Category Archives: grief

Consequences

I’ve been thinking a lot about my mom lately. So many things about where I’m living now, Belgium, remind me of her. We were together in Germany for several years when I was a teenager, so my life and hers were inextricably wrapped up in European scenery, food, art, people. Those who followed this blog from its inception remember that I always wanted to bring her back here, to relive some of our memories and let her see some places she always wanted to see; I never got to do that, unfortunately.
Yesterday I went to Amsterdam to visit the Van Gogh Museum there. It is an interesting city, not one of my favorites by any means, but interesting nonetheless. It is both beautiful and ugly, in both literal and symbolic ways, with its gorgeous canals and dramatic architecture on the one hand, and its red light district and numerous druggies and street people on the other. Fascinating is a better term than interesting, I would have to say.
When you’re in Amsterdam, you can’t help but notice the many people on bicycles. Literally hundreds. They ride because the traffic is terrible and because it’s cheap, I suppose. They are of all ages, from youths to older people. They are evidently ridiculously fit. I saw one lady, probably at least 70, bent over and bundled up in a coat and scarf with sensible, old-lady shoes, riding her bike purposefully and carefully. I was amazed, thinking back to how young Mom was when she died, just 67, and how unfit she was, how feeble, at such a young age.
Later I saw another older woman, this one probably closer to 80 but even more fit looking than the one on the bicycle. She was very thin, with very short, spiky white hair. She was wearing skinny jeans and running shoes, and she was walking with great vigor. I thought, “Mom. How different might your life have been if you had lived here. Or maybe if you hadn’t let your world shrink so much.” From a vital, fun-loving woman who had traveled and lived abroad, my mom became a homebody whose world was confined at best to small regions of two southern US states and at worst, to two tiny counties in the smaller and lesser of those two states.
Both my mom and her mother became unfit at early ages. I suppose it was due to several factors. First, they smoked. That was probably a big part of the problem. Second, they both moved when they were in their early 60’s to places where there were kind of isolated, where they didn’t have a lot of reason to get out of the house much, didn’t have many friends. As a result, they stayed inside, didn’t have much of a social life, and didn’t get exercise. Finally, things happened with their health and personal lives that depressed them and sucked some of the life out of them, and health issues made it harder for them to leave their houses and the rest of their small worlds.
As happy as I am here in Belgium, I still think of Mom so often, and I have so many wishes that she might’ve done things differently, that she might’ve lived longer, better, and more healthily. Makes me think about my own choices, about keeping fit, about not overeating or drinking too much.  But really, how much power do we have over that part of our destiny?  The husband of one of my friends, a health-conscious, fit man, not yet old, died in his sleep a few years ago. The truth is, when it’s time to go, it’s time. Still, I wish Mom had been able to be like that woman with the spiky white hair, walking with strength in her step and a light in her eyes, in spite of her advanced age. We might’ve traveled to Europe again. I would’ve liked that. She would’ve, too.

