Thoughts on Grief

I had an experience recently in which a close family member died unexpectedly and suddenly. It was one of those things where the person was completely fine, moving through life normally on a Thursday and by Tuesday at 2 am was dead. None of us had enough time to even begin to wrap our heads around the fact that she was even sick before they were unplugging her from the life-saving devices that had kept her breathing for the last two days of her stay in the hospital. I’ve often wondered about the difference between the kind of death that you can see happening over a long period of time and the kind we experienced a few weeks ago. In that curiosity I’ve asked myself which type of death might be better and I often found myself believing that the kind that you have time to come to terms with would be easier to deal with. I’m not so sure now. I think no matter how you slice it, death is hard. Grief is hard. Fast or slow, short life or long, you cannot escape the grief that will follow the loss of a loved one. In many ways it is the cost we all sign up for in the beginning and one we often forget we agreed to until the grief comes knocking on our doors.

After she died we learned that this particular family member had liver cancer. We didn’t know she had liver cancer officially until she was already gone. They did a biopsy on her mass after she was admitted to the intensive care unit and the results weren’t even processed before there was nothing left for anyone to do but say goodbye. My sister had called me about a month prior and told me that her mother had gone in to the doctor and they discovered a mass on her liver. We all immediately assumed it was cancer, what else could it be? I was speechless in that moment. I didn’t know what to say or what to think about the information being disseminated to me but a side of myself I often struggle to understand showed up in that moment. I have this side of myself that I guess I will call my shadow self or my dark side. I like to think that this side of me is my hurt inner child who doesn’t yet know how to ask for help, be vulnerable with others, give and receive love, and acts solely on her most basic instincts to be seen, heard, understood, cared for. To have someone get it. To see what I’ve been through and acknowledge it, help me carry that load for a while. This shadow self showed up in this moment. That small voice said, if she does have cancer, maybe my sister will understand what I’ve been through, how I feel. Maybe this can bring us closer, create more shared understanding. I can imagine it might be difficult to read that sentence and not think, “You wanted her mother to die?”. No, logically I absolutely did not want this but I want this space to be an open one. One in which I can share my innermost thoughts and that you, might feel less alone, less weird, less like maybe there is something wrong with you. So much of how we pathologize ourselves comes from thinking we’re the only ones who have thought a certain thing or felt a certain way.

Later in March, my sister called me on a Friday because her mom was in the hospital and she wasn’t sure what to do. She wasn’t sure whether she should get on a plane and come home or wait it out. “Come here now.” I said, knowing that no matter what happened, she would want to be here. If this was going to be her mothers final moments, as someone who has lost their mother and did not have the chance to say goodbye or be with her in her final moments, I knew she needed to be here. She came on a Friday evening, was with her mother in the hospital on Saturday, we were all there together on Sunday and by Tuesday morning at 2am she was gone. On Monday, my sister had been at the hospital all day with her mom. I stayed home because due to COVID protocols in hospitals, patients were only allowed two visitors per day and I wanted those closest to her to be able to have those coveted spots. I went to sleep and awoke only a couple hours later and my sister was not home yet. It was well past visiting hour at the hospital and I knew she wouldn’t leave unless they made her. Me: “Hey is everything okay?” Her: “It won’t be long now, come here now”. I got in my car and drove to the hospital and went right back into her room. Her long-term partner, best friend, my sister and her brother were in the hospital room with her. I never got to say goodbye to her but I was in the hospital when her heart stopped. When the staff unplugged her from the machines keeping her alive and we all said goodbye. I always thought it would be too difficult to be with someone in their final moments. To have that memory of them seared into your brain. I was right and wrong about that. I do have that memory seared into my brain and sometimes I have intrusive thoughts that show me that image. Of her lifeless on that hospital bed. No light in her eyes, no infectious laugh, just her shell on the table, on the bed. Just there, nothing more. The thing I wasn’t able to comprehend before having this experience is that I also have all of the memories of her alive and well in my brain too and that those memories far outweigh the weight of her final moments.

I felt like an imposter being in that hospital room with her. Thinking, “I don’t deserve to be here.” I wasn’t important enough for this. The guilt set in in a way I had never experienced before either telling me that I was a fake, that I didn’t call her enough, tell her I loved her enough, text her back enough, try hard enough. For the love of god why didn’t I pay more attention while she was still alive. While she was still herself. While she was still a mother who wanted to mother me. Why didn’t I let her do that? 

As sad as I am to lose this wonderful human being it was such an important experience for me to get to be part of what happens when a trauma brings people together. To be able to share your grief openly with others who are also having the same feelings as you. To completely understand that someone else loved the person you are grieving just as much if not more than you did. I didn’t get to experience that with my own mothers death. I was left alone to experience that. In this process I have been able to stay connected to my emotional experience and feel my feelings as they come up. That shared experience allowed my body to feel safe enough to express myself and it was an incredibly healing experience that brought us closer together. It seems like such a uniquely human experience that we aren’t fully able to appreciate things until they are gone. It also seems cliche to use death as a reminder of why it’s important to live while we can but that is exactly the gift it gives us. She is on my mind all the time now and I think of her when I find myself getting frustrated or upset or my fuse becomes short. I use her as a reminder to do better, to try harder, to not take life so seriously. I have a renewed sense of love for my family and a desire to keep our bonds close and strong and I have a renewed sense of love and respect for myself and my body that keeps me alive and moving through the world.

I hope instead of forgetting with time that I should value this life that I have been given that I can keep that at the forefront of my mind and live with Barbara’s spirit as I move through the world.