I thought today would be different. Isn’t that cute? Six years of mourning and I thought it would be different. Six years ago today, we interred Thomas’ ashes; it was a grey, windy, cold day – the day before we observe Remembrance Day, in Canada. I thought it was fitting, as I would never forget it – even with all my memory problems.
It was a very small group of us, with a wheel chair nearby in case the uneven ground of the cemetery proved to be to much for my newly walking legs. Before we left for the cemetery, my husband very tenderly placed the box with Thomas’ tiny ashes, on my lap and said “you ride with your Mama” – and that was the first gasp of tears. I hadn’t been called a Mama in months. Last time he used that term, he was talking to Thomas, in my belly, asking him to let me eat. I never did get to eat…my pregnancy was not an easy one and it seemed like an extreme weight loss plan, at times. There were therapeutic Fudgee-O cookies (double stuffed, because why not) and the nurse prescribing me ice cream. I couldn’t even look at a package of Fudgee-Os for years; who knew a cookie could be a trigger?
You know what they don’t tell you when you are pregnant? They don’t tell you how to plan a 22 week old’s funeral. They don’t tell you what readings apply when you wonder where God went; because to me, he seemed to be off his game. (We chose The beatitudes, and they seemed just right.) They don’t tell you to bring something to open the box that the ashes are in, so you aren’t looking awkwardly at the Minister until your husband rescues the day with car keys…I think it was Rob, but I’m not really sure.
So, when I woke up today and I saw the sunlight and the cheery snow; not the rain and greyness of the last 6 years – I thought it would be different. But grief was waiting for me, coiled, around the corner. It slipped in the room, unnoticed and unwelcome, surrounding me in the familiar feeling of heaviness. Of sleep that does not come from exhaustion, but from heartbreak.
What I have learned is grief is allowed and it is most definitely warranted. Although, today, I did not welcome it – I understood it and eventually I got out of it’s way. I ate 4 cookies without shame. I went to sleep, in my pajamas – at 3 in the afternoon – with one of the dogs. I meditated and breathed and consciously noted how the mantle of grief felt, today. I have activated my self care plan: aka I am not making a complicated supper – most likely breakfast. Possibly, soup, it depends how I feel. I am not speaking to people I do not need to speak with and I really, really can’t wait to go to sleep, because it will mean today is over.
“A butterfly lights besides us like a sunbeam. And for a brief moment its glory and beauty belongs to the world.
But then it flies once again, and though we wish it could have stayed,we feel so lucky to have seen it.”
Rich Reid
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