What Grief Has Really Taught Me | Diary of a Grieving Mother

Note from Mary-Jo:

Over the past year I've tried to understand what grief has really taught me. My brother recently asked me what lesson I'd learned over the past year that I could share with his children. I thought I knew the answer. It turns out I had a lot more to say than I realized.

I can tell I'm off.

Even more than usual.

The rage has settled into my bones, and I'm trying very hard to hide it.

I've struggled to choose a diary entry these past few weeks, because every one of them has felt too desperate and raw to share.

Staying focused during conversations has become harder. Recently, I recognized something about myself that I hadn't realized before.

Whenever there are four or five people talking around me, I quietly get up and walk away.

Sometimes I start washing dishes.

Sometimes I wander outside.

Sometimes I just find something to keep my hands busy.

I noticed it most this past weekend while my brother's family was visiting for a few days.

I love them so much, and their children are just the gentlest souls.

We all gathered at my parents' house for a cookout, and my other brother's family came as well. It was wonderful watching the kids laugh, play, and simply enjoy being together.

But after a few minutes of standing in the middle of all those conversations, I'd quietly drift away.

I don't even know when I started doing it.

The awkward silences aren't new. But I do notice it more lately.

I know people sometimes don't know what to say around me anymore.

Truthfully...

Neither do I.

Normal conversations can feel surprisingly difficult.

The night before they left for Ohio my brother Rick texted and asked if I'd meet them at the cemetery to visit Aidan.

He and my niece Ada had already been there with me separately, but his wife and other two hadn't.

Of course I wanted to go.

But if I'm honest, I was nervous.

I've found that visiting Aidan with other people can feel strangely uncomfortable. I both yearn for someone to pull in and come sit with me whenever I'm there, but also know it's hard for others to see me in that kind of pain. Especially since they're feeling it as well.

They don't know what to say.

I don't know what to say.

I usually try to break the tension with humor.

It rarely works.

As we stood there talking about Aidan and life in general, Rick asked me a question that caught me off guard.

"What is one lesson you've learned this past year that you could share with the kids?"

I wasn't prepared for that.

It's a much harder question than you'd think.

This past year has taught me many things I never wanted to learn.

But what could I tell them?

After thinking for a moment, I said,

"One day, many, many years from now, when your parents are gone, the three of you will be the ones who carry on their memories. The history of your family. So stay together. Love one another. Support each other. Because siblings are connected for life."

The day before, Ada had come to the cemetery with me. At one point she quietly told me that, as sad as losing a cousin was, she believed it was part of God's plan.

I smiled and jokingly replied,

"Sometimes that plan sucks."

She laughed.

That’s one of the main things I’ve been battling over the last year. God’s plan. So in that moment, when this wise 14 year old young woman tells me this, I would never contradict what she knows to be true in her heart.

For me, believing something like this happens for a reason isn't strong enough to penetrate this kind of pain. Justify the loss.

Because I don't think it was God's plan.

I think God gave us something incredibly powerful.

Choice.

We make decisions every single day that ripple through countless lives.

I believe God may have a greater plan for humanity, but He's also watching us walk the paths we choose.

Before we left, I gave the kids one last piece of advice.

"And always wear your seatbelt. Don't make me have to hunt you down if you don't!"

Everyone laughed.

I laughed too.

But I meant every word.

It’s a lesson I taught all my children, but for whatever reason, on that night, at that moment, Aidan didn’t have it on. And it cost us everything.

---

Rick asked what I'd learned.

I've been thinking about that question ever since.

I don't think grief has taught me valuable lessons.

I think it has revealed truths I never would've discovered any other way.

Love doesn't end when someone dies.

I feared my memories or the ability to draw how his hand felt in mine would diminish over time.

Instead, I've realized love simply searches for somewhere else to go.

Sometimes it finds its way into writing.

Sometimes into conversations with family.

Sometimes into sitting beside a gravestone.

Love won't diminish.

It simply changes its expression.

I've learned that two opposite emotions can both be true.

I can laugh and be devastated.

I can sell a house and barely survive the sobbing drive home afterward.

I can create funny videos one hour and cry in the cemetery the next.

Neither feeling makes the other less real.

Grief isn't just one emotion.

It's not denial, then anger, then acceptance.

It's insomnia.

Silence.

Weather.

Facebook memories.

His boots by the door.

It's an entire landscape.

Time doesn't heal everything.

Time heals many wounds.

But this wound seems to follow different rules.

Part of me is still standing beside that hospital bed watching the numbers fall while knowing there isn't a damn thing I can do to stop them.

I've learned that trauma isn't simply remembering. It's reliving.

It's flinching away as if slapped when the reality makes itself known. It's screaming into the silence. It's the feel of Aidan's cheek against my hand even after a year of not feeling it.

People aren't trying to minimize our pain.

They're trying to survive it too.

When someone says, "God has a plan," or, "At least you had twenty years," I don't think they're trying to explain my grief.

I think they're trying to make the unbearable survivable.

Objects aren't just objects anymore.

A fingerprint on a glass heart.

The carpet in his bedroom.

The deck he built.

Ordinary things become extraordinary because of whose hands touched them.

My identity didn't disappear. It fractured.

I'm still a mother.

An author.

A veteran.

A daughter.

A wife.

But all of those people now exist beside the mother who lost her son.

Purpose can't erase pain.

I've searched desperately for purpose this past year.

Projects.

Gardens.

Writing.

Renovations.

Marketing.

They don't remove grief.

They simply give me somewhere to stand while carrying it.

Strength isn't what I thought it was.

I used to think strength meant fixing things.

Pushing harder.

Enduring.

Never stopping.

Now I think strength looks more like telling my doctor I'm declining.

Admitting I'm not okay.

Asking for help.

And finally...

The greatest truth I've discovered isn't really about grief at all.

It's about motherhood.

Motherhood isn't something we do.

It's something we are.

Nothing can take that away.

Not time.

Not death.

Not silence.

Not even a cemetery.

I'm still Aidan's mom.

I still see the world through his eyes.

I still imagine contractor projects because I know he'd love them.

I still picture the future with him in it before my mind catches up to reality.

For months now, one question has quietly followed me.

What happens to love when it has nowhere left to go?

This past year I've watched mine flow into writing.

Into my parents.

Into my garden.

Into memories.

Into silence.

Love never disappeared.

It simply kept looking for somewhere to live.

I don't think these are the lessons grief taught me.

I think...

They're the story of my life now.

—Mary-Jo

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From the pages of Diary of a Grieving Mother