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Accommodating Grief

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Today marks 40 days after my mother’s death, days I’ve spent riding the roller coaster of emotions that come with loss and change. The roller coaster metaphor is often used in discussion of grief, and I’ve come to realize how apt it really is. There are days when I’m perfectly fine, even happy, able to complete my activities with normal energy and enthusiasm. Other days are like slogging through deep mud, when everything makes me cry and I want to stay in bed with the covers pulled over my head.

Thing is, I never know what kind of day it’s going to be. It IS like riding a roller coaster - but with your eyes closed so you can’t see what’s coming. 

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100 Days of Grace

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I’ve had 30 days of grief, and while I know I’m not nearly done with it, there are now fleeting moments of something approaching happy, something I can only call Grace. 

Sometimes it sneaks up on me when I’m watching a TV show and I burst out laughing.

Other times it arrives like an old friend when I cuddle with one of the pups, or my husband reaches out and touches my hand.

Often I don’t realize it until it’s done, like the satisfaction I feel after a weekend of concerts with my bell group.

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Soundtracks

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Everyone has favorite form of “therapy,” the things they do to relax, to relieve tension, to reward themselves for completing a big project. When I’m journeying through a period of stress in my life, words and music always offer a balm to my troubled soul. Sometimes it’s writing and playing the piano - physically engaging in activities with music and words.  Other times it’s reading or listening, entering into the ideas and melodies created by others.

During this past month, I relied on all of those therapeutic techniques to get me through the stress and sadness associated with my mother’s illness and death. I read a lot and I wrote a lot, and carried books and journals back and forth to the hospital and the hospice care center. 

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The Kindness of Strangers

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Last Monday night I attended a board meeting for the community theater I work with, and one of the board members offered her condolences on my mother’s death.  “You have the best friends!” she exclaimed, having expressed her sympathy at the loss of my “sweet Mama.” Although I don’t know this woman too well, we are connected on Facebook and she has seen the many thoughtful comments on my recent posts. 

“You’re so right,” I agreed wholeheartedly. “I certainly do!"

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What Happens Next

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In a process resembling the aftermath of Christmas, I’ve begun putting my house (literal and figurative) back in order. The immediate business of death and all the posthumous ritual is over. Thank you notes have been written and mailed. Lists are being made, both on paper and in my head, of people left to call, services to cancel, tasks to complete. My son and his family went back to their home in Dallas yesterday, and I spent the afternoon putting all Connor’s toys away, doing laundry, and taking the first steps toward the “new normal” life that awaits me, the life without my mother figuring prominently in it