No goodbye

Being human and mortal, we all live, love and experience loss...no exceptions. Are

there redemptive qualities for the deepest of losses? This is the story of me and my

daughter Misty, and how I didn’t get to say goodbye before she died. Today I try to

live my life as if there may be no time for goodbyes.

“Bye honey, I love you!”

“Bye Momma, I love you more!!”

For many years this was our parting routine after a visit, or signing off from a

phone call, text, or Facebook message - sometimes multiple times a day. It was

Misty’s favorite way to end our conversations, and I adored that even at 35 years

old she still called me Momma with a loving, slightly Southern lilt.

On August 1, 2012 my big-hearted, beloved, 35-year-old only daughter Misty

Dawn ended her life.

On that day and for days, weeks, months after...I didn’t know if I would survive

without her. Some moments I still wonder. At first I felt a numbing shock, a

despair and trauma washing over me. Later, came awful guilt and regret. What

more could I have done? What should I have done? Most of all I missed her. I

still miss her. Every. Single. Day.

Grief is my own personal spiritual war, raging inside my soul. Grief numbs me

into accepting that the loss is absolute. Grief crushes my heart and implodes my

spirit. Grief closes my eyes and bows my head. Grief collapses my limbs and

dulls my senses. Nothing looks, sounds, tastes or smells the same. Grief pauses,

paralyzes, and sedates me. Mothers are supposed to protect their children at all

costs, no task too difficult, no hesitation, no exceptions. I felt the deepest of shame

for not taking better care of her.

In a strange and surreal way, the unexpected and traumatic loss of my child by

suicide disintegrated my core sense of who I thought I was. The hope that I held

was ripped away forever. Quietly and insidiously, trauma explodes the mind and

greatly intensifies emotions. Trauma stimulates, irritates, and calls us to action.

Trauma brings hurried, fractional racing thoughts.

A very empty and dark space is left behind. There are so many nooks and crannies

where all the details of each and every moment I shared with her lurks. There are

many trap doors that sweep me right down into the memories of all the times I now

second guess - wondering what I might have done differently. If I’d chosen a

different doctor, a different medication, a different way of dealing with a crisis.

It’s endless the wondering, the regretting...the awful MISSING.

And yet, there are respites, moments of peaceful, loving thoughts...and my heart aches in a good way.

Somewhere I read....”Forgiveness is letting go of the hope that the past could have

been any different.” And that healing is going from “what if” to “what now”.

So...what now?

I am learning a lot about forgiveness. Unlike many choices and decisions I make

easily about my feelings regarding the actions of others, the feelings and very

deliberate act of self-forgiveness is an ongoing process for me. As memories come

up and my self-doubt takes over about a choice I made, I notice and stop. I make

an intentional effort to explore those thoughts and remind myself that, while I can’t

quite embrace that I always did my best (sometimes I was lazy, imperfect,

neglectful, angry, hurting, and selfish), I tried. I tried really hard. And with the

same compassion I extend to the other grieving mother that I work with, I offer love

to myself. Consciously forgiving myself again and again, remembering my

unquestionable love for Misty.

My close circle of community has became very small. I talk to trusted loved ones.

I learned quickly to be cautious of who I trusted my grief with. The most well-

meaning, loving people will say deeply hurtful things, ignorant to how painful their

“words of wisdom” and solutions can be. The pain of my grief made them so

uncomfortable, and they just wanted to relieve me of that pain...they wanted the

“old me” back, and that person was forever gone. I’ve made peace with that, and I

ask my loved ones to try and do the same. My child died and I will be forever

changed. I’m sorry it makes them uncomfortable, and ask that they accept me and

my tears, allowing me to be true to my own feelings as I adjust to a different way

of being in my life.

As this shift took place, I noticed that I was also making some peace with aspects

of my grieving. Grief has claimed a part of my heart, one of the containers for the

intensity of love I feel for Misty. One afternoon I was watching a TV special on

Grizzly bears and was fascinated at how their behavior in the wild of nature

resembled my inner grieving beast at its most savage. In their natural habitat, they

are the most feared, brutish, gluttonous creatures to both man and animal. From

the insatiable appetite to the habit of hibernation, there seemed to be connections.