Hold onto the Old; Welcome the New

2011 was a year of change and adventure, and a year of sadness. I moved yet again, back home to New Hanover County, without doubt the most beautiful area in the world: sun, tall pines and live oaks, dunes, the ocean, sunrises that stun the senses and sunsets over the water on the EAST coast. (Yes, it’s true[i].) I visited Iceland, land of severe and startling beauty. I met interesting people and developed lasting friendships. I accepted a position with DODEA and am preparing to move to Europe, another homecoming of sorts. And I have wanted to share it all with my mom, who is really and truly Home, but to whom I wasn’t ready to say goodbye when she went to be with Jesus just over a year ago.
 In the blog entry from June 19, 2011 I said, “Life is precious, life is sweet. And sometimes it is bittersweet.” I would amend that now to say “often” instead of “sometimes.” This recent move to Wilmington has been filled with bittersweet reminders of the years we spent together here when I was a child —
The USS North Carolina:  I recently visited the noble vessel with friends, something that I had done with Mom when I was about eight; she taught me to admire the sailors who served on her, to the point that I even served in the US Naval Reserve myself. The smells on the ship are overwhelming memory inducers, and this recent trip took me back to that first visit.
Carolina Beach:   The tiki bar is one of my favorite places. It sits on what is left of Center Pier, across from the land that once held the motel that Mom owned. Eons ago, when I was about seven, she walked me all the way out on Center Pier during a strong gale. She was terrified of hurricanes but loathed the thought that I would be, so we walked in the furious wind, my hand held firmly in hers, and she talked with me as if everything were perfectly normal. Only later would I learn that she was absolutely beside herself with fear, but so sternly determined that I not be afraid of wind storms that she swallowed her terror, and I, because of her sacrifice, have literally slept through category 3 hurricanes.
Wrightsville Beach: Standing on the sand, watching the waves and the fishermen, I remember Mom casting the line from the shore. At 5’4″ and 110 pounds, she could cast as well as most men. She taught herself to throw a cast net and gig for flounder, too, which she filleted and cooked like nobody else.
The Intracoastal Waterway: Every time I pass over an ICW bridge, I can almost taste the oysters we gathered and ate, standing on the sand. I still feel weight of the knife I held in my hand and how it scraped against the oyster bed as I mimicked her motions, learning to pull the individual shells away from the bed and then open. If I lick my lips, I taste the salt.
These and countless other landmarks, smells, and tastes cause memories to flash in my mind of things we did together here over the course of my life. She shared her love for this beautiful and varied place with me. It will always be home to me, as it was to her.
Now the move to Europe floods me with thoughts of her; she and I made a similar move many years ago, to Germany, and I so want to hear her thoughts. Just a few nights ago, as I was driving to a New Year’s celebration, I thought of calling her to ask her advice. After over a year, I still reach out for her frequently. The past thirteen months have been filled with memories of Mom, thoughts of what I want to say to her or ask her about, of things I wish I’d done differently, of questions about what eternity is really like.
2011 was a tough year. I have worked really hard at my job, and I’ve moved once and begun a second move. I’ve embraced my singleness, letting go of most of the vague dreams I once had of some fictional Prince Charming, realizing I am pretty content in my life with my pets and my friends. I’ve done all of it while mourning the loss of my mom. I have confronted everything with enthusiasm, in Mom’s example. So, in spite of the pain, I’ve begun to be relatively happy again.
There is a saying, “out with the old, in with the new.” I prefer “hold onto the old, welcome the new.” The old must never be tossed out; it makes us who we are. We must hold onto it, cherish it, nurture it, so that we are open and ready to enfold the new into us, and assimilate it all into a new whole.  As I face 2012, I resolve to hold onto the memories of my mom and all she meant to me, as well as all the rest of the good and bad of my past, and welcome the new adventure that is in front of me. There will be difficult days ahead, but life is still precious, sweet, and bittersweet. I am grateful for all I’ve been given. God is still good, and I am still His.


[i] Because NC’s coastal geography juts in, then out, then back, some of its coasts are western-facing. Little known and lovely fact.

November Again

It is November. The brisk morning air and falling leaves remind me that summer is long past, and all around me I see evidence that Thanksgiving is just around the corner. I saw, in fact, as I drove home from work tonight, the years’ first stupidly early Christmas tree behind a neighborhood picture window. It is now just two weeks shy of the anniversary of my mother’s death.
On Sunday, I was gladdened to hear a friend tell me how wonderful it has been to have her mom nearby for the last few years. She expressed her disappointment that her mom had just left to visit her sister in another state through the holidays. A few minutes later she asked what I was doing for Thanksgiving, and I hesitated briefly before telling her that I’ll be taking my mom’s brother to her grave that weekend, that it’s been a year since her death and he hasn’t been back since the funeral. My friend commiserated a bit, then said how happy she is that her mom lives nearby now, and how lovely it is to have her here to be a grandmother to her children. She paused, then began, “I don’t know what I’ll do when Mom…” She couldn’t finish the sentence, of course; who can? My heart broke anew when she looked at me as her eyes filled. Finally she said, “I can’t imagine how horrible it must be.”
This month has been and will continue to be, I expect, the most difficult period in weeks. Every reminder of Thanksgiving fills me with regret and anguish. It is not surprising; I was expecting this month to be difficult. How can it not be? One nightmarish, empty year has nearly passed, and nothing fills the void. I continue to be shocked occasionally by the sudden realization that she is gone, to disbelieve it briefly, to think of things I want to tell her. There is nothing I can do except remember her with love, offer profound gratitude to God for giving us the years we had, and remind anyone who will listen, as I did my friend on Sunday, that they must leave nothing unsaid or undone, and that they must take advantage of every fleeting opportunity for sweet communion. 

