"GRIEF NEVER ENDS.....

......IT JUST CHANGES SHAPE"

August.  Just the mere mention of this month brings a cloud over me.  It is the month that I lost my best friend, my biggest cheerleader, my coach, my strength......my Mom.  

A long time friend told me shortly after my Mom passed that "time will heal".  That isn't comforting - don't say that to people that just lost someone.  That is a lie.  It doesn't.  A sweet friend that lost her daughter on the same day in August (different year) shared this quote with me about grief.  "Grief never ends, it just changes shape."  Boy, did that hit the nail on the head.  

I so dreaded August last year because it marked the one year.  I busied myself with posting pictures of my Mom's life on Facebook every day beginning from her childhood all the way through.   I busied myself in creating her "Memory Garden" so that I would have a place to go sit since she is buried 600 miles away from me.  I busied myself to avoid the grief that I was afraid to let go.   This year as the day approached, I thought maybe that gut-wrenching grief would appear.  It didn't.  I had planned a quiet day and when the day came, it felt like I didn't know what to do with myself. Michael said we would do whatever I wanted.  I knew that I wanted to take a plant to the nurses at the Cancer Center, sit in the Cancer Center Healing Garden and get ice cream (Mom's favorite food of all time).  The rest of the time I just felt lost.  We got through the day with only a few tears, again......my need to stay strong (a trait that I inherited from Mom). 

I know that everyone grieves in their own way and since my Mom was the first person that I ever lost that I was really close to, I'm not sure what "my way" is.  It doesn't feel like I've really grieved yet.  I still feel something deep within me that needs to come out.  The week leading up to Mom's passing was spent by her side in the hospital.  My dad was here, my kids were here, my Michael was here, my brothers and sister in law were here.  I'm the middle child, the only girl, but I felt like I had to be the one to hold it all together and be strong and take care of things.  I think I cried in Michael's arms (I really can't remember), but I don't know if I cried in front of anyone else during that time.  I felt so broken-hearted, so lost......she was my lighthouse and that lamp had gone out.  But I had business to take care of, arrangements to make, Dad to take care of......

Did I grieve?  Maybe a little.  Have I grieved yet?  I don't know.  Her home is now my home and I am surrounded by her every day.  Every. Single. Day.  That is comforting some days and so sad other days.  Some things make me laugh like the collection of bread wrappers I found a few weeks ago....... some things make me cry like the tote bag that still sits in the office, still full of all the things that she took with her that last trip to the hospital.  I can't empty it.  I just can't....not yet.  I'm not even sure what's in it, but probably a nail file, a mint, tissues, notebook, and her embroidery or crocheting that she was working on at the time.  Maybe emptying that bag is what I need to do.  Maybe I will do that before the end of August.  

I take a deep breath now that August 20th is behind me.  I'm ready for Fall.  Fall makes me happy and I'm ready to move to September.  Next year I am going to try to not focus so much on the month of August as "that month".   I know that my emotional state is hard on my family during this month.  Next year maybe I will be able to just try to quietly celebrate Mom for the week and not shut down for the whole month.  I need to learn to not dread August.  

"Grief never ends, it just changes shape".  That is a quote that I believe will change the way that I think.