But the thing is, grief is a process- an interesting one at that. I've learned a lot about it over the years as I've experienced different deaths and have seemingly stumbled onto a theme.: grief isn't always about losing individuals. The longer I live and love and lose, the more it seems to me that my individual griefs are really just one big ball of grief. One that will only continue to grow until it is my turn to depart from this place. What I mean is that as I lose different people over the course of time I find that I am reminded of the other losses of my life- the other people that have gone on along the way.
Beyond its usually terrifying reputation, I've found grief to actually be pretty useful in my growth as a human here on planet earth. I didn't always feel this way though. My first real experience of death was losing my mother, Helene, when I was 11 and she was only 34. This loss came as a total unexpected shock to all of my family. One day she was here, the next she was not. I was devastated and had some sense of regret- I wished I had talked to her more and been more eager to spend time with her. In many ways this grief defined me throughout a good deal of my life. Until a few years ago (when I lost my father and passed the age of 34 myself) part of my identity was 'the girl who lost her mom'.
The next death that had a major impact on my life was losing my grandpa, Quincy. I was 28 and he was 76. One of the biggest differences in his death is that we all knew it was going to come at some point in the near future. We just weren't sure when. Knowing this, I took a little time away from my bustling 20's existence to spend some time with him and, having learned from the loss of my mother a little bit, to ask him questions and hear his tales with fresh ears. We had a few special moments where he used this time to impart some advice for after he was no longer with us. When he passed in 2008, I found that while I still wished I had more time with him, I felt a better sense of resolve with how I had handled his passing.
Then there was the loss of my other biological parent- my father, John, who passed away 3 years ago today. He was 55 and I was 33. Following a long struggle with a battery of health issues, my mom (step-mom- Suzanne) and I had some heavy conversations where we faced the fact that it didn't seem that he had a whole lot longer. I spent many hours next to him as he was in the ICU or different rehab facilities throughout this time, watching him struggle to even breathe at times. But something miraculous happened 9 months before he passed. He had a stroke that strangely had some 'resetting' effects to his mind and personality. After this event he seemed to return to himself for the remainder of his life, showing immense willpower to change his fate and proving to himself that he could change. We were fortunate to have so many wonderful and open conversations about his situations in which we were able to tell each other exactly how we felt about one another, and he shared his heart for me in my life beyond his presence here.
If you had asked me how I would react to my father's passing years ago, I would never have expected it to have gone as well as it did. It's a strange thing to say- "the death of my father went well for me." But it did...as well as these things can. 3 years ago today, when I finally had a few moments to myself and let myself go, I felt reminded, as if by him that, yes, it was ok and totally normal to be sad but that he would never want it to keep me from living my own happy life. That would be the last thing he would want. He wanted me to live life and live it to the fullest I could possibly manage.
Because of this, I am free.
Death becomes us, if only we let it.