The Unexpected Effects of Grief
It’ll hit you when you least expect it: a moment that feels like it’s stopped time and you’re challenged to do everything in your power to keep from falling apart. You’ll feel the tears well up in your eyes; the sobs threatening to escape your throat. The room may feel like it’s spinning for a moment. You may not be certain where you are, or what you were doing before it started. Memories are powerful things.
Last week, I attended a class that required me to miss work. I arrived early to knock out a few tasks before closing my laptop so I could focus on the instructor. This particular gentleman was of my mother’s generation, so his choice of pre-class pump-up songs wasn’t a huge surprise. I was on the phone with tech support because I was having trouble logging in when I heard the first few strains of piano.
“I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand”
Shit.
“Walking through the streets of Soho in the rain”
You have to be kidding me.
Before I knew what was happening, I was tipping my head back in an effort to keep the tears from spilling down my cheeks. I’m pretty sure I thanked the IT rep for her assistance and let her know I could take things from there, but I can’t be certain.
There was no one in the room aside from the instructor and myself. I swallowed hard.
Make a break for the bathroom or try to gain control of the emotion which had clearly gained control of me?
I swallowed again.
“You’re okay; you can do this,” I tried to reason with myself as Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” continued to play in the background.
This was one of my mom’s favorite songs, and she found the lines, “I saw a werewolf drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic’s…and his hair was perfect” to be particularly amusing. So much so that the song had made the playlist she’d put together for her celebration of life. And we all had explicit instructions to stop what we were doing when it played to emphasize the words, “his hair was perfect,” just as she always did.
I managed to pull myself together somewhere around the last refrain, as my classmates began entering the room. I let out a heavy sigh, chalked it up to another one of those moments and kept going.
These moments, as my mom, herself, had warned me when her mother passed away, were completely normal and generally unexpected.
“I’ll just be sitting at a stoplight and something will make me think of Grammy,” she’d said, “and I’ll start crying.” Yep. That about sums it up.
I’d had one of those moments after my mammogram last summer. I was heading home, sitting at a stop light, and I started bawling. Maybe it was because the tech had a crappy bedside manner and my mom was the one I would have told about such a thing. She did have a propensity to joke about the annual “squishing of the boobs.” Maybe it was just another reminder that I could never pick up the phone and call my mom again. Maybe it was both of these things. I just know it smacked me upside the head, exactly as my mom had warned.
I knew my birthday this year — the first without her — would be difficult, and it was. My mom believed birthdays were the most special “holidays” of all, because they celebrated an individual and the day they arrived in this world. They weren’t just another “Hallmark Holiday,” which she despised.
Because my mom loved celebrating natal anniversaries so much, she always had to be the first to wish me a happy birthday. Her card was always the first to arrive and, though she never called at an inappropriate hour, hers was always the first call I received. Later, her texts were the first to arrive, as well, along with whatever silly ecard(s) she’d conjured up to fill my inbox.
This year, my birthday was on a Sunday. The phone sat silent long after I awoke. A few texts trickled in, along with Facebook well-wishes. I opened the card my dad sent and cried when I realized her trademark signature was missing. Then he called, and I really lost it. They’d always sung Happy Birthday in unison, and, this year, my dad was a solo act. I hadn’t cried that hard since the day she passed away, and I haven’t cried that hard since. I sobbed and sobbed, my dad waiting empathetically on the other end of the line, as I had my moment. I just wanted the day to be over. And while I suspect I’ll always miss her special touches on my birthday, I don’t think it will ever hurt as much as it did this year: the first one without her.
I hope anyone who’s experiencing the effects of grief, or supporting someone who’s going through it, understands this kind of behavior is normal. These moments are painful, and yet they remind me just how ingrained my mother is, and will continue to be, in every aspect of my life. Sometimes the memories ultimately make me smile. But, in the moment, they hurt. And all of this is normal. You will lose your shit when you least expect it…and even when you plan for it, too.
