What Grief Looks Like

Last night I didn’t get much sleep. This morning I’m moving more slowly than usual. Yesterday while teaching, I received a text from a close friend of mine who lost her mom not too many years ago. She had read my blog post “Mama”, and said she “cried and cried”. She said “I’ve texted the girls and…” The girls she is referring to are not girls at all really. They are close friends; grown women who seek to be more intentional and awake in how they live their lives. She had called on them to surround me with support. She was “rallying the girls” for me. She planned a sleepover. I am reminded of the girl-word “slumber party.” She said, “We want to be with you, tell stories, hold you, sit with you in silence if that is what you need.” Wow. I felt so loved, so surrounded by love and support and healing friendship that I burst into tears standing at my desk at school. My poor little first graders were coming in at the time. I used it as an opportunity to speak to them about my loss. I assured them that I was taking good care of myself and how comforting it was to have good friends. A little boy raised his hand and asked, “Good tears then?” “Yes", I said. "Good tears because I feel well loved and supported by the people in my life”.

I was ‘off’ in my work though. In that same class, I was talking about an upcoming lesson. They sat in silence looking at me. A kind and loving parapro who attends with that class walked over to me while I was teaching and gently took both my hands in hers, spoke to me in a loving tone and said, “Ms. Julia, this class has already completed that project. They took it home before winter break”. I stood there looking stunned and let it sink in. She opened her arms and said, “May I give you a hug?” I smiled and said yes, receiving her love and support. All day went like that. It seems my brain is trying desperately to catch up with my body.

This Friday I am accepting my friend’s offer. I am going to Chattanooga for love and support from “the girls”. I am infinitely grateful for the relationships in my life. Today I take it one step at a time. I am patient with myself and my own time-table of healing. Today I can lean on the support of loving friends and family.

Mama

Journal 1-7 

My Mama died on December 27^th,  just 11 days ago. I can hardly believe it. How can she not be here any more? It feels so strange. I used to call her in the mornings on the way to work, back when she was feeling better. On Wednesdays she would say something like, “The weekend’s almost here!” all cheerful like because she knew I was looking forward to the end of another work week. She knew I would rather be doing other things with my creative time  …creative gift and passion I got from her.

I can still hear her voice in my head. I can hear her say “night-night” the way she used to do. I am indescribably grateful for modern technology and the regrets I heard from those whose loved ones had passed earlier. How they wished they had recorded their voice. How they wished they had video of their loved one. Well, I wasn’t going to let that happen to me. I have her beloved Pinky voice telling me how much she loved me and how much I helped her. I have video after video of her telling her stories to me. She loved to tell stories.

How does my life go on without my mama? I know people do it all the time. They have been doing it for millennia. When my dad died, it wasn’t like this. I missed him, but it was different. With my mom there is a little girl emptiness, an aching hole in my heart. There is a void that cannot be filled, only tended to while it builds a scar. And that I have been doing; lovingly tending to myself. I have stayed in my pajamas all day. I even went to a New Year’s party in pajamas. They were Pinky’s, actually. Heavy white flannel with black dog paw prints on the pants. I have gotten a massage. I have drawn baths with bubbles and good scented oils. I have lit candles and played healing music. Once while in the tub, I played The Velveteen Rabbit narrated by Meryl Streep with music by George Winston. I lay in the warm, soothing water and sobbed. It was just what I needed.

Today is my first day back at work. The students return tomorrow. I am feeling resistant. I want to stay in my cocoon. I want to curl up and cry. I want to stay in my pajamas all day. I want to build a wall around me and not answer phone calls. I want to carry a Kleenex box and wipe my unceasing tears. I want to bring up torn cardboard storage boxes from the garage and go through endless photographs. 

Journal 1-8

Last night I slept through the night for the first time since my trip to Miami to say goodbye to mom. I’m dreaming though, just like the article on grief said. I’ve had a few bad dreams. I guess you could call them nightmares. They were disturbing enough to wake Michael and ask him to hold me as a result.

Today is the first day back at work with the students. Yesterday was tougher than I expected. When I walked in the front doors, I went to check my mailbox. Cheryl saw me, and just the action of her looking at me and rising from her desk to come hug me made me break down in tears. Then there I was talking about the experience while she stood there saying nothing and looking uncomfortable. I cried off and on most of the day.

Another unexpected occurrence was that the sisters and Louie and I texted all day long about the grief and our personal struggles throughout the day. It seemed strange and unusual for us. I could tell he was elated. Apparently mom had asked him to “keep the family together”, which is in itself a tall order. I am certain mom was the glue that held the sisters together. I’m not convinced we all like each other that much. In fact, it’s true that I never once went to visit Kat in Miami, nor did I ever have intention to do so until mom got sick. Kat stood before me when I flew out, tears in her eyes, looking extremely vulnerable and said, “I’ll never see you again.” I was struck by the truth of her words, and I felt sadness and compassion. Days later, in a text, Louie implored us all to stay together, to make a promise/commitment to stay connected as a family. Even Dona made the promise. I couldn’t help but wonder which ones really considered their actions and were willing to do the work to follow through. It was not a promise I took lightly. I am not certain, even now, of my own success with it.

