The Waves of Grief

There has been so much activity in the last few months, it has been easy to forget about the dates on the calendar until they sneak up on you. Between book release events, CJSTUF activities, and my new job, I have had plenty to keep me busy.

At the same time, I feel my heart getting a little heavier every day. I think it started right before Memorial Day. We were finalizing our vacation plans, looking forward to spending a few days with family at my father in-law's house in Tennessee. I realized, looking at the calendar, that our vacation would end on July 8. I would be back to work on July 9: Charlotte's seventh birthday.

Each day since that realization, life has been a little more challenging. I feel more emotional. I feel stressed.

Sometimes I wonder if I am feeling more stress about her birthday because of all of the other stressful things in my life right now (work, lack of time, etc.)? Is it challenging just because I am heaping something new onto an already huge pile of challenges?

Or am I feeling more stress at work because I sense this darkness seeping into my consciouness?

I know that this is normal. I know that these feelings are part of the grief process. As the waves of grief ebb and flow, the tide crests at the peak of holidays like waves at the height of a full moon. Sometimes it helps to rationalize. Sometimes I just want to wade and wallow in my grief. I just do my best to avoid drowning.

Right after Charlotte died, a very wise person continually repeated a mantra to me:

"Be gentle with yourself."

I am taking those words to heart. I let myself cry when the iPod plays just the right song. I walk away from stressful events that I know may trigger a flood of emotions. I laugh when I can (thanks, ComedySportz!). I am learning to give myself a break. The moon will wane, the tide will subside. I know I will find peace again.

The Edge of Seventeen

It's that time of year when the blog musings center on my grief journey. Every year, it seems like we are busy with end-of-the-year school activities and the start of summer, planning vacations, and then (kablam)...it's almost July 9. Grief is funny. Grief is weird. I remember very early after Charlotte died, I watched the movie Rabbit Hole. There's an amazingly poignant scene where Nicole Kidman's character is talking with another woman who lost a child over 10 years before (played by Dianne Wiest). She talks about grief being like a brick in your pocket. It never goes away. Sometimes you can even forget it's there. But it comes back and makes its presence known from time to time. And (she says) "it's what you have of them." I probably did not fully realize then what a powerful and true analogy that is. As time goes on, our grief changes. Yet, it is always there on the edge of things. It sits in that pocket and sometimes makes itself known. This...

Bittersweet Sixteen

I think about Charlotte every single day. However, this time of year, I'm flooded with all kinds of memories as we commemorate the anniversary of her birth. This year feels like a bit of a milestone. Sixteen. If cancer had not taken her life back in 2010, I have a feeling I would be planning a massive birthday celebration this year. 16 always feels like a landmark year in someone's life. I have been thinking a great deal about the last birthday party we had for Charlotte in 2009. We didn't know it at the time, but we were halfway through her treatment journey. We had been through three major brain surgeries and a few rounds of inpatient chemotherapy. Treatments were not going well. In fact, right after her birthday, we would make the trip to Houston, Texas where we would settle in for about 10 weeks of proton beam radiation treatments and a new customized chemotherapy protocol. This was the unspoken "last chance option" to beat that aggressive brain tumor into ...

It's a (not quite) Jolly Holiday

I was sitting in a doctor's office waiting room a few weeks ago. While I waited, another patient came out into the reception area to make her next appointment. The receptionist offered a few dates, including one on a Saturday. The woman (I have no idea who she was; let's call her Maude) originally said yes to the Saturday date. Then the following conversation ensued: Maude: Wait! Is that Mother's Day weekend? Receptionist: Hmm. You know what? I'm not sure. When is Mother's Day? Maude: You don't know? Receptionist: (nervous laugh) Well, I guess I should know this.... Maude: Are you a mother? Receptionist: No. Maude: But...you have a mother, right? You should know these things! At this point, I was incensed with "Maude". This woman knew nothing about the receptionist. She could have recently lost a child. She could have been struggling with infertility. She could have had a mother who recently died. Or she could have a strained or just very compli...

I See What You Meme

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