Letter to Myself in Mourning

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Abstract

rs or yourself, let it lead the way. It will be an arduous journey. There are guides, but there is no right way. No matter how public your loss, your grief will be uniquely personal. You’ll get plenty of advice, but some of it won’t feel right. It will take an unknowable amount of time, but you <i>will</i> find the means to get through each day. You <i>will</i> piece together a method of mourning that fits your situation and temperament.</p><p id="5b3c">C. S. Lewis had it right, in grief “the same leg is cut off time after time.” You hop through life for a while. The pain is acute. You’re in agony. Then, in months or years, the sharp crippling pain is replaced more and more by an ever duller throbbing. Soon instead of being in anguish you’re just sore. One day you realize you can run through the sunny fields of life laughing with true joy in your heart. You marvel at this. And then, some span of time after that, and without warning, a new amputation occurs and the cycle of acute agony and adjusting begins afresh.</p><p id="9fa9">The span of time between each amputation by grief and the ability for joy is incalculable — unique to each individual and varying at different stages in any particular person’s cycle of sorrow. In grief, you can suffer acutely for months, weeks, days, or hours. It comes when it comes, and it heals as it wants.</p><p id="cbc1"><a href="https://aabsofsteel.medium.com/good-grief-5e4e32adefae"><b>Grief</b></a> is surgery without the anesthetic. You feel every incision. You feel the surgeon’s tools slicing you open — removing important parts of your person and then sewing you up again. In grief, you’re still functional, but no longer whole. Pieces of you are now missing, and those parts will haunt you like phantom limbs — ghosts of memories and specters of futures that will never come.</p><p id="8b70">Grief is both the disease and the life-saving medicine — but the side effects are terrible. Mourning is the only way to heal, and yet it is excruciating. The alternative is to defy reality, but denial is a cancer. If it is allowed to grow unchecked in grief it will eat away at all of your emotions or corrode to the core of your sanity.</p><p id="b705">Grief is like waking up in a foreign land. You don’t know the layout. You don’t recognize your surroundings. You must find shelter and food and perhaps even companions, all the while learning a complex new language. You will grow more and more accustomed to and comfortable in this new country as time goes on, but living with grief will never ever feel like where you lived

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before. And you will be homesick often.</p><p id="2f0d">Grief is a ransacked garden you must try to restore. No matter how well you heed the tulips and hydrangea, the persistent weeds will always return. In grief, you must manage to carry more — beauty as well as darkness, healing as well as pain, joy as well as sadness, and loss as well as gain.</p><p id="8483">Unfortunately, none of this will make any sense to you today. In this moment of your mourning, all that your reality contains is pain. The loss of your mother is your whole existence now. But I am writing this letter to tell you that while there <i>will</i> always be a deficit, there <i>won’t</i> always be despair. The weight of her absence will not decrease, but you will become stronger and better able to carry it.</p><p id="8e3b">Your life will not — <i>cannot</i> — ever be the same, but it will be good again. You will laugh and mean it. You will love and enjoy. I promise. It may never be easy, but it also won’t always be as hard and raw as this. One day your sadness won’t be the only part of you that exists.</p><p id="9e6c">With sincere love and hope for your future, You (twenty years from now)</p><p id="d7fd">More from Aabye-Gayle:</p><div id="b8d8" class="link-block"> <a href="https://aabsofsteel.medium.com/mournings-end-5dcaa1c9e816"> <div> <div> <h2>Mourning’s End: There’s a light within</h2> <div><h3>I am not where I was. This grim prison is no longer my home. Its dark walls do not hem me in. I do not suffer each day…</h3></div> <div><p>aabsofsteel.medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*EjziAVmT06yiBq4bH-NGPA.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="2a30" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/just-a-dream-memory-mourning-sleep-9bcb58ac4445"> <div> <div> <h2>Just a Dream: Memory, Mourning & Sleep</h2> <div><h3>It isn’t often that I dream about my mother, but when I do I wake and wish that I had a better dream memory — and…</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*9MVfs-7WPMgDNXRGpcDQmw.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

What grief was like when my mother died

Dear Me:

It is twenty years after the worst day of your life, and I am writing to you from the future to say that it is worth living towards. I know it feels as though the world has relinquished all of its joy and purpose. I know life feels impossible and pointless. I know that you are struggling to find your way now that you have lost your mother. And so I am writing this letter — a letter to myself in mourning.

