I awoke feeling shaky last Friday morning. It took me awhile to translate the meaning of that bodily signal and its relationship to my state of wellbeing. Staying with it during a morning meditation, the sensation developed into a subtle sadness. After a few more moments I remembered that the night before, a couple of hours before going to sleep, I had received some not good news regarding my former husband George. In a text from my son-in-law Bill who was in Oregon checking on him, Bill wrote, “He has hit a rough patch…He’s fallen a number of times. He’s weak, sleeping all the time and not really eating. A suggestion was made that a hospice evaluation be done…”
The body remembers, and more than just what happened the night before. George and I were married 61 years ago, longer than many of my students and younger friends have been alive. I have been divorced from this man for 47 years, though we co-parented 3 children together, and buried two of them. I’ve been married to my present husband for 43 years, many of those years spent co-parenting with George, whom Richard laughingly referred to as his “husband-in-law.”
In allowing this sadness, my body teaches me more about the process of grieving, a process I know to be episodic, life-long, and necessary to metabolize loss. But more than a decade and a half-century ago? Isn’t it time to be over it? Or through it? But grieving one loss often opens opportunities to grieve some prior losses hiding underneath or behind it.
Throughout the weekend as the group text updates on George’s condition continue, I’m in touch again with those promises, “in sickness and in health, till death…” I’m in touch again with the courageous, trusting 22-year-old bride who made those promises. She is letting me know she’s still heartbroken that she couldn’t keep them.
The following morning, when I was on-line with my woman’s group, I check in with them saying that though the patriarchy might say I spent the morning “feeling sorry for myself,” I will say that I’ve spent the morning “having my sorrow.” (Well-earned and well deserved.) The group responded by taking a few moments to raise their hands to the screen and create an energetic grid, sending me love and support in the silence, with instructions to send it on to family members who may need it. This helps me identify another loss I’m grieving. This one is connected to a family member I would like to support during this episode with George, but estrangement makes that not possible at this time. I’m soothed to realize that I can still offer prayers and good wishes for George, and for everyone touched by George’s life.
In the spiral dance that grieving is, as we come around again, to anniversaries, birthdays, rites of passage, deaths–we miss again, those gone from our sight. These cyclical occasions can be opportunities to connect again with our loved ones, and with who we were when they were here with us. When I was raising my three children, especially during the time I was a single mom, my definition of a friend was someone who helped me be a good mother to them. Now that I’ve buried two children, a friend is someone who helps me remember them. My friend Pam and I each have a son who died young. Neither of us have met the other’s son, but we try to make a point of marking our sons’ birthdays or death days by sending a card or having a lunch or a walk in the forest. Our sadness softens into what I call “Sweet Sorry,” as we companion one another, focusing on the gift our sons’ lives have been to our lives. And we each get to know someone we’ve never met in person.
My grandson Ethan has a modern technological version of sharing the sweet sorrow of his mother Corinne’s life and loss with his friends through his Facebook account. In 2020, when we were all struggling with the Covid 19 shutdowns, he posted an excerpt of something she wrote during her struggles with Breast Cancer treatments, “There are times I have looked back at the last nine months of disappointments. Being through a fire refines us to beautiful gold, but first we must be hot to achieve this. The heat of the fire is NOT comfortable as we stand in it. But I look forward to getting out of the fire, standing back from it, and enjoying its warmth and beauty.”
He writes, “She is enjoying that beauty now next to her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But we still walk in that fire. This year the flames are burning hotter than ever. If you find yourself burning, inhaling too much smoke, wondering when we can get out of this 2020 fire, keep the faith! One day, God willing, we’ll be out of this fire, appreciating the lessons we learned from it. I love you mommy, thank you for continuing to inspire us today!”
As Ethan is still learning from his mom, he reinforces what I teach others and try to remember to do myself – Here’s his PS.
“If you’re struggling through this time, don’t suffer alone. Reach out to someone you trust and allow others to help you carry your burdens…That’s something I learned from my mother. I’m happy to be that person for you, just reach out and let’s talk!”
Ethan’s social media post demonstrates two of the central gifts of grieving well – wisdom and the compassionate heart to be there for others.
