Good Grief Guru

The sound of the waves call out from the sea like an amplified heart beat.

I lay on an orange, striped veranda couch and listen.  I feel as though I am resting one ear on a man’s chest, drifting into slumber as the sound of his heartbeat lulls me to sleep.

It seems I was air lifted out of one reality, away from any triggers associated with my husband’s death.  Five hours later I am gently ushered into paradise.  The heat and the shushing of the salty, turquoise waves cause my eyes to grow heavy.  My writing reflects the transition in my thought process, as the ratio between grief articles and happy thought posts, have begun to lean heavily on the lighter side of life.

The sun lifts my spirits and the breeze carries my cares away across the surface of the sea.  It is the first time in months my mind has quieted its thoughts.  I can hold conversations without the compulsion to empty information from my mind in order to make room for more.

Responsibility lags behind me.  Even the threat of insomnia is not so daunting knowing, while I’m away, a house full of women are parenting with me.  Even if I wake up at 6am after falling asleep at only 3, I will awake to the sun, sand, and surf, and a day of little thought or worry.

All bills, chores, and reminders have been left behind at home.

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“I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts”, sings Merv Griffin on the 1950 Freddy Martin show.

Alexis and I have lovely coconuts too.  Five to be exact.  They surround my computer and I can’t think of a better way to write.

Alexis has been hooked on coconuts ever since our trip to Cuba, in 2010.  Tetra packs of coconut water are stocked in our pantry at home.  Here, in Barbados, we buy the freshest kind, green coconuts right off a palm tree.  Each morning I cut open a hole in the top of a green coconut.  We insert a straw, and hydrate.  After we’ve had our fill of the good stuff, I scoop out the coconut jelly for an extra treat.

Back home in Canada we buy the small, brown, hard coconuts.  I put one in a plastic back, tie a knot, and Alexis and I take turns slinging the coconut on the frozen floor of our garage.  Smash!  We hurl the bag until we can feel the coconut has cracked into little pieces.  These serve as our snacks for the remainder of the week.

Coconut water not only tastes great, it has a ton of health benefits too.  I love bringing my daughter up on coconut water instead of sugary drinks, and she loves it too.

Here’s to coconuts!  Eat, drink, and be merry.

For three days I have been staring at mangoes.  I’ve been doing a few other things in-between, but every day I take notice of the three green mangoes, too unripe to eat.  It’s cruelty.  Pure cruelty.

I could take stock of some of my favourite life moments in mangoes.

Take high school for instance.  This is the stage I realized someone else could love me through mangoes.  My mother came home from work one day and told me to get dressed up.  We were going to the theater.  Once dressed we stepped into the elevator of her condo.  She told me to meet her in the lobby, and she would bring the car up from the underground.  I went to the lobby and there was my friend, waiting at the buzzer for the front door.  I opened it for him and told him I couldn’t go out, I was on my way out to the theater with my Mom.  I turned around and there was my mother, standing behind me.  “You’re going with him”, she said.

I’m feeling hard pressed to think of a better date I’ve been on.  He took me to a restaurant, read me a poem and gave me a hand-made flower (hand-made by him), and the night ended with us eating juicy mangoes in his car, and us washing our hands in puddles of rain water.

Fast forward to 2006.  I’m in the desert of Northern Sudan, 200 kms northeast of Khartoum.  I am with three new friends; a girl and two men.  One of the men is a local, and the other, a European photographer.  We are going to visit ancient pyramids that are older than the famous ones in Egypt.  I am standing inside an ancient structure, dumbfounded by the hieroglyphic I am not only staring at.  I am touching it.  It’s the real thing, only it’s not in a museum which is the only place I’ve ever seen one.  There I am in the middle of the desert, sounded by nothing other than history and a sand storm swirling outside the open entrance.

We walk back to our car from the pyramids and two men with machine guns ask to see our passports.  We seem to have the right ones.  They let us through and I let out a breath of relief.

We spend the night in a little town on our way back to Khartoum.  The next day we take a small boat across the Nile and go exploring.  We meet a goat herder and our local friend begins a conversation.  The goat herder leads us to a mango tree and starts depositing mangoes into a basket.  He puts the basket before us and tells us we can eat as many as we like.  They are the best mangoes I have ever had before, or since.  They are ripe, and full of juice.  I eat five, because I don’t want to seem piggish or anything.

2012, I’m here in Barbados.  Three days of patience, waiting to eat mangoes that tease me every time I walk by.  My cousin tells me to wrap them in newspapers to help them ripen.  I wrap them and let them be overnight.  Finally, the next morning, they are ripe enough to eat.

