Have you even wondered why you are feeling so sad? So unproductive? So foggy? Why you are feeling such a loss during the pandemic??
Are you struggling as much as I am??
I think we all feel it in one way or another and at different times, and my good friend shared with me a podcast that made so much sense to me, and might for you too.
David Kessler and Brene on Grief and Finding Meaning on spotifiy. Take a listen and let me know what you think.
It couldn't have come at more of a perfect time for me as many of you know I find Alyssa and Jessica's birthday, which was yesturday, bittersweet.
This podcast normalized grief for me. I remember writing a post called the Warrior in Me many years ago and talking about the 5 stages of grief and how they were presented in my Twin Twin Transfusion bereavement package. I was or had been through them all and still feel some of them. Because there isn't really an end to grief as many of you know who have lost someone you love.
These are very similar to the 5 stages of dying that Elizabeth Kubler Ross wrote about in her book Death and Dying back in 1969.
Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. Many years later David Kessler, and Elizabeth cowrote Grief and Grieving and talked about the stages of grief being similar to dying, but how they are not linear, they are not a pattern or scaffolding. As he said "these stages don't prescribe, but describe general patterns" Because there is no 5 easy steps to what we feel when we lose someone, but they can help to normalize what we are feeling.
David took it a little further after he lost his son pushing acceptance stage into a 6th step of Finding Meaning - individual and collective grief. When we are going through a loss, we don't talk about what stage we are in, we may think about this later. Although I felt the stages I didn't really look at them until later, I talked about how much I missed my daughter at the time.
Because there really is no end to grief, it's so hard to accept our biggest losses so finding meaning can help us move forward. Jessica's life mattered. Finding meaning is not in her death but it is within ME and what I create from it. This made perfect sense to me. When she passed away, I wasn't grateful, I was angry and sad and hurt and felt crazy. Getting out of bed was a chore, showering and going back to the hospital to be with Alyssa were big wins at the time. Spending time with Emily was hard.
But in time, after I let the pain sink in, I had to feel it all - then I felt gratitude that I was able to meet Jessica. I was able to hold her, hold both of my girls together in my arms when things could have been different. Gratitude I had her for that month. I felt gratitude for the nurses who cared for our girls and for us. They were our rocks. Gratitude for the other mom's in the NICU who listened to me and helped me get through some of my darkest moments.
Then I found meaning in her short life, to do something to hopefully bring people together and to help other families who are in similar situations at the IWK by starting the IWK 5K - In Memory of Jessica. 10 years was amazing, and it helped me with finding meaning. And then it stopped. And I struggled for the past two years because I felt like I wasn't doing enough. I always want to do more.
So now bring us to COVID-19. David talks about grief as being the death of something, whether it is our loved one, our marriage, our job....or the collective loss of the World as we knew it.
No wonder we are feeling this heaviness, we cry out of the blue and don't seem to be as productive as we used to be. The world we were used to is gone. Soon we will be reminiscing about life before the pandemic. Remember when we used to shake hands with everyone when we first met? Remember how we hugged our friends and our neighbors when we were excited to see them? Remember blowing out your birthday candles and not worried that your spit would go on your friends piece of cake? We've had SO many losses. Loss to our routine, loss of physical touch, loss of dinner dates and social gatherings. We often don't know what we have until it's gone. I'm a touchy feely person, and love hugs and I touch my clients on the shoulder all the time or my friends to comfort. This has been hard.
So he talked about naming this feeling we are having so we can truly feel it. Name it for what it is. He also talked about the importance of not comparing your grief with others. Which I think is so true with any loss. I remember going to bereavement classes and I felt like I didn't fit in because although we had all lost I was the only one who had twins. I felt like people in the group felt my grief was less then theirs because I still had a living child. Don't compare your grief. He talked about how the stats for divorce after losing a child was high, not necessarily just because of the loss but because we both grieve differently and it is challenging to fill up your partners empty tank when you are empty yourself.
Keith didn't go to bereavement sessions and at the time I felt like he wasn't grieving enough. That was so unfair of me. Because we ALL grieve differently. I cried, I ran, I was very public about my loss, and he held things in. But there was nothing wrong with how he grieved it was just different. And not I'm realizing I was judgy. And as David says "Judgment demands punishment" So when we judge someone, for anything really, we are going to hurt for doing that or we are hurting them. It's a miracle we did stay together, because we were both on empty tanks. But we found our way.
Similarly we can't compare our losses with Covid in one area to the next. My friend was telling me the other day she was talking to someone in Ontario for work who actually sounded happy to hear that Nova Scotia was in lockdown like the rest of the world. Don't be judgy. We are all going through this pandemic together and although some places are hit harder then other, we are all collectively feeling this loss in one way or another. So instead of comparing who has it worst, lets support each other in what ever way we can. I love his long spoon story.
"The worst loss is always YOUR loss" . So when we think about our kids who have not experience a whole lot of loss yet, missing school, their friends, their sports and social activities is THEIR worst loss. So maybe we need to be a little more patient with our kids, try and understand how big of a loss they are feeling. In our eyes, we know this is not forever, the pandemic will end, but to them what they are feeling is real.
When Jessica first passed away. I ran. That's how I dealt with my grief. I ran all the time. We all need a way to deal with this grief we are experiencing. And it is super challenging now when we can't socialize and help each other through it together because we all have empty tanks. I've been injured since November and feeling like I need an outlet during Covid. I haven't had the event to plan, and I haven't been running. I'm a bit of a mess to be totally honest. I NEED to run for my head. So today I did just that. I ran. I ran hard, and fast, only for a couple of seconds, then walked, then did it again, many times. Man I needed that more then I realized.
What are you doing to help yourself or your friends/family to get through this?
