Making Peace With Grief- Sue
To lose a piece of your heart is to know grief. To lose someone is to lose a part of yourself and for Sue, she has found this all too true. But how did that affect her? Let us read her story and remember that grief affects each and every single one of us
On March 2nd, 2021 my son Owen, 19 years old, and the 3rd of my 5 children, died of an accidental overdose. I didn’t even know he was using anything harder than marijuana. The past 6 months have been the hardest I have ever had. It is not something I would want anyone else to experience but I know that many will. Unfortunately, there are many people on this journey.
Growing up, Owen was full of contagious energy. The word used to describe him most as a young child was “Sprite”. He always said exactly what he was thinking or feeling even if it wasn’t always what others wanted to hear. As he got older he became quieter and was more of an introvert. But being quiet did not mean he wasn’t listening. He often surprised us with funny comments he would make at the dinner table, and he loved to catch us off guard. Owen was a born minimalist and never spent a dime he didn’t absolutely need to. In retrospect, I wish he had enjoyed more of the money he worked so hard for. He had his struggles with school but overcame them. He was enrolled in his second year of math studies at the University of Calgary. Life wasn’t always easy for him, but he persevered and succeeded. I am so proud of him and miss him terribly, every minute of every day.
Every day is still a struggle. Some days are easier, some are harder. There really is no predicting which days will be hard and which ones won’t be so difficult. My friends and family have been an enormous support in helping me process and adapt to my new reality. They keep checking in on me and have been available with a listening ear when I need to talk. I owe them an enormous debt of gratitude. Owen’s siblings, Maya, Evan, Lilly, and Tulia have given me a focus and a reason to keep going. For the most part, we have become closer. They need me and I need them. We love talking about Owen, the good things, the funny things, and even the annoying things. We often say, “Owen would have liked this”. We help each other remember Owen and keep him in the present. Our lives are not the same without him, but he will always be a part of us and one day we will all be together again.
I feel like I am progressing in my grief journey. Although progressing doesn’t seem like the right word, it is the most accurate that I have found. My grief is not as raw as it was at the beginning, and I don't cry as often as I once did. But it still feels like an open wound that will never heal.
My grief has changed in the 8 months he has been gone. The first days after he died were a bit of a fog. There were lots of things to do. Things I never, ever thought I would have to do. Things like picking out a casket, giving the funeral home permission to take his body into their care, picking out the final clothes he would wear, and talking with the medical examiner’s office. These things kept me busy but also kept the level of sorrow and heartache very, very high. I was constantly trying to reconcile the thought that he was dead with the memories of him where he was so full of life.
Once all the “have to do” list of things were done, and the service was over I was at a bit of a loss. Now I had more time on my hands but nothing to fill that time. This meant I had more time to remember that Owen was gone and was never coming back. More time to cry. More time to think about how my other children have been forever changed by the loss of their brother. How could I help them when I didn’t even know how to help myself? Those thoughts and emotions were overwhelming. There was no right answer. There was no textbook or a step-by-step manual on how to live after your loved one dies. My thoughts simply became too much to sit with. I need to do something, anything, to fill the time and give my mind a break.
Then came a period of frenetic energy. I needed to be busy all the time. I could not concentrate enough to watch tv or read a book. I needed to move, constantly.
It started with rearranging the furniture in the house so that it didn’t remind me of Owen. Eventually, it turned into making crafts. Not the knitting or flowery type of crafts but things that required using a saw, paintbrush, or screwdriver. I made a large piece of art, some shelves, and small end tables. I made decorative trees from driftwood and windchimes out of cutlery. I even made my oldest daughter a bed for my house as she had been sleeping on a mattress on the floor when she came over.
All these things kept my mind just busy enough that I did could not constantly think of Owen. It was a break from the pain and anguish. It gave me a focus when my thoughts became overwhelming. When I wasn’t making something, I was looking on Pinterest for ideas on new things to make. I honestly feel as though crafting saved me from being swallowed by my grief. There were many times when I would have to stop crafting and let the tears come but there were also many times that I stopped the tears by turning them into a new creation.
The need to craft has not been nearly as strong over the last month or so. I take that as a positive sign. I don’t think it will ever go away just as my grief will never go away. The two things are now inextricably linked, and I am okay with that. I like the thought that I can channel some of those feelings of loss into creating something new. It gives me some purpose.
I think that for me, the hardest part of this journey has been trying to be a good mother while still grieving. Grief is an intensely personal journey. We all grieve differently. My grief is not the same as that of my 4 grieving children. I always try to be mindful when helping them on their grief journey even if that isn’t always helpful to my own journey. There have been times when the things they have said or done compounded my grief. Things that broke my heart even more. There have been times when I have had to make hard decisions in order to do what is best for all of my children even if it caused me more pain. There have been times when I have had to accept that what my children need to do is not what I would like them to do. They are on their own grief journey. I can be there to love and support them, but it is still their journey, and they make decisions that I would not necessarily have made. As a parent, you want to make your children’s lives better but there really is no way to make this better. Rather, I try and make it less awful.
There have been a few things about grief that have surprised me, things that had never crossed my mind before. Although honestly, I hadn’t thought much about grief before March 2nd. I worried about my children and other family members when they went to summer camp or drove on their own for the first time, that type of thing. But death was something that I did not entertain as an actual possibility. Until that point, I did not have much experience with death and grief. I was lucky.
In the first few days after Owen died the kids and I spent most of our waking time together and a lot of that time was completely silent. We would talk a bit about how we were feeling and start to cry. Then we would become quiet as we all thought about Owen. We would be together in the same room staring off into space, all of us thinking about him. We could be like this for a long time. Then someone would share memory and we would laugh and then cry or laugh and cry. Gradually it would become silent again. Eventually, someone would get up and walk to another room, and slowly we would all follow them into that room. The chairs and décor would be different, but the silence and the sorrow were always the same. I think in part the silence was because there were no words to express the degree of pain we were in.
One of the things I have appreciated the most on the horrible, awful grief journey has been the number of people who are willing to go for a walk with me. I know it isn’t easy to be alone with someone who is grieving, especially on a walk where there is no escape if things get awkward. No way to hide the tears when the emotions are too sad. I know that it would intimidate the old me if I was asked to go for a walk with someone whose son had just died. I would like to think that I would have agreed but I was never in that position, so I really don’t know. But I am forever grateful to the many friends who have gone for a walk with me when I asked and even more grateful for the ones that asked me to join them on a walk. They will never know how much that meant and what a difference they made. They listened while I cried and spoke about the unending pain. They made me feel as though I was not alone on this journey. They made me feel loved and cared for which in turn made me feel that Owen was loved and cared for, that he mattered. They truly are amazing friends.
The most loving advice I could give someone experiencing this horrible journey is to know that you are not alone. Do not be afraid to ask for what you need, what you really need, and if someone can’t give that to you then ask someone else. You need what you need and only you know what that is for you. Don’t stop asking until you get it. The help is there, it just might be a surprise as to who is there to provide that help. You are not alone.
