Memories in Moments

In looking back on the first year after my husband died, there’s a blur of experiences I don’t remember. I faintly recall cleaning out my husband’s closet with my son, packing some clothes, and taking them to Goodwill. However, there were clothes I kept and didn’t give away for whatever reason. As I looked back, I realized I wasn’t ready.

This summer, after volunteering at a homeless center, I decided to donate the rest of my husband’s clothes. Going through his closet, I slowly removed a navy blue suit jacket from the hanger to put in a bag. Then, I checked the pockets. In one pocket, I found three cough drops, and in the other pocket, I found 41 cents. I carefully took the cough drops and coins and held them in my hands. Holding them, I took in the aliveness of my husband, wearing the jacket and having his hands on the cough drops and coins. I sensed him living. Something so insignificant suddenly became very meaningful.

Out of this experience, I considered the way we are given seemingly simple gifts after our loved one is gone. In the mundane and ordinary, we discover something we didn’t know while they were alive. I recognized I never noticed that my husband kept cough drops with him. Finding them in his suit pocket gave me new information, and suddenly, they became important to me. I knew and loved the person they belonged to.

With grief as a backdrop, we see life differently. All of a sudden, we notice what we never noticed before. Like a microscope, something we can’t see with our eyes is now profound and enlarged. Memories aren’t just in the big events, celebrations, and experiences. Our memories are found in small, simple things that grow in size as we remember our loved one.

I think Dr. Seuss was right, "Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.”

‘‘Grateful Yet Grieving’’

FREE ebook by Pam Luschei | Click HERE To Download

Ungrieved Grief

On my way to meet a friend for a walk, I drove by two storage unit facilities next to each other. I thought it was strange, but I soon discovered there are over 52,000 storage unit facilities in the U.S. Translated, we store a lot of stuff.

It caused me to wonder, how does that relate to our grief?   

Recently, while listening to a podcast, I heard the words “ungrieved grief.” In pondering the phrase, there’s an element of what we haven’t been able to process yet or what future grief is waiting to be processed: the “leftovers” and the “not yet” grief.

I wonder, do we have an emotional storage unit in our brains where we store our grief?

Are there boxes containing some aspects of our grief we have packed away and not gone through? Are there parts of our grief where we postponed the feelings so we can just get through the day? Just like a storage unit, we place things we don’t have room for but plan on looking at them and using them in the future.

Our boxes can remain where we put them for a while until we decide we are ready to “go there.” Storing our grief temporarily is necessary. It takes courage to look at where our grief is being stored. We enter a sacred space in our “ungrieved grief” storage unit.

Dr. Alan Wolfelt, author and grief expert, says, “Enduring the pain of grief is perhaps the most difficult challenge of human life. Being separated from someone we love hurts. It hurts so much. One essential rule of thumb to remember is that you don’t have to grieve and mourn all the time. You cannot and should not. Instead, you must “dose” yourself with the pain. Feel and express your grief for a bit, then take a break. Back and forth, forth and back.”

Maybe our emotional storage unit is the way we “dose” ourselves, as Dr. Wolfelt says. Might we be so kind as to consider that we can visit our “ungrieved grief” in its storage unit with gentleness and courage? Taking time to do so allows us to “go there” as we “go through” our grief.

‘‘Grateful Yet Grieving’’

FREE ebook by Pam Luschei | Click HERE To Download