How we grieve

[Virago]

Ascot, thank you for starting this thread. April to June was when I lost both my parents and grandparents 35 years ago. I was 22 at the time and dealt with it through a lot of anger for many years. Something happened after 11 years of anger and I was able to release a lot of it. Then I heard a psychologist talking about grief. They said that it takes about half the time you had someone in your life to heal from the loss of them. Whether that's true or not, or whether there is any scientific proof of that I don't know. But it definitely was true for me.

I do remember the feeling that I had after one year. It felt like they passed away either yesterday or were gone forever....but saying 'one year' '2 years' '3 years' or in your case '4 years' just didn't feel right. As if the passing of the time should lessen the pain. It doesn't lessen the pain at that stage. At that stage it's still a struggle to figure out how to be You without them in your life. So, Ascot, you are not alone with that emotion.

Feel what you're going to feel, do what you need to do, but DO remember to be kind to yourself and try to keep in mind that there's still a lot of happiness in your future. We go on living happily as an honor to the people who helped shape us into who we are today....not in spite of them passing.

[Ascot]

I'm glad this thread is resonating and I appreciate the candor of the responses. If talking about this helps even one person, it's a good thing.

I think it's true, Hominid, what you said about the importance of not letting grief define us. I think, too, that when one has carried something for a very long time, when it has become a touchstone, the letting go of it can be incredibly difficult. Even a thing that seems a negative, when it's been with us for so long, its departure, its absence creates a void that then needs to be filled with something else. Finding that something else can be hard. That whole "evil we know" thing, there's something to be said for it.

Virago, I found what you said about the timeline quite interesting. My initial thought upon doing the math was, "Oh, damn, my mother was in my life for 48 years. This thing is going to be with me a l o n g time." That formula is akin to something I once heard about how long it takes to get over a breakup. I don't remember exactly what it was, but I'm guessing there is actually something scientific to it.

Originally Posted by Virago

We go on living happily as an honor to the people who helped shape us into who we are today....not in spite of them passing.

Yes. This. Thank you for saying that. I sometimes lose sight of it.

You make a valid point, Ms T, when you talk about grief being as different as the people for whom we mourn. Them, the people we are when we lost them, I'm sure so many variables impact the experience.

My brother was only able to be in town for the last couple of days of my mom's life and before that it had been probably 2-3 years since he'd seen her because of work stuff. For the week and a half prior, I'd been practically living at the hospital and I finally hit a wall. Because he was there, I felt it was okay to leave for a while, separate, rest a bit. I'd been home less than 2 hours when Sean called me to say that I should come back because a nurse had said it wouldn't be long. The drive to the hospital should have taken about 10 minutes, but I got stuck behind a school bus. I'm sitting in my car, completely unable to do anything about the traffic situation when my phone rings again and I answer to hear my brother sobbing, "I begged her to wait". A fucking school bus. I've thought about it so often, talked about it with friends, and the reality is that I think her passing went exactly the way it was supposed to. My brother, who hadn't been with her for a long time, got to be be there. I live here, got to spend a lot of time with her over the last years, spent a lot of time with her during her last days...I think she chose to go when I wasn't there because I didn't need it the way my brother did. The thing about the school bus; my mother was a life long educator. Teaching first grade, particularly turning kids onto reading, was her passion. It makes sense that being behind that damn bus is the thing that kept me from being there when the moment actually came.

[candy_coated_bitch]

I've also been thinking a lot about April and grief lately. I don't have a lot of experience with the death of people in my life. Which makes me incredibly lucky in many ways. And though I have a lot of experience in grieving various kinds of losses--when it comes to the death of family members I just don't. This April marks one year since the passing of my grandmother. It wasn't sudden. It wasn't a shock. But it is a very heavy and complicated loss for me.

At the time, I didn't feel very much. I only cried twice and the tears were brief. I never once experienced a crying jag or huge, body wracking sobs. Just numbness. I cried when I saw my sister at the funeral home for my grandmother's wake, and I cried for my mom at the graveside service because I had never seen my mother in so much pain. I didn't cry for myself. I would have given my right arm to be able to feel something then. It was so frustrating. I felt gagged and suffocated and there was also some shame there for not being able to "really" cry or to feel things the "right" way.

Well, this April I am feeling. It seems like everyone else in the family is sad, but I am now wracked with grief. I am the one sobbing and freaking out and everything I felt stuffed with last year that wouldn't come out is releasing. Which is good, of course. But it's also incredibly painful. I've had to stop writing this post twice to cry my eyes out.

I feel enormous guilt over not seeing her enough in the last years of her life. (Though I happen to have an amazing last memory of her that I share with both my sister and my mom.) I feel guilty that I never got to her in time in the end. I still feel some guilt over her fall that led to the decline in her health, even though every rational part of me knows I couldn't have prevented it.

I don't even really know what I'm writing anymore. I don't really know how to grieve; I especially don't know how to grieve a year "late" when everyone else in my life seems to have moved beyond the place that I am in.

[Gráinne]

My mother died April 28, 19 years ago. Easily the first year, I was just numb. No real crying that I remember. I think it was because she had been in poor health and even though she died within a month of a pancreatic cancer diagnosis, it wasn't entirely unexpected and I came to peace with her. I missed her the most when I had a daughter of my own; they are so alike and would have absolutely loved one another. It hit me again when I received a photo album full of her pictures, and a recipe box with cards in her writing.

My father has been a different story. We were very close, and while he was in his 90's, his death was fairly sudden (again with the three weeks from diagnosis to death). I also never got to see him before his death. I think I'm grieving him a lot this month because I'm researching his family roots, and just attended that Scottish festival again and got reminded of him-again. He passed five years ago.

I think I'm "re-grieving" both of them because I just found my long-lost niece-their biological grandchild. She has told me that she has a book with their writing in it, which will stir things up all over again if/when I see her, and it. I know both of them always wanted to find her, and it was a grief that she was missing (it's a long story).

The biggest shock and grief this month has undoubtedly been Daktari. He was young and relatively vital, even with health problems. The other day, I was reading some old post of mine and he had "thanked" me for it. I bawled. I keep wanting to message him, or find a note for myself. Maybe that's selfish, but it's real.

[NitroChrys_Butch]

Want to anger Me to the point of no return. Tell Me you have driven drunk. You and I will have a long conversation about the selfishness of this act. I was just a kid and I lost my very best friend. Leigh. My sister. My confidant. My friend. My buddy. In a house of 5 girls ( yes, including me), Leigh was My anchor. Leigh was the one I talked to. See Leigh and I were alike in so many ways. Had Leigh lived, Leigh would be the one person who would have shaped Me more than any other individual. Leigh was My first experience with another butch. Leigh "got" Me. Leigh understood Me. Leigh. I could tell Leigh anything and everything would be okay. Then some ______________ (you fill in the blank.. I don't curse) took Leigh from Me. No warning. Gone. I was almost 15. And the day that Leigh was taken from Me ..it changed Me. I used to get angry over trival stuff. Now thanks to Leigh I had something important to get angry over. A __________________ who thought of nothing more than a good time took Leigh in an instant of stupidity. I suppose in some ways Leigh's death has meant something because truthfully, I have never driven drunk. I won't. To do so would not only discredit Leigh's life but I would never do that to My parents. I know their pain.