Tips For a Good Day During Grief

What is your definition of a “good” day after losing someone you love? Does it mean you get out of bed? Have coffee outside the house or take a walk? Can you clean or take some time for healing, reading, or put effort into your latest work or mission? Ruminating for too long is the greatest barrier to moving through grief. And, I do know that laughing or even being outside can look like a complete betrayal in the beginning because that person can't laugh so why should you? So, on the good days it's critical to create new experiences that may just be the self-care to shower. You don't have to find a reason to do anything and you don't need to justify why you can't. Getting up starts with stopping. Stop yourself for laying there and try.

1.      Leave the house immediately. No matter the temperature or weather, get up, get a shower and dress for the day. Go for a walk around the neighborhood or buy something small for your SELF. Please don’t make big plans and then discover that it’s too soon to be around many people if you’re only ready to venture out into your yard, neighborhood, or nearest park. Make your walk a ritual. Start your day or end the evening with nature and by the bilateral stimulation that allows the brain to process. 

Distract your grief while walking or in nature by using your senses. Name something you see, hear, can touch, and most importantly SMELL that you like. Opening your nasal passages and allowing for fresh air to flow through you provides the brain with something new and your brain needs new.

2.      Phone a friend. I call my lifelines (mostly whoever is available to listen) when I’m falling apart. It helps me to verbalize my pain, doubt, and guilt so that I can overcome it for a moment. But, you'll need to change the focus from you to the person you call. Show interest in his or her story. Because for everyone else, life goes on. Seems like something we do every day but we were different people before we lost our loved one. We need the balance of talking it through but not too much to ignore the part of life with the living.

3.      Read for pleasure. We’re already overloaded with self-help material like books about grief, death, suicide, and a plethora of recommendations or gifts of books to read. Instead, pick up a book that will take you on an adventure. I just finished The Count of Monte Cristo in a beautiful escape. Read something you LIKE. If you’re in the mood to learn, by all means motivate yourself but allow the brain to experience pleasure and escape without analyzing yourself.

4.      Clean. Take the opportunity to rearrange, organize, and create a space for YOU. I bought a beautiful salt lamp and small tabletop fountain for my bedside to create a space that feels good. Cleaning is almost impossible in the throes of grief (which most people can’t comprehend and we can’t focus on trying to explain it) but if you can put things away, the brain sees this organization and understands the process of solving problems. The eye movement of washing the floors on your hands and knees soothes you while you allow your mind to wander, a healthy passing of time indeed! Please stay away from organizing materials from your loved one. It never ends well.

Pump up the jams. Whether you play an instrument or simply love your playlist on good days, turn it up and get the body moving! Dance in your kitchen, relax with lofi in the tub, just sing and move and hum. If you're feeling frisky in a few minutes, don't believe that you can belt out that emotional slow jam that makes you think of your loved one. Stick to the fun, maintain the balance.

I keep it very simple these days. I am not out at restaurants with many people or in crowded places much, even on my good days. I’m not the same person I was before my daughter passed. I keep things slow and easy in these last 6 months. I only do what I can, when I can and I don’t explain to anyone.

Remember, this one point if nothing else speaks to you. Until you’re ready to live for your SELF again, live for your loved one. For me, I am Taylor-powered on the good days. I use her energy, knowing she’s with me, watching over me. I talk to my daughter out loud while I sit by the pond. I only do what I can and on the good days, I want to make her happy and proud of me for being the strong mom she always thought me to be. I want to continue to live in her honor, in a way that will give to others through empathy and compassion as I lived before I lost her. Grief has no time limit and tomorrow may be the day you’ll find me on the floor sobbing. So for just one day, I offer you a little lift and a little life and a pep in your step. One day you will live for you knowing that we’re all one, we’re all together, that they never truly leave us and that we can make them proud through the devastation that has altered us for the rest of our lives. And, it's all okay.