So, my mom is gone and I miss her. I miss hearing her voice tell me “night-night.” I miss talking to her on the phone on the drive to work early in the a.m. It’s what broke me open yesterday morning as I pulled out of the driveway in the darkness. I miss her calls when she was struggling with feeling less-than, and how she would tell me how much better she felt after talking to me. I miss her singing Happy Birthday to me on the phone all those years of birthdays. I miss her laughter. I miss her story-telling. I miss her more than words can or ever will describe. I miss you, mama. I just can’t believe you’re gone.

Journal 1-9

Last night, before going off to bed, I listened to her voicemail messages again. I listened to her familiar Pinky voice tell me how much she loved me and how much I have helped. You see that verb tense. It’s one of the odd things one struggles with when a loved one dies. “Have” helped her… not “had”.

Listening to them brought a loud sound from within me. A wailing. Max got up from his dog bed and came over next to me and lay at my feet as I cried. Perhaps it is a new ritual… listening to her voice before I go to bed. I only wish I had one of her saying “night-night” the way she used to. In my crying, I decided to call a sister to reach out. I decided to call Billie. I have never reached out to her like that, not really. But when I was with her this last time in Miami, staying at mom’s condo, we had some very precious time one on one. Precious to me anyway. So I called her. I got her voicemail and left a message telling her I loved her and was thinking of her… telling her I was missing mom and thought to call and connect. Then I sent a simple text message to all my 5 siblings saying only “night-night”. I got one response. Gay Carney texted in reply:  "Love you all too!” I was hoping there might be a flurry of texting between siblings the way it was my first day back at work and we all stayed connected through technology saying how our day of grief was going. Texting things we remembered and were missing. Part of me was excited thinking, “oh! Maybe we will stay connected in a new way now. Maybe this really will be the start of something new.” I felt sad then when only Gay Carney texted in reply and no one else.

This morning when I woke up, the ache and realization, the remembering that she’s gone felt somehow less intense, more dulled even. I thought to myself how some part of me doesn’t want the ache to go, to be dulled, because it seems she will be even farther from me. But I know it’s what happens. It’s how the human body handles it. It’s part of the process.

More dreams last night. It’s funny, I haven’t had a dream that I remembered, or the realization that I had dreamed, for a long time. Now it seems I dream every night. That’s what I read…that when people grieve the loss of a loved one their dreams intensify and are more frequent. Mine don’t seem to even be related on the surface. The first few nights after her death I didn’t sleep except what felt like a few small breaks intermittently. It felt like sleep for 30 minute spans, or perhaps an hour at a time, but not really sleep at all. Every time I woke, I woke hearing the song I sang at her bedside or the Carly Simon song we played on the way to drop flowers in the ocean in her memory. This morning I don’t remember my dreams, but they are right there, my awareness of them.

Part of me is mad at her, you know, mad at her for leaving me. It feels little girl-like. I hear myself saying inside my head, “Mama, please don’t leave me!” I think of our phone calls and my chest aches with longing for her. I long to hold her hand, to sit beside her and talk, to listen to her tell the stories she loved to tell again and again. No, she was not the mother I wanted. No, she was not there for me so many times in the way I wanted and needed her to be. …But she was the mother I got, and I grew to love her as the mother I had. As a grown woman, I began creating a relationship with her that was so very precious to me that I let go of old wants. I was able to let go and to love, with a great big Pinky kind of love, the woman my mother was. 

Use Your Brain

I saw some stats that said women were leaning toward Romney. I just cannot wrap my head around that. I've heard some women say that they are worried about the economy and want to focus on the economy, and that's why they are leaning toward Romney. Okay, but how exactly can you address the economy or help create positive change when you don't have a voice? In Romney's world (and his supporters), women do not make choices for themselves. How can you have the power and influence to create the change you want in the world when you are treated and seen as less than a whole person? This is a civil rights issue. A friend of mine who is gay posted something on FaceBook that really deepened my understanding. He posted:

"When you read the anti-gay comments and/or rhetoric of what “gay rights” are and what they will do, replace the word gay(s) with my name.
Examples:
LEO shouldn’t be allowed to marry.
LEO getting married is a threat to families.
LEO cannot be a good parent.
LEO doesn’t love, it’s only lust.
LEO is ‘fixable’ with electroshock therapy and psychological torture.
LEO is what’s wrong ...with this country.
If LEO can marry, we should just let people marry animals.
Being LEO is a choice.

