Clarifying Grief

After hearing a few responses from my post "Permission to Grieve," I'm adding more definition and clarity to the idea in this post... and perhaps I'll even add more, as needed...

First, note the term "grief." According to psychological accounts and studies, the parent of a child with a life-threatening illness is mourning a loss. To many, this may sound odd - we commonly mourn a loss only after a person's death. But consider: when we are mourning a person's passing, we are actually mourning the loss of life as we had expected it. When an elderly parent dies, his child will mourn the loss of future opportunities together. In other words, we are not actually mourning the death. We are mourning that our future will not be as we had hoped/planned. Likewise, a child whose life is threatened is no longer going to enjoy the future we had planned for him/her. Our lifestyle is dramatically changed, and we are mourning those dreams and hopes that will possibly/probably never come. We mourn our loss of innocence, and we face the daily/hourly painful and persistent thought of "how long will s/he be able to do this with me?" along with a sense of loss that we cannot protect our little one from the severe pain and suffering s/he must endure. We are grieved. We are in mourning.

In considering how to best illustrate what Permission to Grieve means, I find it helpful to quote our friend Alan Gong who eloquently expressed in his own recent post on his daughter Janie's CaringBridge site. Reading below should help clarify:

THOUGHTS

"Don't bring me flowers to my funeral, bring me soup when I'm sick."

- Jalen Rose

This journey has been a lesson in honesty for me. The painful process of learning to be honest with myself and honest with others, something I've been conditioned not to do at great cost to myself and those around me. But suffering has a way of bringing the humility needed for that kind of honesty. 

It's been challenging to be honest about what we've needed and how to ask for that help.  What we need is real community[...] We don't need inspirational Bible verses, attempts to reason why this is happening, or suggestions on how to treat[...] We need people willing to help carry the weight of this burden. People who will welcome us into their lives as opposed to just stepping out of it to check in on us once in awhile. We need people willing to hurt with us, not feel bad for us. We need compassion, not pity.

There is nothing anyone can do or say that will make anything about this situation better. Nothing will make the load any lighter. But when others get underneath with us and help bear some of it, the load starts to become easier to bear. Just showing up is enough sometimes. I believe this is what God intended for community and relationships. 

I don't know how universal these feelings are, but in conversations with others dealing with suffering like ours, it appears to be common. Suffering is a lonely feeling. I feel no one understands nor would they want to get close enough to the pain to be affected. That because this is such a long and uncertain journey, nobody could endure it with us for want to go back to their own lives. Our culture tells us to seek pleasantness and security and comfort. It's counter culture to accept suffering. So why would someone willingly suffer our pain with us?

This is not meant to cast blame or guilt. We're very thankful for everyone who has reached out to us over the past year. I believe your hearts intent was and is to truly help us and just by letting us know we're not forgotten, you have. We also just weren't capable of asking for the help we needed. But we're working on vulnerability and this is part of that. 

As expressed above - Permission to Grieve is about honesty and pain. It's about willingness to acknowledge life as a struggle and not shying away from the tears. 

It occurred to me that Cult-of-Optimism embraces the classic "glass is half full" paradigm. What is overlooked is that to every half-full, there is by definition a half-empty! For some reason, our society refuses to talk about the half-empty - refuses to acknowledge that half-empty as a reality. 

Think about it.

As always, welcoming your comments and replies.

Permission to Grieve

Ok folks, I’m getting personal.

Most of the posts on this blog are general mommying messages. Some are funny and light. Most are universal. This one gets more personal – and yet through the personal, I think it will resonate more generally.

We live in a Cult of Optimism – in our culture, people are peppy and youthful and vibrant. We whiten our teeth and color our hair. We put on flashy clothes and walk into interviews with a “can-do” attitude. All of this is fine… to a point.

At some point as a parent, we feel weak and frail. At some point, we face tough decisions and times of failure. At some point, we cannot maintain our “happy and fine” attitude. At these times, the Cult of Optimism works against us. Because at these times, we are not optimistic. We are not able to maintain our membership in the Cult.

Our family has now spent the past year and a half facing an aggressive tumor. Our path is uncertain and our troubles are many. Throughout the ordeal, some people have been incredibly supportive of our need to be melancholy, nervous, or frustrated. Others have drifted away, presumably not comfortable with how to interact with a parent feeling ongoing grief and sadness.

Having left the Cult of Optimism – temporarily or permanently - we sometimes feel alone.  Because those in the Cult of Optimism will ask us “how are you?” but frown if our answer is anything but “fine.” They will not allow us to be sad. They feel uncomfortable with our grief.

This post is an act. A statement. An invitation to a new twist in parenting: Permission to Grieve. We allow ourselves to be sad and overwhelmed. We relinquish our control and desire to “fix” each other’s dilemmas and instead hold each other’s hands and support each other during our times of weakness. We share, and we cry together. We acknowledge that we have little control in our world, little control over our children. We sympathize that parenting is not always joyful, not always fun, and sometimes downright unfulfilling. And that’s okay. We can be disappointed and grieve together.

The Perfect Vacation

The perfect vacation, like so many phrases in the parenting how-to manual, is an oxymoron. Vacations seem to be imperfect by design. We plan a vacation to "relax" or "have fun" - but usually the fun and relaxation ends well-before the vacation even begins. We left our wallet in the cab. We forgot the baby's antibiotics in the fridge. We didn't take out enough cash. We got stuck in traffic. We lost a sandal at the rest-stop. We can't find binkie when we finally arrived...

In order to detox ourselves from the idea that the vacation should be fun or relaxing, we need to properly re-align ourselves with what the vacation is really about. Before children, vacation was about me/us and an activity. After children, we redefine vacation as: a special time to grow with your child.

As with all growth, vacations, by design, can be painful processes. Many of us feel they are necessary-evils as a parent. We want our child to grow - to experience new and exciting activities. And tossing them into these activities can be painful for us, for our children, or both. Yet, we learn from them. We learn about our kids and their thresholds for exhaustion, tumult, or hunger. We learn how they interact with new and exciting events - how they process the stimuli and make sense of their new surroundings.  Suddenly we realize that they hate slimy water. Or that they love building in the sand. Or that our cousin's obsession with baseball can be a healthy inspiration. And we learn about ourselves in the process: how much stress can we take? How many activities can we handle? What correct and incorrect assumptions have we made about ourselves and our kids?

Growth is also exciting and undefined - it will happen when least-expected. We may think that experiencing the beach and waves is what we came for, when, in fact, staying up late and playing games with Granny turns into the favorite memory. We may want to rush to get to the museums, when our child is fascinated by the ticket-machine at the train station. We may think it's time to head to the restaurant, when baby gets a fever and Auntie treats her to ice cream.

By the time we go on our first vacations, most of us have already begun to learn that we cannot control our children as much as we'd have liked. Perfect vacations are the perfect opportunities for us to witness our child's growth by providing a new platform for them to jump off (sometimes literally?!) They won't be relaxing. And probably mostly not-fun. But the memories will be cherished nonetheless.