They say when someone close to you dies, you’ll grieve the loss forever, and the depth and duration of your sadness shows how much you loved the person. Experience tells me you can go on loving a person long after they’re gone, but you have to let go of the grief first.
My mom died two weeks after my 22nd birthday. It was a brain aneurysm… she just collapsed one day and was gone. I had no idea how to handle this, and as far as I can remember, neither did anyone else.
Other family members had died and I knew the significant pain of sudden death, but they didn’t hit me so directly. The immensity of this loss was not something I was able to process at first. In the long weeks I spent at home after she died, I mostly wished I could make it go away.
Just out of college and barely settled into my adult life, the ground had fallen away beneath my feet, and I no longer knew this motherless world, or if it was safe to move forward again. But I felt so much pressure to continue on with the life I had started that I did just that — and I carried my tears with me.
At first a high-drama boyfriend and the challenges of trying to be an adult in the world distracted me, but the tears were always there, just under the surface… waiting. For the longest time, I felt so sad; sad about the way my mom’s life ended, sad that I had to live the rest of my life without a mother, sad that tragic, uncontrollable things could happen to people. It all seemed so awful.
Gradually the tears settled further below the surface, but there were triggers. Mother’s Day was the worst. I used to dread having some unsuspecting co-worker ask what I was doing for my mom. The question always brought up a flood of emotion that I did not want spilling over at work.
I thought this sadness was something I had to live with, because once someone dies you’re supposed to cry about it for the rest of your life.
But then 13 years after my mom died, I decided to try an energy healing session — it was reiki. I didn’t go to heal anything; I just wanted to know what it was like.
The first session was relaxing, so I kept going. At the end of the third session, I was lying on the table, and the woman, apparently well tuned in to me, asked me to tell her the worst thing that had happened in my life. I said, “My mom died.” And as I said it, a tidal wave of grief flowed all the way through me, in one side and right out the other. It was so painful for a split second I thought I might die, and then it was over.
I was shaken and had no idea what happened to me.
I still can’t tell you what happened to me, but I can tell you the result: All those tears I carried with me left and never returned. From then on, whenever someone asked me about my mom or Mother’s Day, I could look them directly in the eye and say, “My mom died,” and feel normal rather than overwhelmed with tragedy.
What I understand now is that grief is a storm of emotions that is meant to be moved through, not held on to.
I unknowingly held on to the grief because I thought that was the way to show I loved my mom, but also because, beyond the family photos and fine china, the sadness seemed like all I had left. Now though, with 27 years of hindsight, I see that at some point the lingering grief turned into self-pity. I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself and my mom and what happened to us — and that’s not love.
Once I released those emotions, I was eventually able to honor my mom and the entire life event in a clearer way. I could remember her and talk about her without feeling like the ocean was rising up to swallow me whole, and it finally felt safe to let her back into my heart.
In time, I even allowed myself to smile, a real, heartfelt smile, as I remembered her sweet laugh, and her strawberry preserves, and how much I loved giving her big hugs in the kitchen late at night.
If you are grieving, I would never try to tell you how long you should grieve; it’s a highly personal process, so take as long as you need. What I would tell you is that it’s okay to let it go when you’re ready. I feel closer to my mom now than I ever did when I was holding on to the sadness.
Matcha Latte