I hope that this contextualizes the argument for you.

The ‘gay movement’ is about people that love one another and want to spend their lives together. It’s about legal recognition and protection of my commitment to another person. It’s about recognizing me as a human being, worth just as much as my non-GLBT marriage-eligible counterparts.

How is that threatening to you? More importantly, how am I?"

When I read this with a man's name in it, a man I have not even yet met, but a person I feel a connection with, a like-mindedness, a person I call "friend". It puts things into perspective for me. I also have dear, close friends here in the Atlanta area whom I consider family. These family are also gay. When I put their names in this quote above, I feel angry, angry that there are so many people in our country who see my family, and me as well since I am a woman, as less than - as less than a whole human with less than rights. 

If women want to make change for a better economy, we must be creative in our thinking, in our problem-solving, in our actions. We must elect people who are creative in their thinking, in their problem-solving, in their actions. But you cannot be creative and use your critical thinking skills when you are rigid and closed, when you are not willing to let die what is old and counter-productive. I teach art in the public school system. I see this all the time. It is not just with kids in school. It is a way of operating in the world. 

You want a better economy? To accomplish that we need innovation, collaboration, creative problem solving, cooperative decision-making, the knowledge of how to make multiple revisions, and clear communication. We are living in an age of ever-changing media, technology, and information. An innovative and creative leader is tolerant and open through multicultural and historical perspectives and through their involvement in the creative process itself. There are WAY to many problems and issues in our country and our government today NOT to have someone who is a creative and innovative problem-solver. Each of us is now challenged to be and to have these characteristics above. Rigidity and holding tightly to old and outdated ideas constricts and cuts off critical thinking. Critical thinking come from a place of openness. 

To women especially I end with this quote. It is this kid of "dead woman" that Romney's culture, beliefs, and actions seek to create.
"Be good, no creative life. Sit still, no creative life. Speak, think, act demurely, little creative juice. Any group, society, institution, or organization that encourages women to revile the eccentric; to be suspicious of the new and unusual; to avoid the fervent, the vital, the innovative; to impersonalize the personal, is asking for a culture of dead women." CPE 
And I would add, dead people.

Worthy of Love & Belonging

A question was put to me; “If a person does not believe in God and the tenants of a creator, then what is to keep them from doing whatever they want, whenever they want, regardless of the consequences?”

My experience and my truth is that a person does not need God for this purpose. It is not the belief in God, nor the belief in God's guidelines or rules that makes a person act good or be good. [By "good", I mean loving, respectful, truthful, generous, thoughtful, supportive, encouraging, of integrity, and all the positive qualities one might associate with "good".]

It is rather the belief in their own worth and in their innate value and significance that drives or motivates a person to take loving, right action, and to consider how their actions impact another.

When a human knows, TRULY knows, their worth, value, and significance in the world, then that knowing, that belief that they have something of worth to bring to the table, that they are needed and necessary creates empathy, understanding, compassion, and connection to others and to community. Out of that, one comes to understand the impact of their actions on others, in the community and on the world (environmental awareness, etc.)

While it is true that some seek to get their sense of value and worthiness from their relationship with their God, it is not dependent upon that belief. I, myself, am proof of that. There are also those who believe in God and yet do not believe in their own worth, value, and significance as a human being. To see the evidence of this, all one has to do is look at their behavior and how they treat themselves and talk to themselves. A person's self-talk speaks volumes about what they truly believe.

It is also true that there are those people in the world whose actions are not what we might call good. For example their actions are often greedy, selfish, thoughtless, hurtful to others, diminishing, discouraging, belittling, lying, deceitful, etc. I could go on, but you get my meaning.

My truth is that all human beings have within them both the light and the dark. It is in embracing and owning that I too have those not-beautiful qualities that moves me out of shadow and into the light where I can see them. This is not for the purpose of beating myself up because I discovered the not-beautiful in me, but rather by bringing these shadow aspects into the light where I can see them (awareness), I can now make conscious and informed choices about how I want to act. How I want to act is driven by how I want to feel afterwards.

I will use the concrete example of adultery: I could choose to have an affair. It might feel good in the moment. But what is it costing me in the end? How do I *feel* in the end? What is really going on here? If I do not value myself, if I believe on some deep level that I am not worthy of love and belonging, then I will *live* out of that place of unworthiness. I sabotage my marriage, I destroy another's marriage, I destroy my children's home, etc.

There is more; the affair was not created in a vacuum. The acting out in an affair can be a distraction or drug that keeps me from looking at what is missing from my marriage. Somewhere something is not working for me. Somewhere some need is not getting met. Perhaps (like my first marriage), I chose a man who is belittling or demeaning in the way he speaks to and treats me. Now we are back to my belief in my own unworthiness. So in my unworthiness, I choose a man who also is disconnected from his own worth, and we co-create a marriage that does not nurture, support, and help us thrive. Because I do not value myself or see myself as worthy, I do not know how to give that in a sustaining way to my husband.

