Up, Up and Away!

Tags

grief, Healing, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Moving on after grief, Travel

Travel is my greatest passion. Tomorrow I am embarking on my first big trip since I lost my mom. Excitement is an understatement; preparing for this trip has brought me back to life in a huge way.

Afterwards will be on hold for a month, but my travel journal (my very favorite way to write) can be found here, under the “Italy, Ireland, Japan” map and journals section.

Happy May! Ciao! :)

 

 

 

Enough About Me…

Tags

grief, Losing a parent, Losing a Mother, Memories of a loved one, My mom, Remembering a loved one, Glenda Anderson, Remembering Mom

I have spent many words describing my own process of healing so far. Today I would like to take a break to simply talk about her. If she wasn’t an incredible mom, wife, friend, sister… this wouldn’t be so hard, would it? So, the spotlight’s on her today.

My mom’s name was Glenda Anderson. She carried with her a strong sense of “ness” – here’s what it was made of:

She excelled in funny facedness, I was taught by the master.

Flip flops were on her toes year round. (She continued to refer to them as thongs, because she could.)

She was this kind of Nana to her grandkids. She loved fiercly (and had an inner mamma bear to prove it.)

She loved spending time in Hawaii.

She instilled in me a need to explore the world (starting in this camper as a baby :) )

Finger talking… Words were always accompanied by waving digits.

She loved people, parties, laughing until she cried (or peed herself). She was an incredible host who managed to balance an open door policy with healthy boundaries.

What else was Glenda”ness”?

She didn’t bother to change out of her small leopard-print nighty on Christmas mornings.

She always lost her colourfully patterned drug store reading glasses around the house, so she simply bought more. We still find pairs here and there.

She cried a good percentage of the time – out of love, sadness, happiness, anger… Whatever she was feeling, she let it roll down her face. A lesson in humility that I’m still learning.

She wasn’t afraid to say it. Whatever it was, wherever it was. I was embarrassed at times… and now I’m learning that it’s a brave display of self-respect and confidence to be able to do so.

She was incredibly proud of anything her children did.

She didn’t sit still unless it was in front of American Idol with a glass of Diet Coke and a bowl of popcorn.

She gave hugs that made people give in to feeling loved.

She wrote emails that were barely decipherable at times – trying to talk in short form; making up words and spelling. I cherish these in my email folder.

She loved Facebook and checked it every morning in her office, drugstore reading glasses sitting on the brim of her nose.

She teased the people you don’t think you are allowed to tease, and somehow gained their respect for it.

She sparked energy in people. (Example: Ambushing a group of my brother’s high school friends with water balloons.)

She hated getting her photo taken.

She cooked insanely delicious food.

She took care of people, almost to a fault. But I’m grateful for it.

Your “ness” is still here mom, I feel it.

It Lives in the Little Things

Tags

mom, loss, death, grief, Losing a parent, Finding Joy, Losing a Mother, Afterwards, Healing from grief

Today I read a letter from a daughter to her mother who had passed away of breast cancer. You can read it all here, but I wanted to share one paragraph in particular with you. Anyone who has ridden this roller coaster may relate to these words:

“I wish I had paid closer attention. The things that really matter you gave me early on—a way of being and loving and imagining. It’s the stuff of daily life that is often more challenging. I step unsure into a world of rules and etiquette, not knowing what is expected in many situations. I am lacking a certain kind of confidence. Decisions and departures are difficult. As are dinner parties. Celebrations and ceremony. Any kind of change.”

The size of my sadness doesn’t always correlate with the seeming size of the hardship. Yes, the big things are difficult – it’s heartbreaking to miss the intensity of her love; I miss her aura; I miss normal life. But at the same time, these are the things I had 26 years to take in. I know them well, I can still feel them when I close my eyes.

“It’s the stuff of daily life that is often more challenging”.

This is why the battle seems unrelenting some days. Because grief lives in the little things. And everyday there is a new little thing to face. New things to know, new decisions to make, new things to experience, without her.

To understand this is to realize that it will never be over. And this is not to bring hopelessness, but hope, and grace. It means realizing that you are a champion right now, when you make it through a day of little things. It means knowing that you will become more and more skilled at facing these daily moments, and after awhile these accomplishments will bring a depth to your life that you wouldn’t have otherwise experienced. Grief lives in the little things, but life has it’s home in the little things too.

To my fellow residents in the Afterwards, love yourself, right now, right where you are. This is my pledge to myself today. I will be proud of myself for making it through all the new that today threw at me. And I will consciously seek to notice the little things of today which presented sparks of life.

Braving Happiness

Tags

Asking for help, Counseling, Fear, grief, Happiness, Healing, Losing a Mother

Happiness can be scarier than hardship.

