I have been thinking a lot about grief lately. Or maybe I have always thought a lot about grief.
When I was 5 years old, I went with my mom to my great-grandmother's funeral. I didn't know her, and I was not real close to most of the people at the funeral. But I remember thinking how strange it was to see so many smiling, laughing people at a funeral. Grief was not at all what I thought it was when I was five.
I was about 7 or 8 years old when the little girl who lived across the street from us was killed in a snowmobile accident. We did not see those parents come out of that house for months. Even at that age, I could not imagine how they would ever get through their grief for their baby.
When I was about 15, my uncle whom I was quite close to, passed away from cancer. I went through much of my grief long before he was gone, while we were losing him slowly, one day, one setback, one tiny bit of life at a time. By the time we were attending his funeral, I felt something that was not quite the same as grief anymore. It had evolved to acceptance that life can be painful.
When I was 18 years old, I visited a close high school friend in the hospital on Christmas Eve, who was in a coma from a car accident involving a semi truck, and I attended his funeral on New Years Eve. The grief that spills and explodes out of a group of teenage friends who are drinking too much after burying their teenage friend is another kind of animal. That was 32 years ago. I am still processing that grief.
There have been many losses since then. And I have learned a few things about myself and grieving along the way. The weird thing about grief is that you never figure it out. You never learn how to do it. Because every single loss is different. Every. Single. Loss.
You might even be somewhat prepared for it, in the case of someone who is ill, or an aging loved one. But when it actually happens, you are knocked over by it. The realization of the hole left in your life only comes once they are actually gone.
My mom passed away last fall. I think I was more prepared than some people for the loss of my parents. I am a practical girl, and I have always thought about the inevitable aspects of life that lie ahead of me, in the hopes of being ready for it. The fact that my mother was gone (and it happened kind of suddenly, so there was a bit of shock) was not surprising to me, but what I had not fully understood before was that she was the one person I actually can't live without. That is how it feels, with losing a mom. At least for me. She was the only one who listened to every single one of my stories, complaints, tiny triumphs, minor struggles. And she listened to them as though she was genuinely interested in each and every one. (I think she was actually interested, because as a mom myself, I am interested in the same for each of my children.) I needed her, so much more than I knew or ever told her. This grief feels so much different than any other. It feels...permanent.
I have read and studied the stages of grief, and I really wish they were true for all circumstances, because then I could check off each stage as I finished it, move on to the next. I'd know where I was. I'd know what was left to do. I could make a grief to-do list. (I love to-do lists.) As it is, I am left with the roller-coaster of grief. There are ups. There are downs. There are moments when you think you see what is coming, but then they throw in a curve and a drop, and you feel nauseated and terrified and all you want to do is scream, and you are sure you are going to die. But you don't. You get to the next plateau and take a deep breath and tell yourself, in your most convincing tone, you can do this. Wait, what is that ahead? Is that a curve??? Brace yourself!