Good Grief

She would be so mad at me for posting this picture. There were 23 and counting different brands of wrinkle creams in her bathroom on the day she passed. It's cool, Gma, vanity is our favorite vice too.

As I'm sitting here, a few stolen moments while Grace plays with my phone and Elle sleeps in, I'm feeling the loss of my grandmother-in-law who passed away last week.  She was elderly, she was ill, she was ready to go...it's about the best you can hope for, but it's still sad.  She was lovely, inside and out, and I am going to miss her tremendously.  Today I'm thinking about her because some of her treasures are in my dining room, waiting to be sorted, her beautiful glass bowl is holding bananas on my countertop, and thanks to a serendipitously timed moment, her car is parked in my driveway (more on that later). Most mornings are too busy for me to sit still and read or write, but today I have time, and I'm thinking about the passage I read in my Daily Guideposts book the morning after Grandma passed away.  It's a story of a woman suffering from macular degeneration who, regarding her failing eyesight says, "You can never be grateful enough until it's gone."  The author of the passage goes on to explain how she recognized this woman's grief not as self-pity, but as a "deep expression of thanksgiving for something or someone I am missing."  I've never considered that before, grief equalling gratitude.  Grief is hard.  It's sad.  It hurts right in the solar plexus, where no amount of food or drink or hugs can reach.  But to grieve is to have lost something worthy of your love.



Last week we grieved the loss of my Grandma (in law).  There was a wake, a funeral, a lunch.  We cried, we laughed, we grieved.  We reflected on the life of a woman who loved her people so very well.  Over and over I heard stories of how thoughtful she was, how much she loved her family...which is evidenced in a scrapbook she was making for Grace -- elaborate pages filled with animals for every letter of the alphabet, in a purple binder, because they both loved the color purple.  Oh, and a little stable with horses JUST FOR ELLE, because she wanted to make sure they both knew how much she adored them and that Elle had something just for herself from Grandma.  I loved this woman, I am thankful to have known her, and her absence in my life, in my family's life, will be felt forever.  We will grieve her, because she was worthy of our love.

This idea of grief as gratitude is re-shaping the way I see some things.  For example, I am almost daily reminded to ENJOY THIS, the THIS being my life with small children.  I am told to "soak it up!" and, "It goes so fast!" and, "Oh, I miss it, I miss those days," and, "It doesn't get any better than this."  I nod my head and smile, but inside, my heart races.  Am I missing something?  I gave up my job, my independence, and my husband and I have quite likely mortgaged our financial future so I can be with these beautiful girls day and night...is that not enough?  I don't mean that sarcastically, but earnestly...am I not doing enough to soak it all in?  Am I looking at my phone too much?  What is the deal people!? I know these words are meant encouragingly, lovingly even...but instead of being a reminder to stay in the moment, to enjoy said moment, they make me want to go in the corner and weep: I simply cannot enjoy this more than I already am!  Can I?  What am I missing here?

I realize now, it's not actually about me and my experience raising my girls when other people tell me to enjoy every minute!  It's about them.  They look at me and my girls and remember what it was like to be completely needed, completely loved, and they miss it.  They are grieving the fact that their sweet babies grew up on them, too fast, as someday I probably will, also. Their words come from a place of gratitude that they, too, got to be transformed by the love of little children.  They're missing their babies, and their words express that.  It's not about my enjoyment or lack thereof, it's about their gratitude, their loss, their love.  Grief=gratitude.

We've all witnessed grief, right? We've heard beautiful stories told about a long-gone friend or memory, voices filled with love and longing, and we've witnessed grief in otherwise inexplicable behavior -- greed, self-righteousness, jealousy -- clawing for something, anything to bring back a memory of a lost loved-one.  In those situations, the loss seems too much to bear, and we forget we were lucky enough to have had something worthy of our love in the first place.  Don't forget, friends. Don't forget the thing that makes you lash out, that makes you hoard stuff, that makes you put your own self first...that's the loss you're feeling.  Remember the only reason you're feeling loss is because you were lucky enough to have loved in the first place.  We should try to honor that empty place with thanksgiving instead of self-righteousness, and with courage instead of playing the victim. Hopefully, we can find peace in our memories...of a loved one, of our babies, of our eyesight, of an easier time.

Sometimes, though, we're lucky enough to have more than a memory to get us through.  Last week, on our way from Grandma's burial to our luncheon, our car started to lose power about a block from the restaurant.  We were more than an hour from home in our "good car" on an 86 degree day with two small children, so we were really really hoping it was just a battery issue.  After replacing the battery and still losing power, we deemed the car not safe enough to drive the girls home...but Grandma, in her infinite love and thoughtfulness (and since she wouldn't be needing it) made sure we had a safe car to get her beloved great granddaughters home.

Grief can do funny things to us.  I, however, am so very glad I opened that book on the day I did to learn the lesson about grief and gratitude.  From now on, when I'm told, "It goes too fast, enjoy it!" I'm going to rest in the fact that I know it goes too fast, but that I'm consciously grateful to be living it.