Generous Empathy

A few nights ago, my phone rang and I didn’t answer it, as I was occupied with something else. Several minutes later, I listened in anguish to my voicemail, as a friend tearfully told of his mother’s death the day before. I called him back and wept with him as he told of his all-too-familiar disbelief and overwhelming grief, her relative vigor in spite of being in a nursing home, and his recent hopeful thoughts that she might actually outlive him. In spite of everything I’ve gone through in the past months, I didn’t have anything to say to him except that I am so sorry.
He is the second of my friends who have lost their moms in the past few weeks. In both cases, the ladies were quite elderly, had lived long and relatively healthy lives almost right up to the end, and their adult children and grandchildren knew they had only a little more time with them. Nevertheless…death came as a hateful shock and left behind people feeling like orphans. I wanted to help my friends somehow, to say something that would assuage their sorrowful hearts. My pastor recently spoke about how God’s dealings with us are not for us only, that they are meant to teach us and lead us to a place of generous empathy for the pain of others, and I’ve lived that truth out in the past. I’ve experienced the joyful awe of being an agent of comfort for someone because of what I’ve gone through. This time, though, when my friend called, I had nothing of value to say.
As I drove home this evening, I realized I was, and am, a little depressed. My friend’s phone call is on my mind, making me remember. I can still hear my uncle’s voice on the phone telling me, “Your mama’s dead.” He didn’t mean to sound insensitive, and I suppose he was hurting so much he wasn’t thinking clearly, but those words call out in my head over and over, and each time they tear my emotions apart. I think of my friends hearing those words from someone, and it breaks my heart all over again.
Losing my mom has made me more sensitive, and I am particularly empathetic toward those who are suffering loss. I’m glad to have this heightened empathy, but the ache in my own soul intensifies when someone, even someone with whom I’m not close, loses someone they love. Perhaps my own grief is too recent, too fresh and raw for me to draw on that empathy in a way that will help them. Maybe time will do its work and I will eventually be able to minister to others. For now, I just don’t think anything I might say will help them or me. Their grief, like mine, must be allowed to take its course, as long as it must, and generous empathy will have to wait.

Still

So it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything in the blog. Part of it is busyness. Part of it is an attempt to escape.
I have often thought of things I wanted to say in this medium. There is a stack of ideas in my head. They are not yet on paper. Every time I’ve thought of something I wanted to write about, I’ve gotten myself involved in some other activity and put the ideas out of my mind. They recede into the shadows but reemerge shortly, in vague feelings of melancholy or overwhelming waves of grief. They are always with me because thoughts of Mom are always with me.
In August, I went in to see my doctor for my yearly physical. She always chats with me a bit before getting to the exam. As usual she asked me, “So how are you doing?” I responded, “Well, it’s been a tough few months. My mom died last November.” And the tears started. When she was able to wipe the stunned look off her face, she recommended antidepressants, and I didn’t argue.
In recent months, I have moved home to a coastal city where Mom and I lived when I was little. I had wanted desperately to move back here while she was alive, as it would put me within two hours of her house. The move away from here just three years ago seemed so right at the time; I sincerely thought that an extra hour in the commute to her house would not be all that significant. I was so wrong. It was a terrible, horrible decision. That extra hour made an easy day trip impossible, and I was no longer able to be the kind of help she desperately needed. I am absolutely convinced that the absence of my frequent help contributed to her death. That is hard to take but take it I must. So here I am again, “home,” and I’m glad to be here. Nevertheless, it is bittersweet. Reminders of her are all around, and knowing I managed to get back here too late is a dagger in my soul.
My doctor said something to me as she was discussing the antidepressants: “I want you to feel sad when you think of your mother. I just don’t want it to stop you from living your life.” I think Mom would agree with that, frankly. I can go on. I can live my life, spend time with friends, even laugh and have fun. Nevertheless, the ache is always there, the knowing that she is not here with me, and yes, the wishing I had made different choices. I feel her presence and her absence at the same time, and sometimes it invades my whole being. Medicine may help, but there is no remedy for this, except maybe for time, doing its work, little by little. 