Despair And Madness The Constant Visitors

Despair is madness. I don’t think I’ll use either word in general conversation again. Despair approaches with a gentle, “Come on. Feel me.” It begins as I set the breakfast plates on the table. Why didn’t I cook breakfast for my kids more? Why did I stop? I know it was important to them. I can’t forgive myself. That thought is replaced by a sweet kiss from the dogs or my own Knight in Shining Armor. The subject is changed, breakfast and dishes are done and I swoop by the wall that holds her butterfly wings that lit up. She wore those wings at a circus demonstration. She was getting stronger. Her voice was heard. I know she had to feel good about herself. Why did I leave her? If I would have stayed home this time I would have seen the decline. I can control the panting at this point, restrain the wicked Madness for a time.

When I’m left alone in this paradise I choose an activity that is similar to elephant families stroking the bones of their families. Only I find letters, videos, stories, books from both of my children because one being physically present is equally ravaging my mind as I struggle to protect him from the same fate. We live far away from each other and it’s tearing me apart. But, it’s for the best and he’s at school and happy. And, I bow my head, chin touching my chest, nose lapped at the tip by the tiny waves of despair that will soon drown me. Despair doesn’t drown until you reach the demise of the body and this anguish. I sift through their school work, letters, photos, and videos and then usually, despair enters.

Despair feels like I’m laying down. I am usually laying down on whatever floor, basement, kitchen, or on the grass outside and I’m always wailing, wailing for her. In the beginning, I remember writing that my soul is wailing for her. Yes, you could potentially come to my home and find me on my side grasping my hair, tensing my legs, folding them in and then out through the sobs that wrack my body and ring the ears of my soul. I believe the bell rings for Madness.

Madness strolls in with the answer in the form of questions. But, they’re never the right questions because as I am writhing and rocking, screaming her name or begging to know why she wanted to leave me and why exactly I have to stay here among the living. Madness picks up the phone for you and conveniently dials numbers to people who will answer for me. I demand to know why I’m here. I demand to know why I am not punished for my daughter taking her life. I want to know if my son really needs me or wants me and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t because I am a bad person. I’m not compassionate anymore because I don’t have the capacity. It’s true I lived for her. I know that now. But, it was glorious. I loved every second of my life with her. Hard, hard times tore into us but we survived them together. We fought together. We loved together.

Madness pours your wine while despair takes the first sip. In a drunken stupor and now with a sick stomach, I realize that I don’t think about her really. I think about me and how my daughter being gone has affected me. I’m intoxicated thinking that it would be ok for me check out. How dare I? How could I have even mentioned it to people I call for help that I would be happy to leave them? Panic and anxiety step in. I try to explain to them that I don’t have a purpose in my life now. Who am I really? I am not the strong and resilient fighter, I’m drowning in despair.

I ask my support system of the moment (and there have been many to thank) all of these questions and I cry and I raise my voice in absolute madness. But, I’m always pushed up through the water that crushes my entire chest, leaving a cavern at least for the next day. I am pulled up by the people I talk to. The conversation changes and I ask about them and their lives and I feel better about that. The water is washing up in the tide and I’m standing on the beach and I’m still shaking and I don’t remember climbing desperately out of the water.

But, I’m on the phone and I’m laughing at one point at least. I don’t know how I got there but the madness and it’s rapacious appetite for pain diminishes into a small red cancer that sits in the back of my Self until despair returns from right around the corner, in little tiny reminders all over the house and all over my mind and all over my heart and my soul. She’s always with me. I don’t want to hear that again. We cannot be separated. And, someday my son and I will grow closer and I will grow stronger with my Knight and tribe by my side. But, just know what pain really feels like before you decide to put someone through it. And, if you know someone going through it just hug them and be nice. That’s all. Don’t ignore their loved ones. Just love them. You see, despair and madness may have dissipated for a moment, but they took my love for my Self with them. And, I’m not sure how to get that back without her or if I want to but for her, I know that I must. She believed in me. “You’re the bravest, strongest mom I know.”