It takes an incredible amount of bravery to be happy. It isn’t really surprising that we may tend to resist happiness; when we are in a place of hurt, sadness, insecurity, weakness, depression, frailty or hardship, there is really not much else to lose. In my own experience, this place can be almost… well, comfortable. It’s like a case of emotional Stockholm syndrome – our hurt  (or insecurity, or fear, or dissatisfaction) can become something we know so well that living without it feels terrifying; we may even develop the urge protect it.

I wasn’t necessarily aware of this until I pointedly asked myself one day: Are you afraid? Be honest. Is it unsettling to think of letting go of what binds you? The answer was yes.

Internal whispers can paralyze us, can’t they?

If I love, I will be hurt.
If I move on, I will encounter the next tragedy.
If I accept it, it will be taken away.
If I try to do it, they will see me fail.
If I attain it, I will have to maintain it.
If I am confident, I will have to let them like me.
If I let them like me, I will have to like myself.
If I conquer my weakness, I won’t know who to be.
If I lose weight, I won’t be able to hide behind it.
If I dream it, I will be disappointed by it.

I was talking with a good friend last night about how many of us “young” adults are now experiencing a realization of mortality. It is nearly impossible to really live or really love when the fear of losing it all has made a nest in the back of your mind. I am curious if this condition is a result of experiencing some form of loss or if it is a normal stage of development (anyone have any wisdom to share about this?). Either way, I desperately find myself hoping that there is more to maturity than simply being made aware of painful realities.

How does one shed the fear of happiness? I’m not sure. I know that I have slowly moved from paralyzed, to nervous, to wanting freedom – which proves that change is possible. But fear is a giant. My counselor used to say that the most important time to reach out for help is when you feel stuck somewhere – this seems to be my cue. I am a huge advocate of counseling and have done my fair share, but I know as well as the next person how hard it is to pick up the phone when you don’t have the energy; To make yourself seek advice when you don’t really know what you need (I’ll take an intervention please!). But I have promised myself that I will do it, because I know that the results of others’ wisdom in our lives can be powerful, and I am excited by the potential of happy unstuckedness.

When the closet must be cleaned

Tags

Cleaning out the closet, Getting rid of a loved one's belongings, Getting rid of possessions after loss, grief, Letting Go, Losing a Mother, Losing a parent

My mom was a bit of a conundrum. She was not a princess, but she loved wearing a heavy diamond on her finger (I should say, on most of her fingers). She was not a fashion queen, but the woman had a closet bigger than most people’s bedrooms. Really, it had a TV and chaise lounge. It’s something that used to make us all laugh but, when she left us, that place became sacred, and painful.

I slept in her closet for days following her death – it was like we were still together; her smell and her aura clung to the room. I hugged her sweaters in disbelief and they convinced me that she wasn’t really gone. She had just worn that outfit a few days ago… her laundry was still fresh in the bin.

Everyone has their thing – their hardest thing; their I don’t want to go there thing. Mine was her closet. I am not usually one who deals with things by avoidance, but I stamped a big fat “A” on that one; I didn’t want to think about empty shelves or cold walls replacing her warm, familiar things. I envisioned her being scattered like ashes as her stuff was dispersed – I would have no control over where she’d end up.

But it had to happen, and it happened sooner than later. I will tell you, however, that it was easier to move on afterwards than it was to anticipate it happening – I learned a lot about letting go of the things I most tightly clench in my hand. The lessons were this:

1. An object is not a person.  Lucky for me, I used to watch a lot of Clean Sweep on TLC… They were forever reminding people that memories are stored in our minds, not in things. It’s true, objects can remind us, but we hold the memories. In fact, I’ve found that some items that I’ve kept have even been devalued by my keeping them – memories associated with these objects change from what they were when she was here to what they are now in my own house; they have returned to their pure state of “thingness” and lost their warmth.
2. What I expected to comfort me often became a burden. I assumed that as long as I held on to her stuff I wouldn’t have to deal with the emptiness – it would fill the void and free me from the loss. In reality, some of these things actually weighed me down… I can’t get rid of this or she will be gone! If this item disappears I will forget everything! It was burdensome and produced fear. In reality, letting go of physical objects, without holding them responsible for my okayness, is what actually freed me.
3. It had to be in stages. Some things are impossible to give up at first, and that’s okay – our minds and bodies only let us handle bits at a time. My “mom collection” gets smaller as time goes on; I no longer have the same emotional ties to the things which I could not let go of in the beginning. Letting it happen naturally over time has significantly reduced the pain of the process.
4. Letting go had to be creative. Pulling all of her things out of the closet, stuffing them in bags and shipping them off to a thrift store would have made the situation cold and unbearable. Of course, some of that happened, but to be creative about it made things even almost enjoyable at times… almost. For example, thinking about who my mom would want to help with a clothing donation, or asking her friends to pick out their favorite items of hers. It took away the mystery and the lack of control about where her things would go.
5. Holding on had to be creative too. When it came to keeping things, I knew I would never wear her clothes, and I didn’t like the thought of them hanging in my closet for the rest of my life because I couldn’t let go. How could I keep things in a way that they would acutally be loved and used? I took some time to think about how this could be done outside of the box. One thing I came up with was to pick out some memorable pieces of clothing and save them to make a blanket for my future kids – I can’t wait for them to get their first Nana hug with it. Her clothes would have eventually lost their meaning hanging in my closet, but the blanket will hold her aura and pass her spirit on to others. This and similar ideas have helped me to focus on keeping what will create more memories, and letting go of things that will get lost on the shelf.