The Importance of Hearing

A few days ago, a caring friend asked me what I missed most about my mom. I thought for only a second or two before I responded, “Her voice.” Suddenly I felt the tears and before they could overflow, I said, “Stop, enough. I can’t talk about it.” My friend felt terrible as he tried to change the subject for me and move on from my unexpected reaction. I realized later that, strangely, I hadn’t thought before of this horrible truth: the familiar voice that I loved so much is slowly fading from memory and becoming harder to recall. This disturbs and saddens me.

It is said that of blindness and deafness, deafness is worse. Most hearing, seeing people seem to disagree with that, but I can totally understand it. I am a language geek, dialect mimic, music lover and dilettante maker of same. Sounds of nature fascinate me; one of my favorite CDs is music interspersed with nature sounds and wildlife calls. I so love the ocean partly because of the sounds of the waves pounding the shore and the seagulls calling to each other. When I study, I must have quiet; music only distracts me, draws me in. Often in the car, I turn the radio off so I can think. When I’m doing housework, however, I want music playing, loud enough for me to really hear it. And when I go to a concert, I want it LOUD, really loud, so nothing distracts from the entire experience of the music. Sounds comfort me, excite me, fascinate, disturb or distract me. Whether lovely or loud, sound is of vital importance to me.

Right now, just over seven months since her death, I can still hear the rich, velvetiness of my mother’s voice. For most of my life, she had a soft North Carolina accent that made her a delight for employers in Colorado, California and Germany; they were thrilled to have her as one of the “voices” of their organizations. During the last years of her life, her accent was made more pronounced as she shared her home with her sister, who rarely left the Southern Appalachian Mountains; I teased her sometimes about sounding like a hillbilly. Her singing voice was deep in the alto range; treasured are my memories of singing with her. She took the harmony as we sang together, until I learned from her to harmonize as she did — a third below the melody; we favored Gospel and Country songs as our repertoire. After years of smoking, she lost much of her range but the notes she retained were still strong and full.

Hearing her voice in my head makes me smile. Bits of our conversations sound as real as the times I actually heard her speaking. Several specific things she would say are fixed in my memory. When anyone said something nice about me or my sister, she would affect this silly and unidentifiable accent and say, “Well, of course; she only takes aftah her mothah!” When she would call me and leave a message for me to call her, she would usually begin with, “Now, nothin’s wrong…” because she knew I worried about her. And her usual greeting to me: “Hey, Baby Girl.”  Her laugh is there, too, uninhibited, throaty, filled with abandon and absolutely contagious.

It scares me, though, that already some of her words are starting to fade from my memory; I have to think really hard to bring them to mind. She loved to watch “Dog the Bounty Hunter,” and she would tell me about it sometimes. I can’t hear her voice saying the word, “dog,” though. I can’t hear the accent exactly right. She would greet loved ones with a happy, “Hey!” but I can’t remember which word she favored with people she didn’t know very well, whether it was “hi,” “hello,” or something else. This forgetfulness is disturbing; I want to remember her voice!  I want to remember how she sounded as we sang together, and the sound of her laugh. Most of all, I want to remember her calling my name or calling me “Baby Girl.”

I realize how blessed I am to have been “Baby Girl” to her for so long; she called me that for fifty years! How lucky I am! It doesn’t do to feel sorry for myself; there are so many who don’t have their moms for nearly that long. I really do hope, though, that the memory of the sound of her voice stays with me for many more years yet; I dread the thought of saying goodbye to her voice, even though it lives with me only in my head.

