Grief Is Like Glitter
My experience of losing my youngest daughter at 19 has been a grueling journey of exploration and self-reflection. At first, I felt like a stranger in a foreign land even though there were many people with me in the fog walking the same path. After 14 months the landscape is getting more familiar though I think I will constantly be questioning how I got here. Somehow the ever-present shock and disbelief become more familiar yet those feelings will sometimes leave me gasping and my thoughts begin swirling with dark thoughts of futility and despair.
Grief fluctuates with time. Sometimes you feel like you’re being hit by 100-foot waves and sometimes the waves are gentle. The grief never fully disappears and is sometimes unbearably painful but somehow we learn to adapt to its presence. I’ve found that learning about the many different analogies and metaphors for grief has helped me understand the varied and nuanced emotions that emerge.
Grief is like glitter. You can throw a handful of glitter up in the air, but when you try to clean it up… you never get it all. Even long after the event, you will still find glitter tucked into corners… it will always be there. Somewhere. — by Kevin Pádraig.
I love this quote so much because it reminds me of Mother’s Day, long ago, when my three daughters, still toddlers and infants, decided (without interference from my husband) that it would be appropriate to wake me up with a shower of glitter and confetti. So much joy, so much mess…
I find hope in the following analogy described by Breffni McGuinness of the Irish Hospice Foundation. He described grief as a ball in a jar. You are the jar and the ball is your grief. While the ball doesn’t diminish or get smaller with the passing of the years, the grief (or ball) remains the same size. The jar, however, grows and expands with time and new experiences as a symbol that we are better able to integrate grief into our lives. This doesn’t mean grief ever goes away. That is not the goal nor is it a possibility. Rather, it is facing grief and gaining acceptance of it. There will always be triggers such as anniversaries and holidays when we are viscerally tormented by our grief. At these times our jar will shrink again. McGuinness describes these moments as a “grief burst”, which reminds us (as if we could forget) that the grief, in some part, will always be there.
A metaphor I read speaks to my evolution from the person that I was just after my daughter died to the person I am slowly becoming. Elizabeth Thoma wrote this seven years after her son died.
Then, my grief was like a piece of stretched glass, on the brink of shattering at all times. When it did shatter, putting the pieces together was all-consuming. I had to start over completely and reform, try again. Now, it is a rubber band. I can mostly stretch and conform and accept the things that come my way without shattering. I can be challenged and return to myself. Like all humans, stretch me too far and I will break, but that risk isn’t at the forefront of my mind.
While I’m still in the early stages, I see this evolution as a possibility whereas previously I could not.
I think this evolution will be a life-long continuous journey. I am not the person I was before my daughter died. I am not the person I was just days and weeks after my daughter died, and I will not be the same person I am today in the next months and years. This grieving business is exhausting. It is never possible to just take a break or a vacation from it. This is not the life I signed up for, this was not part of the plan. Every day I wake up and my daughter doesn’t. It is a heavy burden. The randomness of loss is terrifying. It can leave you frozen and incapable or unwilling to move forward. What is the point? I ask myself. I tried everything in my power to protect my children, to give them a good life, and to make sure they knew they were loved and cherished. Yet, here I am. I’ve been told, “Oh, you’re so strong” or “I don’t know how you do it!” These comments are not kind even though they are meant to give me comfort. They make me ask myself how can I be a good mother if I can keep going when my child cannot.
I would not have been able to answer this question a few months ago. I’m in the process of developing and clarifying my answer. I keep going because I must. I keep going because I have a family that I love. I keep going because I have three daughters, and two are still alive and have a beautiful future ahead of them. I keep going because I have a husband who has shown me so much love and support and I will do everything in my power to return it to him. I keep going because there are still people I can help, there is still good I can do, and there is still a difference I can make. To do any less would dishonor the daughter I lost. To do any less would dishonor me.
I’ve heard grief described as an open wound at the very start. Over time and with care the open part gets smaller and the other parts start to scab over and become scars. The wound never completely closes, it never completely heals. The bleeding stops but the pain remains. It is like a chronic illness. It is always there, just beneath the surface, but somehow you learn to live with it. The pain ebbs and has occasional flare-ups but it becomes part of life. Grief becomes incorporated into your life but it is not your life. Life is so precious. This is why a loss, particularly of a life too short, is so grievous.
There is no cure for this but there are things you can do. Find strength and comfort in your family. Stick together even if your impulse is to isolate for fear of bringing them more pain. But respect everyone’s need to grieve their way which might paradoxically mean giving them space. Seek professional help to find healthy coping techniques and self-care. I have found grief counseling to be profoundly beneficial. Accept help and support when possible. Take care of your physical health especially when you don’t feel like it. Surround yourself with positive people who will lift you up. Avoid toxic, narcissistic people who don’t respect your feelings or treat you with kindness. Find a routine, but modify it to respect the changes in your life. Make new traditions while keeping old traditions that bring comfort. Find creative outlets. Communicate and talk to your loved ones. Don’t hide your feelings and give your loved ones the space they need to communicate their feelings. Above all, be kind to yourself and others.