The woman who brought you into this world has left it. The woman who carried you in her womb and then in her arms is currently contained in a coffin. The woman who filled you with confidence and love has taken in her last breath. The woman who tucked you in at night has been laid to rest. Half of the couple you called home — the woman who gave you life — is dead, and right now you’re wondering why the universe hasn’t imploded due to the vacuum her absence has left.

You will find a way to navigate your mourning each day. The love and support of others will help, but you must climb out of the darkness yourself. Many will offer you their comfort and sympathies. Every kindness proffered, although well-intentioned, will feel like an additional burden — obligations to smile, put on a brave face, or say thank you as though someone is paying you a compliment instead of commenting on the worst thing that’s happened in your life — the death of your mother.

You will muster all of your mental energy in an attempt to go back in time or make now different. Your desperation to see your lost loved one alive again will be all-consuming. Reality will become the enemy because it took her from you. Time will be an accomplice because it is increasing the distance of separation. Sanity will feel utterly overrated. Normal will cease to have meaning.

Do not judge the shapes your grief takes. So long as it doesn’t cause you to harm others or yourself, let it lead the way. It will be an arduous journey. There are guides, but there is no right way. No matter how public your loss, your grief will be uniquely personal. You’ll get plenty of advice, but some of it won’t feel right. It will take an unknowable amount of time, but you will find the means to get through each day. You will piece together a method of mourning that fits your situation and temperament.

C. S. Lewis had it right, in grief “the same leg is cut off time after time.” You hop through life for a while. The pain is acute. You’re in agony. Then, in months or years, the sharp crippling pain is replaced more and more by an ever duller throbbing. Soon instead of being in anguish you’re just sore. One day you realize you can run through the sunny fields of life laughing with true joy in your heart. You marvel at this. And then, some span of time after that, and without warning, a new amputation occurs and the cycle of acute agony and adjusting begins afresh.

The span of time between each amputation by grief and the ability for joy is incalculable — unique to each individual and varying at different stages in any particular person’s cycle of sorrow. In grief, you can suffer acutely for months, weeks, days, or hours. It comes when it comes, and it heals as it wants.

Grief is surgery without the anesthetic. You feel every incision. You feel the surgeon’s tools slicing you open — removing important parts of your person and then sewing you up again. In grief, you’re still functional, but no longer whole. Pieces of you are now missing, and those parts will haunt you like phantom limbs — ghosts of memories and specters of futures that will never come.

Grief is both the disease and the life-saving medicine — but the side effects are terrible. Mourning is the only way to heal, and yet it is excruciating. The alternative is to defy reality, but denial is a cancer. If it is allowed to grow unchecked in grief it will eat away at all of your emotions or corrode to the core of your sanity.

Grief is like waking up in a foreign land. You don’t know the layout. You don’t recognize your surroundings. You must find shelter and food and perhaps even companions, all the while learning a complex new language. You will grow more and more accustomed to and comfortable in this new country as time goes on, but living with grief will never ever feel like where you lived before. And you will be homesick often.

Grief is a ransacked garden you must try to restore. No matter how well you heed the tulips and hydrangea, the persistent weeds will always return. In grief, you must manage to carry more — beauty as well as darkness, healing as well as pain, joy as well as sadness, and loss as well as gain.

Unfortunately, none of this will make any sense to you today. In this moment of your mourning, all that your reality contains is pain. The loss of your mother is your whole existence now. But I am writing this letter to tell you that while there will always be a deficit, there won’t always be despair. The weight of her absence will not decrease, but you will become stronger and better able to carry it.

Your life will not — cannot — ever be the same, but it will be good again. You will laugh and mean it. You will love and enjoy. I promise. It may never be easy, but it also won’t always be as hard and raw as this. One day your sadness won’t be the only part of you that exists.

With sincere love and hope for your future, You (twenty years from now)