Now take this same marriage example, and nourish it with a belief in self-love, worthiness and belonging. You will get a completely different outcome. When conflict arises, and it will, the woman who knows her own worth will honor the conflict as natural. She will treat both herself and her husband with respect and conscious consideration. Why? Because she *knows* she is worthy of love and belonging. And because she knows this, she may be afraid of the unknown, but her fear does not paralyze her. She has the courage, the strength, and the belief in herself to take conscious action driven by this sense of love and worthiness (as opposed to fear and inadequacy). She is not afraid to set healthy boundaries because she is clear about her own worth. She *knows* she deserves a relationship of mutual love, respect, honesty, value, tenderness, etc. and because she *knows* this, she has chosen a man who ALSO believes he is worthy and they co-create this together.

This is not about a belief in God, but a belief in one's own innate worth.

So in answer to the question: What keeps one from doing whatever they want, whenever they want, regardless of the consequences? My answer is: Self-love. My belief in my own worth, value, and significance. That is what drives my actions, creates empathy and compassion, and connects me with the community and the world.

Heroines

Who are your female heroes? Are you too young to have seen the movie Thelma and Louise played by Susan Sarandon (one of my personal heroes) and Geena Davis? It’s such a favorite of mine, I own a copy… and I don’t own a lot of movies. When I first saw this movie, I identified with Thelma, played by Geena Davis.  She plays a passive housewife married to a verbally abusive and controlling jackass of a husband. Thelma’s character arch was how I saw myself, or wanted to see myself at the time. I too was in a marriage with a verbally abusive and controlling husband. I wanted to be free… free from the inside out.

One of the most powerful moments in the movie for me is when the two women decide they would rather have freedom in death and the unknown than live in a world where women pay the price for the sins of men. Every time I have seen this scene, I cry. Ridley Scott knows how to portray my heroines. I’d dare say Ridley Scott knows women. The character development of Louise goes from anal, compulsively neat and clean, tight French twist wrapped in a scarf - to no make-up, sunburned cheeks, hair wild and free, blowing in the wind of her convertible. We as an audience, watch them both transform in a way that to this day, I find stunning. The beauty of it takes my breath away and brings tears to my eyes.

Thelma and Louise was produced and directed by Ridley Scott in 1991. He also directed Alien, a sci-fi movie where Sigourney Weaver was pretty badass and even more badass in the sequel Aliens directed by James Cameron.

The role of women in stories has changed over time. Originally, the woman was a prop – the recipient of the hero’s love. Often portrayed as a damsel in distress or a steadfast partner. Parts played by women reflect their roles in society.

The archetype of Nurturer, altruistic, optimistic, capable, is one that gets a lot of good press. She is often most content at home, and takes care of everyone around her before tending to her own needs. An ideal mother, companion or friend, She is loyal and truly kind, always ready with encouragement. Pleasant and enjoyable, she is the glue in social settings. Has a hard time saying no – a people pleaser. And although this Nurturer energy has many wonderful and necessary qualities, women often stay stuck in the shadow aspects of this archetype, failing to give the same time, attention, and love to their own needs, desires, and dreams.

There are many archetypes playing out in the lives of women, and they each have both a light and a shadow side. The four archetypes of survival are Victim, Saboteur, Child, and the Prostitute. You might read this and say, “WHAT??!!! PROSTITUTE! VICTIM! Child, sure I get that… and MAYBE I can sometimes see Saboteur, but not those other ugly and distasteful archetypes.” And my response to that is, they call it Shadow for a reason, Honey. 


Our shadow is disowned and rejected aspects of self. Usually it is because we see those aspects as negative in some way. But we also disown our beauty, our strength, our power. We then see it in our projections onto other women and wish we could be more like them, not knowing that we hold that very thing we see inside of ourselves. Estes (WWRWTW) reminds us that shadow also “can contain the divine, the luscious, beautiful, and powerful aspects of personhood. For women especially, the shadow most always contains very fine aspects of being that are forbidden or given little support by her culture. At the bottom of the well in the psyches of too many women lies the visionary, the creator, the astute truth-teller, the far-seer, the one who can speak well of herself without denigration, who can face herself without cringing, who works to perfect her craft. The positive impulses of shadow for women in our culture most often revolve around permission for the creation of a handmade life.”

This is some of what we will explore at the Women’s Soul Journey Retreat in September. Join us for this rich discussion, healing, growth, and play in the north Georgia mountains. For more information, follow this link and click on Fall Women’s Retreat; Exploring the Good Girl Archetype. http://juliaspeerart.com/Soul_Tending.html