The paring knife cuts them easily.  I slice chunks off the seed and cube the mango flesh.  My daughter and I enjoy a juicy mango feast that does not disappoint.  They are worth the wait.

I thoroughly enjoy my life in mangoes.  Wherever mangoes seem to be found with me, a great memory is also sure to be.

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I was out for a morning walk in the sun, hand in hand with my daughter, when up on a wall we spotted a monkey, then two, then three, then four!  Alexis and I knelt down, being very quiet so we didn’t scare them away.  Turns out, they weren’t scared of us at all.  One hopped off the wall and walked right past us, eating an orange palm nut while it strolled.

Each one passed within a foot of where we knelt.  They sauntered down our driveway, to a neighbouring yard, where we got to enjoy a long show while they feasted on a tropical brunch.

Monkeys are SO cute. To watch a video of some monkey business, click here.

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High up on the hill tops of St. Thomas parish, sits Earthworks pottery house, overlooking a spectacular view of the landscape of Barbados.  Parked on a steep hill I look up at an artist’s paradise.

The outdoor staircase, decorated with broken glazed clay pieces, is only the first step towards where the wonder begins.

On every Barbados visit, which is about once every two years, Earthworks is a must-visit-again-and-again-and again, destination.  If one were to visit my home in Canada, my mother’s home, and my sister’s home, they can expect to find Earthworks pottery on our walls, in our cupboards, or both.

Adding to my collection of pottery is only part the reason why I visit on every trip.  In truth, collection is a secondary reason as to why I go.  My desire to support the craft, and this particular business venture, are high up on my list, but there is a more compelling reason I am drawn to visit time and time again.

It is the place itself that inspires me.  It is what they have done with all the broken pottery pieces that fills me with wonder, and hope.

I walk up the staircase that leads to the open doors of the Earthworks pottery studio.

I take Alexis on a tour, a free tour where we are encouraged to walk ourselves through.  Staff, humble, but proud of what they do, fill us in on the details of their craft as we journey along our self-guided tour.

First, the clay is molded.

Next, it is decorated with coloured glaze.

Finally, it is put into kilns to be fired.  The kilns at Earthworks are the largest I have ever seen!

Once fired, the brilliant colours appear on the pottery, beneath a gloss-like surface.

Following our tour, the founder’s son, David, gives Alexis red clay to shape with her own hands.

“Is it Play-doh?” she asked, excited.

“It’s clay-doh!” I exclaimed.  “Play away.”

I LOVE the expression of pottery.  A prominent analogy used in the Bible is one of God being the Potter, and we being the clay.  But what happens if the original piece of pottery is broken?

Like broken shards of coloured glass re-worked into a stained-glass window, it mesmerizes me what an artist can do with broken pieces of anything.  At Earthworks, their artists have decorated the outdoor staircase, the parking lot wall, and the entire Earthworks building with broken, or forgotten, pieces of fired-clay.

I find tremendous hope in the thought that the shattered, and even neglected pieces of my life have the potential to be reinvented, and that they could be as beautiful, inspiring, and spectacular as this.

Each of the damaged pieces of pottery were, at some point, on their way to becoming something else.  Something practical.  When formed, their intended purpose was completely different then ending up on the Earthworks’ wall.  Once broken, their initial purpose destroyed, someone could have easily thrown them away.  But in hands that saw potential, these broken pieces are now, in my opinion, the glory of Earthworks, Barbados.  They are no longer practical.  They are inspirational.

I stare at the decorated wall and I hope, I pray, that the shattered pieces of my life, when placed in the hands of THE Master Artist, will be transformed like this wall; that my potential may be revealed, and out of my brokenness, may inspired beauty be formed.

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I have an extensive resume of losses.  My life has been subjected to the death of my husband, my sister-in-law, a friend from our wedding party, three grandparents, great aunts, great uncles, and many others from my growing up community.  I would need more than my two hands and my two feet to count everyone I’ve ever known who has succumb to the robber of life, death.

One might assume from my loss-resume that I would know how to respond to another when they experience loss.  Perhaps I should.  Or perhaps there can not be a rule of thumb per se.  Each person is an individual, and their reaction to loss and change will be individualistic as well.

This week, when I was given the somber news that a friend of mine lost her step-daughter in the multi-car pile up on highway 402, near Sarnia, Ontario, I immediately thought, What do I say?  How do I comfort this woman who has been so good to me, who could be feeling any range of emotions?

