Removing the Barrier of Grief

It seems the walk through Holy Week has ignited similar feelings in many of us grieving mothers as we continue to work to become accustomed to the fact that our children are no longer physically here. There are some common threads weaving through us as we process the concepts of suffering, resurrection and afterlife. One fellow writer's blog entry recently included beautiful words about her deep longings for her daughter's physical presence and the desire to be near her. Another expressed anger, angst and questioned the existence of God. One other has put all of her faith in the Risen Jesus, and trusts him to show her the way.

Now a member of this "elite club", I can relate to so many of their poignant words. On most given days I'm an emotional, wandering, seeking, questioning, struggling, but hopeful soul, attempting to find my way in this new existence.

For another perspective, I sometimes refer to this passage from "A Grief Observed", a book written by C S Lewis, in which he details his bereavement after his wife's death from bone cancer. I find his observations here to be quite accurate in my own personal experience.

Something quite unexpected has happened. It came this morning early. For various reasons, not in themselves at all mysterious, my heart was lighter than it had been for many weeks. For one thing, I suppose I am recovering physically from a good deal of mere exhaustion. And I'd had a very tiring but very healthy twelve hours the day before, and a sounder night's sleep; and after ten days of low-hung grey skies and motionless warm dampness, the sun was shining and there was a light breeze.

And suddenly at the very moment when, so far, I mourned H. least, I remembered her best. Indeed it was something (almost) better than memory; an instantaneous, unanswerable impression. To say it was like a meeting would be going too far. Yet there was that in it which tempts one to use those words. It was as if the lifting of the sorrow removed a barrier...

She seems to meet me everywhere. Meet is far too strong a word. I don't mean anything remotely like an apparition or a voice. I don't mean even any strikingly emotional experience at any particular moment. Rather, a sort of unobtrusive but massive sense that she is, just as much as ever, a fact to be taken into account.

It is not yet four months since Erin passed away, and my grief is still extremely raw. There is a bubbling well of emotions lying just beneath this exterior layer of stoicism. If you tap just slightly below that surface, I easily erupt. I'm still very weary, and most likely will be for a long time to come. Watching Erin face this rival for three years has taken its toll. But as Lewis suggests in the first part of the passage, exhaustion tends to make one more vulnerable to grief. I know I'm much more inclined to negative emotion when I haven't slept well, and unfortunately that is still a good deal of the time. I hope to remember how someday. And I'm very much affected by the dreary days, typically feeling so much better when the sun shines.

I agree with Lewis' words, with an affirmation that grief shrouds my happiness. It steals its way in and slyly puts a thick, opaque veil over the memory of Erin's beauty and the strength of her character. When I'm sad, it's the memory of the cancer and the effects it had on her body and her life that are making me sad. So essentially, I'm not remembering Erin.

Erin was a happy, healthy, athletic, tenacious, smart young lady. When she got sick, those traits not only remained with her, but gained intensity while fueling her with physical strength and the ability to face head-on into very scary and unfamiliar situations. Her response to nearly everything throughout those three years was one of fierce determination. And when she decided it was time to let go, she did so with grace. I'm so proud of the way she handled the unimaginable, and I'm so grateful she took charge and called the shots and never became depressed. Those memories, of her choices and character, make me happy.

Erin was only really fearful in the beginning with the initial diagnosis, because it was horrifically shocking. At that time, she was so sick and very fragile. Once a plan of attack was developed, it didn't take her long to become pretty much unflappable. Like me, she was a girl who liked a plan. I hate the memory of the fear she initially had. That memory makes me very sad, but that was the cancer revealing its ugly head causing the fear. Then Erin took the wheel and gained control. When I think of that Erin, I'm happy because that's the true Erin.

Like each grieving parent does with their own beloved child;
I SEE Erin everywhere - in the house, in the car, at Target, in snowflakes, in yellow tulips, in lime green Easter eggs, in Pillsbury crescent rolls, in Keenan...
I HEAR her in falling rain and the music of the wind chimes.
I FEEL her in poems and laughter.
I SMELL her warm, rosy cheeks when she awakened from sleep as a baby. And I smell her in the chlorine from the pool and in the stink of volleyball kneepads!

So many things evoke a sensation of her being.
Her presence is striking.

When I can strip away that weighted shroud of grief - the cancer, I REALLY SEE ERIN.
Oh my God, THERE SHE IS!!

It's like when the Lost Boy in the movie Hook is carefully examining the face of the grown up Peter Banning, carefully wiping away the painted mask of a cold and selfish person created by years of obsession with material success, because he can sense something familiar under the built up outer shell-of-a-man who is missing being present with the most important things in his life - his wife and children. (The way cancer attempts to mask a person's very essence.) The Lost Boy's face lights with recognition as he reveals the youthful spirit and eternal magic of Peter Pan, and he joyfully exclaims -"Oh, there you are Peter!"
To all of my "club" mothers out there - we need some fairy dust to make all the bad stuff disappear!

"The lifting of the sorrow does remove a barrier" as Lewis says. And that's when I do remember Erin most vividly. The smile, the drive, the courage - it was all there, before the cancer and with the cancer. THAT WAS AND ALWAYS WILL BE ERIN.

Per C S Lewis, Erin was and is most definitely "A fact to be taken into account"!