Good grief

Today is my husband’s grandmother’s “memorial service.” I don’t know what’s so bad about calling it a funeral.

I have been to so many funerals in my 41years of life.

My great grandfather when I was 6.

A friend whose step/dad committed suicide when I was 10.

My 2yr old neighbor who died in a hit and run when I was about 11.

My great grandmother when I was 12.

My dad’s father when I was 15.

My dad’s mother when I was 17.

My mum’s father when I was 22.

My mum when I was 28 (2011).

And that’s just to name a few. There have been several others. 

I’m acquainted with grief and death, and I believe that is healthy. 

100% of people die.

Even Jesus died. 

We need to learn to honor people’s lives and experience our own grief about their deaths because we will all experience the death of people that we deeply love. You can count on it.

I don’t know that we can really prepare for others’ deaths except by taking advantage of the time we have left with them. But there are times we don’t know or expect people to die, and death can be very sudden.

I recommend incorporating a ritual that feels good for you in your grief. That ritual might be journaling about your relationship with the person who has died. It might be allowing yourself a certain period of each day to scream, cry and wail, until you actually feel the sadness lose its grip on you. It might mean driving to a spot you shared with that person and thinking about them there. For me, it meant doing jigsaw puzzle after jigsaw puzzle for a solid year and thinking about my mother and her love of jigsaw puzzles. I also kept tokens of family members deaths and re-wore them in remembrance (for example, the top of a soda can when my dad’s father died, that I attached to my earring and wore in remembrance repeatedly). It might mean talking to a therapist or just to other people who lost the same person, trying to work through your grief together.

Read Amanda Held Opelt’s book, A Hole in the World, for other grief rituals that may help you to grieve.

And be sure not to shy away from telling your children that everyone dies.
Tell them it’s okay to be sad.
Take them to the funeral.
Hold them when they cry.

Answer questions about death and where people go when they die, to the best of your ability.

You can talk about not knowing what the afterlife is like but believing that people live on some form that is hopefully even more positive than this one. Use the word “heaven” if you feel so inclined. I do with my kids. One day they will ask more about what heaven actually is and I might admit I’m not exactly sure, but I believe that I sense my mother’s essence living on…

It’s okay for kids to be a little scared of death, of dying, and of losing you. You can tell them that you are not in control of when people die but that you intend to live as long as possible and you have a lot of hope that they will too. You can talk about how many people live to be quite “old” these days, to ease the fear they might have. And caution them to be careful of things that can endanger their lives – this is natural and realistic. 

This month is the 13th anniversary of my mother’s death and the first Mother’s day that my husband no longer has any grandparents. I have one living grandmother and she has had to grieve her own daughter’s death. Spend a little extra time with your mothers, grandmothers, and children this Mother’s Day. Call them if they live far away. They won’t live forever and neither will you.