Additionally I had recently re-read “The Tao of Pooh” which is a lovely book

about the simple way of Winnie the Pooh learning and living the Tao Te Ching.

Basic Taoism holds that there is a gentle way of appreciating, learning from, and

working with whatever happens in everyday life. That allowing and accepting the

natural way of things brings calm, order, and peace. That the more forcing, the

more trouble and resistance are fomented.

“From caring comes courage. Those who have no compassion have no wisdom.

Knowledge, yes; cleverness, maybe; wisdom, no.”

All of this came together one weekend, and I was inspired to compose a metaphor

about how these two bears depicted how my grieving was changing. It’s called

“Bearing Grief”. It is about unwittingly surviving something that is so painful it

tears the very fiber of one’s soul. And yet, in surrender and by allowing what is,

we survive. The human spirit is amazing, truly amazingly resilient. I’d like to

share that metaphor here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BEARING GRIEF

my metaphor for loss.

Grizzly Grief comes lumbering in fiercely growling, baring his teeth. His big paws

swiping aggressively, greedily, tearing at my heart and mind. His hulking frame

towers over me as he rips at my flesh, down into the core of my being.

No words, just a vast and intense entitlement to devour all there is of me. I don’t resist or

struggle, experience has taught me there is no escape. To within a breath of life,

Grizzly leaves me bleeding, soul bared - laying open to all the earthly elements.

I collapse. I cry. I scream and wail. Until I’m exhausted, totally spent...mortally

wounded. Hopelessly defeated...again.

Sometime later Winnie the Pooh arrives. Gently he snuggles up next to me and

quietly whispers that I will not die in this moment. That all creatures suffer, heal,

and sometimes we even learn and grow. That we repeat that cycle...until we don’t

anymore.

He says to me, “The very BEST part of us - our heart - can be cracked

wide open and become even bigger and better. You see...in this deep hole of

missing is the remembering. And in the remembering lives the pieces of your love

for what you lost. He reminds me there is nothing to “do”, that the doing is

happening without my doing.

Pooh’s message could be maddening to the cracked parts of me that grip too

tightly, judge, withhold love and forgiveness, and wants to fix things NOW!

However somehow his matter of fact monotone words of simple wisdom finds that

knowing place in me and resonates, soothes and calms. The gaping wounds begin

to close again slowly...then rather quickly...leaving scars visible only to me and

him.

We lay quietly for what seems like a long while, but isn’t. Nothing more to say

about Grizzly - knowing he will return again and there will be more carnage and

suffering. Nothing to be done about it, no way to avoid the attack.

I often forget that Grizzly’s visits are survivable, and next time he comes - and he

will most certainly return - I may believe I am dying again. But I don’t think I will.

What I will remember is the longing inside the sadness, the love inside the missing.

And thanks to Pooh, I’ll do my best to also remember that love is much, much

bigger than the biggest and strongest of Grizzly bears....xoxoxo

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As long as my life continues my love continues and Misty’s life and story will

continue with me in my heart and soul. After many months and years of having

the concern and responsibility for maintaining her well being, and then the

darkness of her passing as the first thought each morning, I am noticing every now

and then it’s the second. That tells me my mind is reorganizing...but I will never

forget her love, her laugh, and the gifts of the legacy of her life and existence. I

have been forever blessed to be her mother.

Mortality is the state of being mortal, or susceptible to death. We live, we love,

we experience loss..it is the way. Live well and love deeply, being mindful that

loss is only a heartbeat away.

Mary Oliver sums it up beautifully in this excerpt from her poem,

“In Blackwater Woods”:

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

THIS...this is the journey. How we relate to our own mortality and the mortality of

our loved ones...how we relate to the vulnerability of loss...directly affects our

capacity to LOVE. When we hug another and have the awareness”I am going to

die, and you are going to die” it can change the quality of the connection you are

sharing. You may actually fall in love in that moment. In a love that transcends

the fear of mortality and gives an astonishing redemptive quality to being fully

capable of living, loving and losing.

It gets REAL!

As real as the inevitability of our own mortality, and that of the ones we love.........