As long as there is love, there will be grief. The grief of time passing, of life moving on half-finished, of empty spaces that were once bursting with the laughter and energy of people we loved. As long as there is love there will be grief because grief is love’s natural continuation. It shows up in the aisles of stores we once frequented, in the half-finished bottle of wine we pour out, in the whiff of cologne we get two years after they have been gone. Grief is a giant neon sign, protruding through everything, pointing everywhere, broadcasting loudly, “Love was here.” In the finer print, quietly, “Love still is.”
- Heidi Priebe
A dear friend recently posted the above quote, and I resonated with it – DEEPLY. I had recently walked through Hobby Lobby and was admiring all the fall decorations when I was taken off guard and suddenly overwhelmed by tears in the middle of golden bursts of fall foliage. Because I am working at not stuffing my feelings and actually allowing them to process in a healthy manner (stay tuned for that future post), I took a moment to sit in the sadness and tried to identify why it was hitting me (while secluding myself in the sparsely populated Cricut clearance section). I realized that fall has always been my mom’s (and mine) favorite season. I cannot count the times we wandered through the fiery fall aspen groves in the Rocky Mountains or the San Juans in Colorado. How we loved to walk through the dried up and crunchy leaves along the streets at home in Aurora or along my grandparents’ street in Denver. She and I were always on the search for the best fall scented candle that captured the earthy leaf and crisp fall air essence. My love of fall is something I will forever share with my mama. On my way home from the store, tears poured down my face as those memories flowed through my mind.
These teary moments are hitting me a little more often these days and I am giving myself time to embrace and process them. Having gotten mom settled into the memory care center, I now have more emotional space to process the changes, and grief is setting in a little more. One of the posts that makes its way around social media that speaks to the ambiguous loss of dementia – how we lose the person slowly over and over – made its way around again and reminded me that what I am experiencing is normal and part of the process. The vibrant, compassionate chatterbox mom that I have always known is no longer here. Though her smile is the same and her eyes still crinkle wickedly when she laughs, she is more of an echo of the person I remember. I still desperately love this echo of my mom - she still makes me laugh (especially when she is glaring at me stubbornly like my three-year-old grandson, refusing to comply with my request to pick her feet up or wash her hands or whatnot). Whatever version of her exists, I still love her. But I miss MY mom. I miss our long talks, our hikes in the leaves, our giggle fits in doctor’s offices and funerals, her stories of the ladies in her card class or the antics of her work family in the lab. All these and so much more.
In his book, Anxious People, Frederick Backman writes of his character, Ro, whose father has dementia: “Ro will lose her dad, she’ll visit him every week, he’s still on Earth but already belongs to Heaven.”
And I FEEL that SO STRONG.
I grieve the vibrance of my mom, but the love still flows through my soul in the memories we shared and shines back at me when she smiles. As long as she has one foot solidly here on Earth and one foot in Heaven, so will I.
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“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Matthew 5:4
“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:4
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