Despite what they say about “in like a lion and out like a lamb,” March isn’t usually that dramatic in New Orleans. It’s typically a lull for us here, a time to catch our breath between Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest. It’s a month for fish plates and crawfish boils, maybe some gardening and long walks and quiet reflection.
The problem is that lately, I don’t really want time for quiet reflection. I’m no longer mired in deep grief 22 months after suddenly losing my mother, but I am still at a point where I am counting the months. I’m still sad and filled with what the grief books call “yearning.” And so I try to stay busy. I work full-time, I volunteer at my kids’ schools, I drop off lasagnas for other grieving people, I run errands and drive carpool with the music up loud so I don’t have to hear my own thoughts.
I will admit, with great remorse, to being judgey about other people’s grief before my mom’s death. “Uhhh, it might be time to move on,” I would think to myself when seeing someone’s Facebook post about a loved one who died years ago. “It’s not healthy to be this sad for this long.”
And, I mean, I guess it isn’t. “Prolonged grief disorder” was recently added to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
But I don’t know that I qualify. I’m participating in daily life – I’m working, volunteering, dropping off lasagnas, running errands, and carpooling! I’m just still … sad. I miss my mom, who in many ways was my best friend but also was the one person I know without a doubt loved me absolutely unconditionally. I was lucky to have that, so it makes sense that I’m sad to lose it. And while my mom’s death can’t really be classified as “unexpected,” given that everyone expects they will lose their parents, I didn’t expect it at this particular time. She wasn’t sick. She wasn’t even 70! On top of it, as my mother’s only child, there isn’t even anyone I can grieve in tandem with; yes, my husband and kids and my mom’s friends are all sad, too, but they didn’t lose the same thing I lost.
I think my lingering sadness is less a disorder and more just a natural (but unwelcome) consequence of loving someone. I still want to call my mom whenever something monumental – good or bad – happens. I still want to send my kids to her house and take a break. I still want to text her stupid memes that I know would make her laugh. I want those things because I had them, and now I don’t. I’m grateful to have had them at all, but now their absence is a void.
So I’m not quite over it yet, and maybe I never will be fully over it. Somewhere in the midst of all my working and driving and lasagna-making, though, I’ve started to realize that even if I’m not over it, I’m growing around the grief. And even if I’m still sad, I’m also still OK. And even if I can’t text my mom a dumb private joke that only she and I would get, I do know that she is with me always.
I don’t mean that in a spiritual way; I don’t even know what I believe about an afterlife. I mean it in a very practical way – she shaped and influenced so much of who I am now that she is in my facial expressions, the way I say certain words, the songs I listen to, the way I love my own kids.
I don’t need quiet reflective walks to know that. I know it innately. I still will be spending March as busy as possible because that’s how I need to be right now, and I’m not going to garden because I’m terrible at it and I even kill things that are supposedly impossible to kill, like mint and zucchini.
But if you invite me to a fish fry or a crawfish boil, I’ll be there. And if you need a lasagna, you just let me know.
I’m not there yet, but I’m getting a little bit better every day. Grief came in like a lion but slowly, ever so slowly, it’s going out like a lamb.
Despite what they say about “in like a lion and out like a lamb,” March isn’t usually that dramatic in New Orleans. It’s typically a lull for us here, a time to catch our breath between Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest. It’s a month for fish plates and crawfish boils, maybe some gardening and long walks and quiet reflection.
The problem is that lately, I don’t really want time for quiet reflection. I’m no longer mired in deep grief 22 months after suddenly losing my mother, but I am still at a point where I am counting the months. I’m still sad and filled with what the grief books call “yearning.” And so I try to stay busy. I work full-time, I volunteer at my kids’ schools, I drop off lasagnas for other grieving people, I run errands and drive carpool with the music up loud so I don’t have to hear my own thoughts.
I will admit, with great remorse, to being judgey about other people’s grief before my mom’s death. “Uhhh, it might be time to move on,” I would think to myself when seeing someone’s Facebook post about a loved one who died years ago. “It’s not healthy to be this sad for this long.”
And, I mean, I guess it isn’t. “Prolonged grief disorder” was recently added to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
But I don’t know that I qualify. I’m participating in daily life – I’m working, volunteering, dropping off lasagnas, running errands, and carpooling! I’m just still … sad. I miss my mom, who in many ways was my best friend but also was the one person I know without a doubt loved me absolutely unconditionally. I was lucky to have that, so it makes sense that I’m sad to lose it. And while my mom’s death can’t really be classified as “unexpected,” given that everyone expects they will lose their parents, I didn’t expect it at this particular time. She wasn’t sick. She wasn’t even 70! On top of it, as my mother’s only child, there isn’t even anyone I can grieve in tandem with; yes, my husband and kids and my mom’s friends are all sad, too, but they didn’t lose the same thing I lost.
I think my lingering sadness is less a disorder and more just a natural (but unwelcome) consequence of loving someone. I still want to call my mom whenever something monumental – good or bad – happens. I still want to send my kids to her house and take a break. I still want to text her stupid memes that I know would make her laugh. I want those things because I had them, and now I don’t. I’m grateful to have had them at all, but now their absence is a void.
So I’m not quite over it yet, and maybe I never will be fully over it. Somewhere in the midst of all my working and driving and lasagna-making, though, I’ve started to realize that even if I’m not over it, I’m growing around the grief. And even if I’m still sad, I’m also still OK. And even if I can’t text my mom a dumb private joke that only she and I would get, I do know that she is with me always.
I don’t mean that in a spiritual way; I don’t even know what I believe about an afterlife. I mean it in a very practical way – she shaped and influenced so much of who I am now that she is in my facial expressions, the way I say certain words, the songs I listen to, the way I love my own kids.
I don’t need quiet reflective walks to know that. I know it innately. I still will be spending March as busy as possible because that’s how I need to be right now, and I’m not going to garden because I’m terrible at it and I even kill things that are supposedly impossible to kill, like mint and zucchini.
But if you invite me to a fish fry or a crawfish boil, I’ll be there. And if you need a lasagna, you just let me know.
I’m not there yet, but I’m getting a little bit better every day. Grief came in like a lion but slowly, ever so slowly, it’s going out like a lamb.