One of the hardest and most surreal parts of Cassie’s diagnosis has been dealing with what we have been calling “living grief.” It’s the grief we feel right now for the life we lost, for the dreams we fear we have to give up and for the sadness and emptiness that we carry around. It’s there every single day and at this point, doesn’t appear to be lessening at all. It’s heavy.
On Sunday, May 12 (Mother’s Day) our living grief met new grief when my mom died. She had been suffering from a serious blood condition for some time but her death was sudden and unexpected. In fact, the day before she entered the hospital, we were together celebrating her granddaughter Mimi’s second birthday. Mom was in rare form and good spirits. She was making plans for the future, arguing with me about driving and seemed so vibrant and full of life. Then, just seven days later, she was gone.
My two brothers and I were at her side for those final days. We got to say goodbye and we celebrated her life with family and friends at a beautiful service in her hometown of Chicago. We shared stories. We looked at pictures. We ate heartily at two Shivas (which is basically a Jewish wake with bagels, cured meats and smoked fish) and we rejoiced in what a wonderful mother, mother-in-law and grandmother she had been. Then all the “doing” stopped and the grief hit like a freight train.
I am still reeling of course and keep expecting her to call or wanting to call her. She moved to Minnesota almost two years ago and lived five minutes from me and Cassie. We saw her often and talked to her daily. We shopped and ate together. We shared books. We bemoaned Trump. We laughed a lot. She was a huge presence in our lives which now feel too quiet and empty.
It’s so sad. My chest hurts. I can’t sleep. I feel slow — like I am walking through water. I remember much of this from when my dad died, even more suddenly in 2015, but what I am experiencing now somehow seems both familiar and different and harder all at the same time.
I think part of what makes it so hard right now in particular, is that this is our first crisis since Cassie’s diagnosis and we are both facing this new crisis already depleted. Before, when one of us was going through something bad, that person would lean harder on the other. One of us could serve as a rock in our relationship. This time we were both already in crisis when mom died. The grief I feel around the loss of my mom and the grief I feel around Cassie’s illness is also grief that Cassie is experiencing. How do we balance the need to support each other while taking care of ourselves and experiencing our own grief? Cassie’s illness impacts both of us. The death of my mom impacts both of us. Grief has met grief and it feels almost unbearable.
So what do you do when this happens? When your living grief runs head-first into new grief. I don’t know other then I guess you try to make room for it. That’s what we have already been attempting to do around Cassie’s illness — create room for our new reality even though we don’t want to.
Grief is so tangible and so heavy. You can’t ignore it but it doesn’t just fit neatly into your life. We have to slow down, name it and let other things go so we can handle the new weight that grief adds. Now with even more weight, I think we need to go even slower. Let even more things go. Create more room in our life for the sadness, loneliness and emptiness. This probably isn’t the last time that grief will meet grief for us, so we need to try and muddle through, practice extreme patience with each other and learn what we can about ourselves and our grief processes. We need to let others help us and love us. We need to grab lightness and joy when and where we can. Most of all though, I think we just need to accept that it’s going to be really heavy and hard for a while and that’s just what happens when grief meets grief.