There is so much else that could be said about this process, but each of us has our own experience and we gain our own understandings as we travel through it. I invite you to leave your own words of wisdom for us here. Thank you all for sharing the journey.

Wired to Fight

Tags

Aha moment, Brave, death, Family, grief, Healing, Letting Go, mom, Protecting

We always want to protect those we love, don’t we? Grief generally feels like it’s about us – our pain; our void; our not knowing how to get by – but many parts of it stem from the fierce instinct to protect our loved one. I had no idea this was true until recently.

It was almost the third anniversary of losing her; I was outside pushing a lawnmower, earbuds in, enjoying some time with my thoughts. I don’t want to say I heard a voice… it was more that some words interrupted my daydreaming. There were only two of them: I’m okay. The phrase wasn’t audible, but it certainly felt outside of my own thought process. It brought to mind a picture of my mom – peaceful and calm, looking at me with a smile, repeating, I’m okay.

It wasn’t as mystical of an experience as it may sound, but the words carried a lot of power. They offered me a reassurance that I didn’t know I needed. It hit me that for three years I’d been unable to let go of the fear I’d felt for her. It wasn’t conscious, but I’d been fervently trying to protect her since she closed her eyes that day, clenching on to things that would have affected her here on earth, carrying them as my own battles. It would pain her to miss this, she would be hurt by those words, it would break her heart for us to move on in that way… Is she at peace? Can she see us? Is she okay with what we’re doing?

Jennelle, I’m okay.

I believed it.

We are wired to fight for our own, it is perhaps one of the most beautiful human qualities. But, with loved ones lost and loved ones still around us, there is also a time at which we need to let go; to know that we are not the hero – we are not in control. No matter how hard it is to believe, we must know that things outside of our power are sometimes more powerful than us – sometimes the brave thing is to let go of the fight.

Releasing these things has allowed me the space to confront my own battle (a very scary, messy lot of fears). Instead of fighting for two of us, I am able to accept the idea of her walking along side of me, helping me to navigate the course. I am free to keep living; to keep moving forward, and even to enjoy it.

Life List

Reminding myself of this list I made last New Years, with help from the Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. Intentionality is everything.

Mercy for Mothers in May

Tags

Africa Mercy, Fundraiser, Honoring Mom, Losing a Mother, Mercy for Mother's in May, Mercy Ships, MIssing Mom, Mother's Day

Another one of “those” days is approaching. Mother’s Day. It always feels a bit strange to me that I wasn’t with my mom on her last Mother’s Day here on Earth – I was in fact almost the furthest away I could have been, somewhere in the South of India. We shared a phone conversations that was brief, she had quickly passed the phone off to other family members without saying much. It sounded hard for her to be spending Mother’s Day without one of her children (compounded by the fact that she often worried as I traveled).

The tables are turned now and I am the one at home, wishing for a phone call from somewhere far away. Mother’s Day can be tough – it’s a reminder that I will never again pick a card from the shelf to give to her. I won’t wrap up quirky kitchen gadgets for her, or sling my arm around her shoulder to lean on her in appreciation (my favorite). But this year, I have decided that this Mother’s Day will be one full of “hope and healing”, which just happens to be the slogan of an amazing charity I’m blessed to be a part of, Mercy Ships Canada.

When I heard that they had created a Mother’s Day fundraising event, I couldn’t have imagined anything more perfect than spending my Mother’s Day weekend helping to improve the lives of women, so that their children may also experience the power of having a strong and beautiful mother.

The thought was so encouraging to me that I wanted to pass on the idea to you who are also facing feelings of loss as Mother’s Day roles around. What better way to honor the women we are missing than to improve the lives and health of other mothers across the world?

In a nutshell, women in West Africa commonly suffer after childbirth – sometimes for the rest of their lives – when they are not properly treated for the injuries associated with having a baby. Constant trickles of urine run down their legs – they are humiliated, outcast, and alone. It takes away their chance for a normal life and the chance to celebrate motherhood. Mercy Ships is using their giant floating hospital to correct these women’s injuries and give them back what they have lost in life.

