be presented and special food, possibly prepared or being looked forward to that will not be enjoyed with them anymore. I can imagine these things easily because it was like this when my own father-in –law died just before Christmas, over 20 year ago.

What do you do with that gift that had been lovingly chosen, but not yet given? How do you receive a gift ready and waiting for you from someone who won’t ever be able to physically hand it to you? Or worse, in cleaning out their home, do you find potential gifts and can only guess at whom they were aimed for. And what of the empty space at the table, do you leave the chair where it has always been or move it so the gap in our hearts isn’t reflected by the gap in our setting? But what can make these things really difficult is that everyone can answer the questions in a slightly different way. Just how do you solve the conundrum when everyone has a different solution and a different set of needs? And what about the trump card, of “Mum would have wanted it this way?” REALLY! We can’t ask her now.

Without convention to guide our decisions, we are on our own, with self-righteousness as our guide. How you handle these questions, depends on your personality, your background, family tradition, and much more. Standing up for something you need, might be harder for you when you are mourning and feeling vulnerable, or it might be easier for you, if you believe that your viewpoint is all that matters. A grieving family can become a nightmare, as you all face your own turmoil and grief, and yet you are all going through it together. The gift of a generous heart might be the best present you can give your family now. The rewards might be greater in the long run than the benefit of being right. You are all facing a new reality, the world has changed for you all. You may feel alone in your grief, but others are facing this new reality too.

It took me a long time to forgive my husband for not buying me a Christmas present the year his father died. I wasted a lot of emotions on feeling hurt, when I could have spent that time helping him find an inclusive way of morning. That is finding a way for us to share our mourning rather than feeling alone and, in my case forgotten. But we were both mourning, and I didn’t recognise the destructive elements of feeling neglected in the same breath he didn’t realise in his grief I was feeling abandoned. Families take work at the best of times but when everyone is grieving it can put added pressure on a time that everyone already has their own expectations of.

May you all step forward into the New Year, without the destructive powers that a Christmas/New Year grief can bring. Seek the help of a good friend or find a good counsellor as your New Year gift to yourself, if only to stop the damage grief may cause.

Also available at Blogger.

Oh the smell of Grief!

What does anticipatory grief mean to me?

That my husband no longer smells like my husband. As a couple’s counsellor I am well trained in the chemical attraction that is a component of attraction. What I have never seen written though is the effect of smell on the grieving process.

When my brother died, he was found in such a state of decomposition that he was well- too smelly to attend his own funeral. When I accompanied the body to the internment, my husband on my return complained of the smell, and insisted I clean the suit immediately. For me though even that rancid smell was the last earthly part of him and I resisted until even I knew I had to surrender this last part of him.

At a teen camp I was supervising a few years ago, we disinfected everyone’s hands as they lined up for food. One of the teens objected vigorously. His mother had cancer and he had to disinfect each time he saw her and the smell of the hand sanitiser bought back his distress.

Since my husband was diagnosed his changed smell pushes me away. I can’t snuggle into him for long before I – have to come up for air. We need a new bed, and I keep asking for a King bed this time, just to get a bit of extra space between us.

It’s as if his changed smell was already pushing a wedge between us. Isn’t it enough to have a terminal diagnosis.

Is anyone else aware of smell and its effect on grief?

Grief as Part of Christian Easter

 

If you have been following for a while you will know that I am a Christian and so this time of the year holds great personal resonance for me. You will also know that I don’t usually trumpet my faith. It is who I am, and therefore infuses everything I do.

You will also know that I write this as both a grief counsellor and also as one who struggles with multiple griefs. I am what I am.

So this time of the Christian year, both Lent and Easter, the 7 weeks starting this Sunday, is an important time of the year for me. During this time of the year, we have buried three family members, my mother-in-law, my favourite Aunt and my brother.

The Gospel stories retold at this time of the year, speak, not just of the basis of Christian faith but also of grief and loss. I relate to the stories that we begin on Maundy Thursday, with tales of being let down by friends. Jesus imploring the disciples to stay awake with him, the knowledge that Peter would deny him, and that he would feel abandoned by his father. These are very raw stories that touch the essence of our humanity. Who hasn’t felt these everyday losses to some extent and at some times in our lives.

Standing at the cross, we feel the realization by Jesus’s friends that death is inevitable. We learn of arrangements made for those to be left behind. To whom Jesus leaves the care of his mother. Every family knows the need to make new familiar, or financial arrangements following the death of one of its members and the ease, or  more often acrimony of these can leave a further sense of loss to a grieving situation.

As we further advance with the biblical stories, I feel the confusion of the first Sunday, the failure to comprehend the unexpected, as did the first visitors to the tomb, or to comprehend what others are telling you, as the news is passed on. I feel the very real confusion that the shock of the news of a death brings, the fog and out of this world feeling that the first few days of loss places you in. I relate to the disciples who were confused by the subsequent sighting of Jesus, and what to make of it; as it is not unusual during the grieving process to “see” the one who has just died.

Then as the disciples did, there is the making sense, of all that has happened and what it means. That is, after all what the purpose of grief is. Just as the disciples had to, we have to make sense of the altered world a grief places us in. And look toward to the future. Because the conclusion of this story and it’s sharing, is that, there is s future to work towards.

Happy Easter

 

also available on Blogger