Losing Sleep

I like to read about writers and writing. I recently read that if my writing doesn't keep me awake at night, it won't keep you awake during the day. At times, my desire to write about grief approaches mania, or to quote author Annie Dillard: Writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world. Both of these thoughts about writing are true for me. I have lost many hours of sleep writing for this grief web site and I have spent countless hours alone in a small room recalling the real world of grief.

I started writing about grief in March 2006, two months after my mother died. Looking back, I'm not sure how I did it, but I am glad that I began writing so soon after her death. I could not have captured the raw pain of new grief if I had waited. I had to write as I was experiencing it.

I believe my writing reflects a natural evolution--first the pain, then the well meaning, but unhelpful, things people say to grievers, followed by how to help others. I had to experience the first Christmas without my mother before I could write about grief during the holiday season. I was sorting through some pictures and found a photo of a beloved cat. I added the pet loss section because I remember the intense grief I felt when my dear old friend died. The pages of this site were created one by one, over time, as I grappled with the emotions of my grief. I've tried, most of all, to write with honesty and compassion.

I blocked out some things that happened during my mother's final illness because they were too painful to remember. My psyche wasn’t ready. But, as time passed, certain events came back to me as I was able to accept them. It was my task in grief to put them in some kind of perspective, so that I could let go of the images of suffering for the sake of my healing.

For example, the night after my mother’s surgery she called out for her own mother. It was December 22—the 48th anniversary of her mother’s death. The Cardiac Care nurse reported this to me the next morning and I asked her how she responded to my mother. “Well, of course your mother was confused. I told her that she was 85 years old and her mother had been dead for decades.” Then she added, “When she stopped asking for her mother I knew she was less confused.”

I told Mom’s concrete-thinking nurse that there were at least two other explanations: 1) She was in pain and she was symbolically calling out for comfort. Of course she would want her own mother, and 2) Maybe, just maybe, she was asking her dead mother to come, be near and wait for her. The nurse rolled her eyes and looked at me without comprehension.

From On Grief and Grieving by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler, page 107:

Why is the concept of visitation so hard to believe? Imagine that you’re a parent who had loved and cared for your child. You kept her fed, healthy and safe while she was growing up...You shared her excitement and fears of high school, college, marriage and becoming a parent herself.

Now go forward [forty to fifty] years into the future. You’ve been dead for decades, and your daughter, the same one you helped through all her scary moments in life, is now dying herself. Wouldn’t you meet her if you could? As the veil between life and death is lifting, wouldn’t you want to reassure her she’s going to be okay and you’re still there for her? When you think of it this way, maybe the idea (of visitation) isn’t quite so far-fetched.

Many people believe that when they die, everyone they have ever loved and known will be there to greet them in death. That is why they believe no one actually dies alone.

These words comfort me. I hope they comfort you, too.