I thought back to the phrases individuals said to me while I was in my initial mourning stage, after my husband had died.  “My heart breaks for you”  “I am thinking of you”  “I am praying for you”  “I can only imagine.”  These were all sentiments I could appreciate and accept.

Phrases I struggled with were assumption statements, such as, “I know how you feel.”  No one could ever know how I felt, just as I can not know how another feels fully, even in light of my personal grief experience.

When my husband died I was sad.  By that evening I was relieved.  In the following days, after my relief came loneliness, then anger, which was eventually interrupted by sorrow.  Three months after his death I chased any happy moment I could find.  I thrived off of laughter, and felt no guilt for it.  Six months later I was a “loose cannon.”  I made poor choices and felt abundantly wreck-less.

Spackles of anger and gratitude dotted my grief timeline.  Finally, overwhelmed, I shut off from everything that took focus away from working through my grief.

My emotions changed day to day, sometimes moment by moment.  How could anyone have known what to say to comfort me?  How could anyone have known how I felt at any given point in time?  How could I ever assume to know the same?

There were three expressions of comfort that I did, and continue to, find helpful throughout my grieving process.

1) General statements – “My heart breaks for you”, tells me I am not alone.  In some way, someone feels a piece of my pain.  “I am thinking of you”, lets me know, even in the late, lonely hours, I am not alone.  “I am praying for you”, helps me feel supported through action, and brings my focus towards a Higher Power.  “I can only imagine”, is an accurate statement.  Another individual can only ever imagine the range of emotions I, or anyone else dealing with grief, feels.

2) Permission to be real – “I don’t feel anything”, I said to a friend on the second day after my husband died.  “You feel what you feel, and that’s okay”, he reassured me.  That was a powerful statement for me.  It gave me permission to experience my range of emotions, one by one, as they came, without the added, unproductive, burden of guilt.  Thankfully, I had studied, and even trained groups of people, on the natural grief cycle according to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross.  Knowing this information enabled me to accept what I felt as a natural response to loss, instead of something I should feel ashamed of, and try to shove down or hide away.

3) If you don’t know, ask.  – We are not a society that tends to pry.  For myself, I have chosen to be public about my grief journey, but others prefer to be private.  Either choice is personal and, I feel, should be respected.  I have found that being public has enabled others to understand where I’m at, and what I would find helpful.  It has inevitably helped others help me.  However, not everyone is comfortable sharing their journey this way, and may, or may not, want to talk about it.  Even though I always appreciate being asked by sincere individuals how I am doing, I still find myself shying away from asking other mourners the same.  What if they get angry?  What if it upsets them more?  I don’t want to cause them pain if they don’t want to talk about it.

But what if they are longing to talk about it?  Longing to be asked as I sometimes am.  What if they’re reserved, or afraid to speak out?

Then I remember how some people would ask how I was doing, and then say, “But if you don’t want to talk about it…”, or, “Do you feel comfortable talking about this?”  Those added questions gave me the freedom to move forward with the conversation, or politely back out.

When my husband died I was also told, “People will ask you how you are for the first year, and then they will stop.”  Through other mourner’s stories I have come to know that the loss of any individual is something the griever carries with them, always.  In some cases, real grieving doesn’t begin until the close of the first year when the auto-pilot shuts off, and the swirl of chaos begins to settle.  Then reality sets in, and it’s important for friends to keep checking in too.

My extensive resume of loss, and the intense experience of losing my husband, will never fully put me in another person’s shoes, but I do feel these experiences can bring me closer to understanding what may, or may not be helpful when responding to someone else’s loss.  Considering that death is a circumstance no one can ever fully be prepared for, as the griever, and the one who comforts, I would value hearing from you.

If you have experienced loss, or have responded to someone else’s loss in a way that seemed to resonate with them, I would invite you to share your stories here.  Please enter your thoughts in the comment box below, or email me by clicking here so together we can help ourselves help others.

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I can’t protect my daughter from everything.  I know that.  But there are decisions I can make now that will help equip her to live the healthiest life she can live as she grows up.  One of the things I focus on a lot is her health.

For that reason, I rarely allow my daughter to eat sugary treats.  In fact, I use every sugar coated opportunity to teach her the sour facts about not eating well.

Now that she is accustomed to my refusal of permission towards junk food, imagine her surprise when we were at a friend’s house this week, and I handed her a bowl of ice cream.

