Shaped and Formed

Recently, I met a lovely woman named Estella, who gave me a unique picture of what grief looks like. After losing her husband, she said it felt like “landing in Jello.” Her words created a vivid image of the jelly-like concoction that wiggles and moves when you touch it. Looking at Jello a little closer there are parallels that are similar to grief.

Jello is without structure and messy. Jello has elements of fluidity and motion. There is no stability in Jello. In considering the texture and consistency, it is defined by what holds it: it is form-fitted to the container where it resides. It takes a unique shape over time. It’s a process. 

Grief enters our lives as an undefined, wordless state. We’ve entered an unknown experience.  It begins to reconfigure our lives. Our grief is unique and individual to each of us and will change over time. C. S. Lewis described grief in his book, A Grief Observed; “I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, however, turns out to be not a state but a process.”

Earlier this year, I took an online course with Dr. Mary Francis O’Connor, author of the book
“The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss. She explains that grief is different from grieving. Here’s a summary of her definition:

1.  Grief is a wave, a single point in time.
2.  Grief is a human emotion with awareness of the loss years later.
3.  Grieving is a process and changes over time. 

Her main point is, “Grief doesn’t end, but grief will change over time as we go through the grieving process.”

Given the distinction between grief and grieving is helpful as a way to understand where we are in our process. We don’t stay where we started. Grieving, like Jello, takes shape as we move through, not get over our loss.

‘‘Grateful Yet Grieving’’

FREE ebook by Pam Luschei | Click HERE To Download

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