THERE IS GRIEF IN LIFE
Over last 4 years of my life I have experienced loss. I have experienced life. I have experience motherhood, Parenthood. Partnership. But grief has shaped me the most and touched each aspect and part of me. And in every life there is loss. So let’s talk about the real stuff. Why am I writing about grief on my postpartum doula site? Well, grief is a shared experience. For all of us. Whether it is death or the loss of self, or even mourning our old self to make room for our new self. Grieving can be as profound as miscarriage or late term loss or it can be grieving who we were before motherhood and allowing ourselves to process that grief and live with that grief as we forge ahead.
Four years ago I lost my dear friend and coworker (the one who made my logo and helped me dream up this idea) when he dropped dead at age 46 of massive heart attack. I said goodbye as I always did at the end of our work day and woke up to a phone call from his wife that he was gone. He was there one day. Gone the next. He was a husband, father, son, brother & friend. It was life altering. Shook me to my core. Still does. He was a beautiful human and a dear friend and it just didn’t make any sense. Still doesn’t.
3 months after that the pandemic hit, and I think we can all relate to a deep sense of grief during that time. What is this life we are living? What happens when the world shuts down? What is actually important to us? Who are we right now?
Then about a year and a half after that my whole world changed. My mother, my best friend. the Lorilei to my Rory - just one day couldn’t speak and I just remember the doctor in the ER with tears welling up in her eyes saying “I’m so sorry your Mom has brain cancer.” I didn’t know that it was glioblastoma at the time and that the prognosis was one of the worst there is, but in that moment I know that doctor felt my grief. It was hard at the time, but I think about that doctor often. How they aren’t supposed to let on how bad it is. They are supposed to compartmentalize work and emotion. But in that moment she gave me compassion, and deep love.
The next 8 months were the worst of my life. Brain surgery, hope one day, a grand maul seizure the next, doctors appointments, chemo, raidiation, hair loss, speech loss, anticipitory grief, daily grief, and then 8 months in the ultimate grief. I lost my Mom the moment she was diagnosed. Because it was brain cancer and it effected her language and logic she was never the same person again. One day she was my Mom, then each day for 8 months someone new. I still don’t know how I survived that time. You just do. Because you have to. But my Mom was my world. My rock. My best friend. Truly my Lorilie to my Rory. We were THAT close. We told each other everything, talked every single day, she showered me with words of affirmation and supported me feircley and without question. I didn’t think I could live without her in all honesty,
But here I am. Living. Loving. Lost at times. And living the most I ever have at others. I lost my Mom after 8 months after diagnosis and 7 grewling days in hospice on February 10, 2021. It will be two years this winter and I still can’t believe she’s gone. I literally have to sit and will myself to believe it’s real. She is dead. And I am living. So, I am taking what she left me and living fiercely without question. I am not living in anger or fear. I am living in the endless love she left me. I am so incredibly grateful for my Mom every single day of my life. Yes, she was taken from us way too soon (age 65) and yes, it’s unfair I had to see her suffer like that, but man oh man am I lucky. My Mom left me so many beautiful gifts in the time she was here. She left me immense love, confidence that I can do and be anything, she left me with the wisdom of how to be a good mother to my children, and she left behind the warmth she gave to others in everything she did. I feel that warmth with me every single day. In the way my kids still talk about their Gigi. In the way the warm sunshine hits my face just when I need in most. In the Robin (her name) bird that shows up on my lawn. Or the song that plays on the radio.
Losing my mother was the hardest thing I’ve lived through in this life. And the most gratitude I’ve ever felt. And the most sad I’ve ever felt and the most alive I’ve ever felt all at the same time. I am forever changed by this grief. I love deeper, feel more, stay more present in the moments, and show more compassion for those around me. I want to live life harder. I want to be myself unapolgetically. I want to take more risks and reap more rewards.
Grief changes us. And I think if we allow to, it can be a meaningful change. Yes it comes with deep sadness, but also deep feel-it-in-your-soul happiness. Because we can’t feel love without loss. We can’t feel true happiness without true grief. And we can’t be our true selves unless we learn to walk alongside these moments not turn away, or forget or pretend it never happened. I face my grief so I can face my joy with every fiber of my being.
To all my postpartum Moms out there, or the Moms who have experienced loss, or who the Moms who just need to know they are not alone - life is hard. Motherhood is hard. Parenthood is hard. It’s all hard. But man, can it be truly beautiful too. Lean into the discomfort. Lean into the grief. Lean into the help. Lean into this new version of yourself. So you can fully lean into the joy when it presents itself. Because life is full of joy too. Real, raw, beautiful, wonderful, delicate, fleeting JOY.