At first, she gasped, then she screamed, and finally, hands over mouth, she stood next to her bowl in unbelief, too bewildered to eat her melting ice cream.  Her reaction alone was dessert enough for me.

After the shock wore off she dug in, savouring every delicious scoop, knowing this moment would not quickly come again.

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I feel restless today. Why am I so anxious?

I write, I clean, I organize.  I’ve reached a new plateau.  It took me weeks, actually months, to organize some bills.  I couldn’t see how to process the piles of papers.  For the first time in over a month my accomplishment was more than writing.

I’ve done a lot today.  More than I’ve been able to do in weeks, but I’m unsatisfied.

It must be my connection with God.  I feel it is lacking.  I’m trying to figure things out.  Maybe I haven’t sought God enough.  Maybe that’s the void that I feel.

I pick up my Bible and carry it to bed.  It’s late but I’m not tired…again.  I read, and I learn.  I am satisfied with this, but I am still unsatisfied, with something.

I go back downstairs and collect another book.  Surprised by Hope, by N.T. Wright.  I take a drop of my homeopathic remedy, “Emotional shock.”  When I remember to take it, which is almost every night, I have the most amazing sleeps.  They are deep and all consuming.

I head back to my bed and begin to read.  My eyes grow heavy.  There it is.  The remedy is kicking in.  It shouldn’t be long now before I drift off to sleep.

I close the book and lay my head on my pillow.  I pull the duvet up to my chin.  I think about how the next Happy Thought I should write, will be about the warmth of my covers on a cold winter day.

I lie still, nestled like a chick under its mother’s down.  Only the sound of the heat can be heard pushing through the vents of my house.

I feel it again.  The feeling of being unsatisfied.  Only this time I know what it is.  I lie in bed, all warm and cozy, and alone.

I forgot the homeopathic remedy does not just give me sound sleeps.  It peels back layers to reveal what’s underneath.  Layers I can’t always seem to peel away on my own.

I feel the empty spot in front of me on our bed, and think back to the first few days after you died.  I could almost feel you still there.  I roll over and try to get more comfortable.  Instead I imagine your hand on my hip while my back meets your chest.

This feeling surprises me.  You had moved out before you died.  It’s not like I lost all of you at once.  I had lost you in little pieces over time.  Still, I miss you.  You were my confidant.  You were my friend.  Now I have conversations with the air as though you can hear, or write you letters I know you will never read.

It is a very specific piece of you I tend to miss.  I miss my friend.  I miss my companion.  I miss that you would laugh at my silly football dances when I felt victorious over some silly small thing, or how I could tell you the details about my day.  I miss that even though we fought, I told you everything.  Our conversations were all encompassing, and you loved me for it, even though my honesty came at a cost.

The truth is I’m lonely.  Like old-lady-with-ten-cats kind of lonely.  But I don’t want just anyone.  In fact I know no one else will do.  Like any best friend who has ever moved away, there will only ever be one of you.  When someone else comes and goes, I will be saddened by their void too, because each loss leaves a gap that no one else can fill.  Tonight, I feel the gap of you.

I move my bed to the couch.  The queen sized bed in our room feels too big.  I prefer the bathtub-sized couch that fits my body of one.  I laugh thinking what a hard time I would give you when you slept on the couch by choice.  I think it’s time to downsize, get a roommate, or a cat.

I stay up until 2am, restless and unsettled.  It is going to be a double fist-ed coffee morning.  One cup in each hand.

In the house where I am staying, I hear a man snoring through the wall.  I used to jab you in the side when you would snore, but tonight the sound makes me feel less alone, and finally I drift off to sleep.

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Watch the VIDEO recording of Happy Thought #14 by Shawna & Alexis, recorded from Barbados

My day started out like this.  My daughter crawled in bed with me, and with a sweet little smile she quietly whispered, “You are so special.”

Oh, that every day could begin like this.

Then she said, “I am so happy.”  I asked her, “What makes you so happy?”, and she answered, “Sarah”, her twenty-something cousin who has been showering her with love and attention throughout our vacation in Barbados.

As we emerge from the terrible twos, I see a glimmer of hope.  My nearly-three-year-old has began to make the connection between cause and effect, the result of which is slightly more cooperation.  She also participates in random acts of kindness.  Sometimes she spontaneously quips, “I love you, Mom!”, or the other night at dinner, she turned to her Grandma and said with a big grin, “You’re awesome.”

Edification from the mouth of babes.  As Martha Stewart says, “It’s a good thing.”

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Need I say more?