The phone rang.
7:00.
Seven in the morning? Who’d call this early?
“This is Officer So-and-So of the Elmhurst Police Department. I’m sad to inform you that your mother is. . .”
You never forget a call like that. My mom was only 62.
I already had a lot going on, especially dealing with difficult memories from childhood.
Now this.
That sounds whiny, like my mom had a fatal heart attack on an inconvenient day fifteen years ago. Like another day would have been better.
No day is good for a mother to die.
I remember saying to God several weeks later, “Why did you kill my best friend?” knowing he didn’t kill her. He brought her home. Brought her home? Home? Heaven is home? But I’m not there with her so how could it be home? What about me?
Whiney again. Grief is whiney sometimes.
The cemetery stood three blocks from my home. It became my almost daily ritual to walk to her spot, bend low and with my finger trace her name and the dates of her birth and death.
CAROL GALE KUPER
11.7.1931 – 1.10.1994
THROUGH DEATH INTO LIFE
The days after 1.10.1994 blurred. Sometimes I wailed pain from the deepest part of me, a part I didn’t even know I had. Until then.
My pain reliever: music. Sometimes I danced. Sometime I sat, dazed. I allowed myself to feel. Yes, me. Lucy, the girl who had learned to stuff emotions like I stuff a Thanksgiving turkey. . .to overflowing.
The dam burst.
I grieved you well, Mom.
It doesn’t hurt so bad anymore.
Except on your birthday, your death day, and Mother’s Day.
And today. Why today?
I don’t know, Mom. Grief’s like that. Sometimes it plays peek-a-boo.
Question: When you hear the word “grief” what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Please share.
You Are Loved!
The word grief for me describes the nauseating deep swelling sobs that threaten to rupture through my chest wall. Eventually the heaving of my chest send the sobs ripping through my throat in painful grasps and spews from my mouth moans that seem to never end. Three times in my life have I experienced such sudden grief. Once when I discovered my husband’s affair. The second when I lost my pre-born child. The third time when my only sibling my brother died of a sudden heart attack at the age of 36.
Judy,
I hear you. Grief hits deeper than deep. You’ve experienced such deep losses and so many. I pray our Lord continues to comfort you in your pain.
Blessings, Lucy
Lucy, this is so well said. No day is a good day for a mother to die. Mine died 10 minutes before midnight last Easter. I got the late night call from my stepdad, met him at the hospital, and with him, had to tell the EMTs to cease CPR. Like you said, it doesn’t hurt so bad anymore, except…
We awoke Easter morning crushed and heartbroken but yet rejoicing to know Mom was signing with the choir of angels. She died 1 week before her 24th wedding anniversary & 2 weeks before her 68th birthday.
I, like Judy, also lost a baby. Our Rachel Faith was trisomy 18, was born & passed away at about 28 weeks along. My dad & his dad died on the same day about 8 months prior to that, and I lost an aunt the month before that. I’ve also lost a grandmother and several other loved ones.
So what is grief? Grief is a painful plague. It’s sneaky, attacking when you least expect it, lingering forever and relapsing periodically. It does have a purpose, however. Because of it, I have learned to let go of this life and long for the eternal. I’ve learned to let God’s grace flow through me so I can comfort those who mourn. It’s placed in me an urgency to make sure others come to the savior. But, it’s something I’d like to experience much less of.
Jodi,
Grief is sneaky. I know It has a purpose and have experience this side of grief; that I’d rely less on my mom and more on God. Still, couldn’t I have learned this another way?
Probably not.
Blessings, Lucy