Lessons on Darkness

A few days ago, my stepfather and his daughter packed up and drove away with almost everything out of my mother’s home, including photos of my sister and her children, a collection of my mom’s dollar-store figurines, some of my 20 year old nephew’s high school athletic trophies, and a dog that belonged to the same nephew. They did not do this because of love, but rather out of spite and hatefulness, largely because the humble house that my mother lived in belongs to me and so they have no claim on it. How do I know this? I know it because the stepfather actually said, less than two weeks after my mother’s death, that if he couldn’t get the house in his name, he’d burn it down. I know it because of the hateful words his daughter flung at me for no reason, starting just days after my mother’s death and culminating in a phone conversation where she told me that if I wanted her father out of the house, I would have to formally evict him.  I know it because of the mean-spirited insults aimed at my dead mother that so upset my nephew that he had to leave the house in order to maintain his composure.
The day after these angry people finally vacated the house, I read the following Scripture in my favorite wilderness-season devotional, Streams in the Desert[i]:
                And the ugly and gaunt cows ate up the seven fine looking and fat cows…and
 the seven thin heads [of grain] devoured the seven plump and full heads… Genesis 41:4, 7
The author expounded on these verses and drove the point home to me: it is possible for a good life to be overcome by hatefulness, bitterness, and anger, and the transformation God has made in a person may be undone, may even be reversed, if those evil emotions are given space. It reminds me of the words to a popular Christian song: “I don’t want to end up where You found me, and it echoes in my mind, keeps me awake at night…”[ii]  These words ring true; in recent days, I’ve thought of these two people with more hatred than I thought I was capable of feeling. The depth of this darkness in myself disappoints and frightens me.
We who call ourselves by the name of Christ are called to love our enemies![iii] How do I do that? How do I love such unlovely people, people who have done things expressly to hurt me? I frankly do not know how to do this. Somehow I have to find it in me to forgive them, and I don’t know how to do that either. What I want is to punish them, make them pay for the wrongs they’ve done, the things they’ve said, the disrespect that stings my mom’s memory. But to live the teachings of my faith, I have to admit the hard truth that I don’t have the right to do that. That right belongs to Another, One whose sandals I am not fit to untie (John 1:27, Holy Bible).  He can choose retribution if He wants, but it isn’t for me to decide.
The price for failing to forgive is high: there is a certain law of reciprocity in place. Jesus said that if we forgive those who hurt us, we will be forgiven, but if we refuse to forgive, we will not be forgiven (Matthew 6:14 – 15, and 18:35). I think the reason for this is not so much God’s unwillingness to forgive us, but rather the toll taken on our souls and minds by anger and bitterness. They fester, like a dirt-filled wound, and before long, infection takes over. In the end, if the infection isn’t overcome, death results. The only way to maintain my relationship with Christ is to cleanse myself of the foul emotions that are poisoning my soul.
I know what Mom would say: “Don’t let these people destroy you, Baby Girl; they aren’t worth it.” And she’d be right. It may take me a while to accomplish, years, I would surmise, and along the way I will probably often give in to my baser self, but with the help of the One who won’t let me go, I will forgive. I know that I’m not holding on to Him, but he’s holding on to me.[iv]

[i] Cowman, L.B. and Reiman, J., Streams in the Desert, Zondervan, 1999 edition.
[ii] Casting Crowns, East to West, The Altar and the Door, 2007
[iii] Matthew 5:44, Holy Bible, Zondervan.
[iv] Casting Crowns, East to West, The Altar and the Door, 2007. 

Mother’s Day

Dear Mom,
Happy Mother’s Day. I know you are not HERE, breathing the air of Earth with me, but you are HERE, in my thoughts, in my soul, in my heart. I could say I miss you, but that would not begin to express the depth of what I’m feeling today, this first Mother’s Day without you.
The world feels darker and colder this year than in Mother’s Days past. The sun shines less brightly and the birds don’t sing as prettily. Music is less soulful and the stars don’t twinkle as they once did. Even the flowers are less colorful and fragrant. But the worst of all is I am more alone than I’ve ever been.
On the other hand, because you were and are my mom, I appreciate the warmth of the sun on my skin and the melody of birdsong; because of you, I know that these are gifts of the Most High and that I must never take them for granted. I adore daisies and black-eyed Susans and the scent of roses, thanks to you. Some of my most treasured memories are of singing along with you and the radio or with you playing guitar; because of you, Mommy, music moves me. And thanks to you, I know that the stars shine brightest when the world is darkest.
It is true that I am more alone than I’ve ever been. But I’ve never been really alone, not even now. I carry you and your legacy in all that I do, think and feel. Thank you, Mom, for everything you did to make me who I am. For better or worse, I’m your daughter and I always will be.
I love you still, Mommy. 

