Life, Death, Greif, Processing....

Here you go....another reflective post.............



AS we age, so do our parents. We watch changes that they go through, we watch as their medications get increased, discontinued, added, and decreased. It becomes our responsibility to worry about them, to help them and to make sure that they make and keep appointments. If we can't be there to do all of that, we have to make sure that someone capable is there to help them. Life moves very quickly when a parent is ill. Everything is hyper-clear, focused, and there is no stopping the progression of the illness. There are many questions left unanswered, many things left unsaid. The focus seems to be on time, time spent with one another, on the illness, on the life that was and the quality of life that is.
When a parent dies, life is put into a strange perspective. THe child no longer is a child, but an independent being. Adrift without the wisdom of the older adult. (Let's not even go to the place where a minor loses a parent) There are so many times that I want to pick up the phone, almost 2 years later, to ask my mother what to put in this dish, how do you make that, who is the lady who.......and then I realize that I can't. When both parents are gone, there is a sense of emptiness. Well, nothingness. Life as you know it changes, but most of it stays the same. It is an odd way to see things, to move through your days. The days leading up to, and of, funerals and wakes, they seem to stand still, or go in slow motion. After leaving the cemetary or burial place, then the film begins to speed up, to resume normal fast moving pace.
Then one is left with those pesky feelings. Raw feelings, un nerving feelings, or just plain nothingness. Greif or not, it is left to the person to pick up the pieces and to try to re exist in the life that was before. It is tough, it is hard, to say the least. It isn't the same though, even though people want it to be, it isn't the same. As an adult with children, the needs of the children outweigh yours, they are greiving too. They cannot grasp when, why what, but are expected to see things normally, to feel things normally, and to resume life normally. They don't express their grief or their anger the same way that an adult will or can. There are times when they seem so normal, and then they explode, in school, in a baseball game, or their grades take a tank to the bottom of the ocean. They lost someone too.
Being able to talk to one another helps, when those explosions happen, to let it all hang out, so to say.
It isn't a sin to tell children that you are grieving too. It isn't dammaging for them to see the adult cry. It is human. Sadness is a part of life. Watching a parent deal appropriately with their grief is healthy for children who have lost a grandparent or another person in their life.
Giving them as much room as possible to grieve is also a good thing, a healthy thing. They will be better able to deal with life if they can deal with the reality of death. Choices are important. When kids are small, they need not be exposed to the wake, but when they are older, they should see that this is normal and a part of the process. When my Dad died my boys were young, I didn't subject them to the wake, but wanted them at the funeral mass, and felt that they should have a little closure. When my Mother passed, the kids had been visiting her at the nursing home, they knew that it was comming. I asked the boys to choose a night to go to the wake, they were older and should see the process. I didn't subject my daughter to it, as she was much younger. All three went to the funeral, but just the oldest chose to go to the cemetary. The children know and knew what they could handle, and I allowed that to guide me. Honesty is always the key. Tell them what is going on in the language and terms and capacity that they have. For example(for the 14 year old, at the time) "Grandma has brain cancer. It isn't going to get better. We need to visit her and let her know that we love her. Let's enjoy what time we have left."
(for the 5 year old, at the time) "Grandma can't take care of herself at home. She is sick. The doctors have helped her and are giving her medicine. We need to visit her and let her know that we love her."
So there you have it, the process of life, death and grief, as I know it. The process from a personal point of view.