Mercy for Mothers in May is a fundraiser supporting these efforts, and gives people the opportunity to create any type of event they want to raise money and awareness. More information is here: Mercy for Mothers in May.

It may still be too overwhelming for you to think about something like this on this holiday, don’t try to force it if it is not where you are at – it can add more stress than joy.

If you are feeling a bit courageous this year and think you may be ready to do something of this nature on Mother’s Day Weekend, consider joining me in creating fundraising events to restore women’s lives in honor of our Moms.

My sis-in-law and my mom on our last (and best) Mother's Day together

Guest Post: Losing a parent to cancer, Part One

Tags

Cancer, Dad, grief, Grieving, Losing a parent, loss

A dear friend of mine has agreed to write a series of posts about losing a parent to cancer. I am grateful for her insight on this particular experience of loss and I am deeply moved by this first post. Whatever your circumstance, I’m sure you will relate to what she has to say here – such an intuitive description of grief. 

About Katie: I am a twenty nine-year-old who loves to inspire and be inspired.  I love that I get to teach for my job.  I currently work in a school for special needs kids, and they remind me to laugh and find the joy in every day.  I think they are amazing.  I live in Calgary with those who know me, support me, and still love me—my husband, my family, and my friends.  This is also the city I grew up in, and I am surrounded by constant memories and reminders of Dad—a bittersweet thing.  Dad was diagnosed with multiple myeloma cancer in 2001.  The doctors gave him a timeline of a year and a half, but he took on the challenge and battled the cancer for ten years before he passed away in February 2011.

The thing about writing about the loss of something is that you can’t honestly write about anything until you’ve addressed your own grief and how it has changed you.  This has been particularly hard for me because I don’t want to give the grief that power over me, and so I avoid having to think about it.  I do think about Dad, I do think about the ten years of the ups and downs of cancer, I do think about the hospital and the hospice, and I do think about my family, their strength, and how loss and grief has changed them.  But I’ve avoided addressing “the process” and the change in myself, claiming always that I’m still in the “denial stage”, when really I’m unwilling to truly see myself through the pain and loss.

It’s been just over a year since Dad passed away, and about eleven years since his battle with cancer began.  I’ve been through “the process” dealing with the grief of a parent being diagnosed with cancer.  It’s there I learned the depth of the difference between trust and hope.  But that was an incredibly different grief than learning to live in a world where Dad no longer exists.

The absence of Dad is the weight of the gray cloud that has followed me around for the past year.  My body often grieves better than my mind.  The weight of the missing-ness hits whenever it wants…there is rarely a rhyme or reason.  I can be in the middle of a chore or enjoying a beautiful day. My eyes will start weeping, usually taking my mind a confusing few moments to realize that I am acknowledging the absence of Dad in my world.

I don’t understand the grief.  I do know it has changed me.  My definitions of happiness and joy have changed.  My role in friendships has changed, many friends not knowing what to do with me, me putting up walls to keep others at a safe distance.  How can I expect them to understand me when I don’t even understand me?  I now most often prefer to spend time alone; I can get anxious or angry when I am about to spend time in groups of people.  I hope this is a stage or phase.  Sometimes the “grayness” is too much for me to fix my attention on much else.

Acknowledging the grief is important.  This I have learned.  As much as I despise that word, and as much as I’m cynical about “the process”, the grief is real.  It takes its toll whether you let it or not.  I am learning to live with my unpredictable self, and have hope in knowing that though I have changed, I have not stopped changing and growing.  I’m not stuck here.  This grief may change me, but it will not consume me.  Dad taught me to truly live life, learn well, and to hold on to hope.  And these I still plan to do and do well.

Katie (left) with her dad and sister

One Lovely Blog Award

Tags

Blog Award, Kathy's Blog, One Lovely Blog, One Lovely Blog Award

Thank you so much to Kathy for giving me the One Lovely Blog Award! I’m touched! The award is a great way to get to know fellow bloggers – once you receive it, you can award it to other bloggers whom you admire and follow. 

Kathy’s Blog: Healing from the loss of a parent from whom I received the award is an honest, inspiring expression of what it is like to lose a parent to cancer. Kathy says “My mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December 2007. My world came to a screeching halt, as I slowly began to realize what this meant for my mom and what the future may hold for all of us as a family… Writing is my way of expressing myself, of working through my thoughts and feelings, and my way of healing, while at the same time keeping the memory of my mother alive. I also want to raise awareness of pancreatic cancer, a disease that often goes unrecognized until it’s too late.”

Check her out here! http://peace4me521.wordpress.com/

Thank you Kathy!