Mom’s Car

I sold Mom’s car yesterday. It’s a good thing because I had cosigned on the note, and we were totally upside down on it. But it’s bittersweet. Seeing that car pull away pulled at my heart.
I had become accustomed to seeing it parked in my carport, and it was somehow comforting and painful at the same time; it was almost as if I expected to find her inside when I got home.  Mom loved that car so much; she had always admired big, fancy cars.  When her Intrepid’s engine gave out about a year and a half ago, she found this Cadillac, a 2000 Deville. It was a gorgeous car: silver, shiny, and beautiful. Mom was in love. I can still hear her voice on the phone when she got the car home:  “You should see my beautiful car!”
Mom didn’t get to drive her Cadillac very much. Her health deteriorated a bit soon after she bought it, so she didn’t feel up to getting out a lot, and she had a little trouble with the car, too. She put about six thousand miles on it, and then she had to put it in the shop for about two thousand dollars’ worth of work. That’s why we were upside down on the loan; she had to refinance it to pay for the work.
The last year of Mom’s life was even more stressful than the preceding ones: the deaths of two important family members, the instability of my sister and her children, my issues, her very crabby, jealous and opinionated husband, her financial struggles. Now even her car wasn’t right. She was such a lover of her independence, and for a few months, that independence was severely impaired. She was really happy when the car was finally repaired and running as it should. Unfortunately, she died less than a month later, even before the first payment on the refinance was made.
I know I had to sell the car. And I’m very grateful that God sent a buyer so quickly. Nevertheless, it’s another piece of my mother that is no longer with me. I noticed when I was preparing the car to sell that there was a rabies tag on her keychain – it was Annebelle’s. Annebelle, a poodle we’d gotten when we lived in Germany, was a piece of Mom’s heart, that one-in-a-million companion animal that Mom loved as much as she did her children. She died in the 90’s after some 20 years with Mom. Her rabies tag is on my keychain now. Mom would be happy about that. It makes me happy, too. Or at least less sad.

The Last Goodbye

I’ve been reading a little book by Henri Nouwen. In Memoriam is a tiny volume that he wrote in response to the death and life of his mother. In it, Nouwen describes his mother’s last days, and her death in a hospital bed, with all of her family around her, making her comfortable, talking with her and with each other, and with God. It beautifully expresses his love for her and his gratitude for the life of faith that she shared with him.
As I read it, I have this horrible, selfish sense of having been cheated out of something precious. Mrs. Nouwen and her family knew without doubt that she was dying. She heard and felt their expressions of love for her during her final days and hours. Her family got to say goodbye in word and actions. My mom died suddenly, unexpectedly. While she had not been well for some time, no one, not even her doctor, thought she was so sick she was in imminent danger of dying. So while I had spoken with her on the phone the day before, I hadn’t been with her, and if I had known just how sick she was, I would’ve been.
And yet, I can’t justify complaining too much. Several of my friends have mothers who have recently died or are now struggling with Alzheimer’s. Can anything be more heartbreaking than not being recognized by your own mom? And anyone who has seen someone lie in a hospital bed for months knows that the manner in which my mother went Home was in most ways a blessing. Those who die long, drawn-out deaths, tubes invading their bodies, pricked with needles and in a drug-induced stupor suffer indignities and physical and emotional torment that ought not be. My dad’s mother died that way, and her children suffered greatly right along with her. My mom did not have to endure such agony. She died where she had lived: among her pets, in her living room, comfortable in her own chair. Her best friend, who was called to the house before Mom’s body was taken away, remarked that she seemed to be smiling. I think it may have been the first time in many years she was not frightened or worried.
Would I rather she had become ill enough to go to the hospital, where she would have been poked and prodded, robbed of her privacy and dignity? Would it have been preferable for her to have spent her last days or hours worried about her pets at home without her? Would I be happier now knowing I had been with her when she died, in spite of all that? No. I hope that I could never be that selfish. As precious as it would have been to have been able to pray with Mom, to have held her hand and kissed her goodbye, it is far better that she died as she did. God knows best and He did what was best for her and for us. My last goodbye to my Mom was on the phone, the day before she died, and that will have to do for now.