Tag: Mom

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Coping with Grief

Christmas is going to be rough this year. With the loss of my mother on November 23, I have good days and bad days. Emmy might have said it best when she told me this morning, “Daddy is happy and Mommy is sad.” I certainly don’t think I’m sad all the time, but Emmy has seen me crying a lot, and that’s the first thing I’ve done to cope with grief:

1. Cry it out! When I hear a carol on the radio that reminds me of Mom, I let the tears roll. I’ve never been one to hold back tears, and now’s not the time to keep them in. Whether it’s a sobbing, wailing, tear-filled session which happened when I read Mom’s last emails to me, or just a couple of teardrops sliding down my cheek while singing “Away in the Manger” to the girls, I let tears flow.

2. Doing what I can. I bought Christmas candy for my Sunday school students, a birthday gift for Lily’s friend, and contributed to Lily’s preschool teachers’ gifts. My Christmas cards, however, are going to be late. I didn’t bring treats to Lily’s preschool Christmas party, or give her classmates a goody bag. I didn’t set out to intentionally do these things; in fact, I was still deluding myself the night before the party that I could run out to the store in the morning. It just didn’t happen.

3. No guilt! And so, I’m not going to feel guilty.The Christmas cards will be mailed soon. Lily’s class had plenty of cookies and candy that the parents had bought for the party, and I was not the only parent who hadn’t brought goody bags for the kids.

4. I’m not obsessing. Did you notice? My last three posts were not about grief!

5. Giving myself permission to not feel sad. I saw a Hallmark commercial last night, and it showed a grandmother receiving a card from her daughter. It was just corny enough that I didn’t want to cry, or let myself think about spending Christmas without Mom. I decided I couldn’t be sad every time someone’s mom was mentioned.

6. Letting my faith give me comfort. This is a little slow in coming. When I think about my faith, and that I believe Mom is in heaven, it doesn’t comfort me. I want her here, with me. I’m not ready for heaven to have her yet. But it’s beyond my control, and I’m struggling with the fact that Mom is truly gone. What comforts me more is knowing that in the long run, my faith will get me through this difficult time, somehow.

(Mom loved Christmas angels.)

Do you have some tips about how to cope with grief, especially during Christmas?

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Uplifted

I was really enjoying posting every day for NaBloPoMo at the beginning of November. My writing journal was filled with topic ideas, and I was going to write, write, WRITE every day. I was so excited about writing.

Then, the middle of the month hit. First, I got a phone call that Mom was in the hospital, then the call that the test results were in, and then, the phone call that we should come and see Mom. My sister had a bad feeling. The whole family gathered together in Iowa, in a cancer ward, in a private room with one very sick occupant.

And we were glad we did.

And I blogged through it all, through tears, pain and grief. I wasn’t sure I should be writing, but when I did write, it made me feel a little better. I usually wrote right before I went to bed, and that helped me fall to sleep at night. (I didn’t always stay asleep, but then it was a stressful time.)

And I was glad I kept on writing.

My sister and I were looking at my blog one night, right after Mom died.
She showed me the last post Mom read. It was the one about five birthday cakes. Mom was a faithful reader of my blog. She loved the posts about her grandchildren the most.

And I want to keep on writing about her grandchildren. And all the other things that I want to tell her.

I looked in my writing journal to see what I could fill this blog with next, and this was the first thing I saw: “Be more uplifting about your faith–write less about funerals.”

There’s a certain irony to that thought, written down less than a month ago.

Remember when I wrote about being shaken awake a little after 3:00 a.m. by my Dad? He was telling me that Mom was gone. This refrain from a new hymn, written for our church’s centennial celebration, popped into my head. To my knowledge, Mom had never heard it; out of all the hymns that Mom sang with us, this was one she had never sung before, and yet the refrain echoed in my head; bringing some comfort on that horrible morning:

We have found the one Messiah; come and see! Come and see!

Mom has truly found the one Messiah; He called her to come and see. She believed that hell must be separation from Jesus; now there is no more fear of separation, no more fear of pain. She is with Him now.

What comfort this sweet sentence gives; I know that my Redeemer lives.