The ebbs and flow of Grief

I have diverted and 17 second shifted away from grief for the past 2 months.  It has helped and yet when I find myself with nothing exciting to focus on it comes at me like a ton of bricks, and the flood gates open again.  I have come to accept that I may never completely heal from losing Madie, and yet I hope for it to be different.

That said, I have talked with several mothers who have lost children with many years behind them who have shared that the wound that encompasses your whole being initially eventually shrinks, but at times is just as huge as it ever was.  They've said it's less frequent and not as lasting when the periods come. 

 I have struggled with still expressing my vulnerability because there is a part of me that has performed much of my life on some type of stage.  That part wants to pretend that I am now for the most part okay.  While I am much better then I was a year ago, I still have times that I wish I had been the one who died, and didn't have to walk this path that is so difficult.
So why share now?
 I guess it is because I realize there are so many others who are grieving and many who don't understand the journey.  Therefore  if exposing the depths of my pain again (15 months out), maybe it will help others to better understand as they walk the path either personally or as the onlooker.  As hard as it is to still share my weakness when I want to be better all the time, in sharing I'm doing what I initially set out to do with this blog; share my journey regardless of how messy it may be....

This isn't a cry for help or sympathy, 

just understanding.  

As I wander down this path, and find myself again looking for the next ride to get more time between the present and returning home to my Heavenly Father, my Savior Jesus Christ, and my sweet girl, I realize that it's just a series of steps.  My hope is that in looking for my next big divergence, that it will carry me to a happier place then I currently find myself.  I have a game on my phone that has become an addiction for me.  I have played it in all my spare time to avoid my right brain, (creative, spiritual, emotional hemisphere) and it has helped me to escape to a very safe left brain existence over the past month(analytical hemisphere of the brain).  But even though this game has given me a nice break from grieving, I don't want to spend my whole life in one addition after another, and I have vacillated through many, shopping, eating etc.  

How to proceed, 

that's what I am trying to figure out.
 I feel like I am at a point of discovery.

 I'm grateful for the things that my children are involved with that bring me joy.  These things help time to pass and bring wonderful fulfilling experiences.  They also bring me joy in moments and let me escape my grief for periods of time.  But then I find myself again facing the very jaws of hell, as I again have to find meaning in the aspects of time. Have I mentioned time?  It is such a weird aspect to how our brains work. 

 We store many memories in long term storage, they aren't in our conscious moments, and yet it only takes a smell or a thought to take us back to the experience feeling like it just happened.  That is why the 17 second rule is so helpful, a wonderful tool, but I have discovered that after diverting away from grief over many accumulating moments that my body starts to let me know that I have to let it go.  This weekend it would have appeared in a ridiculous headache that stuck around for three days.  (It gave me a lot of time to ponder, and pray for help)  It's part of why I am writing because I feel like grief can be controlled with the 17 second rule but eventually at least for me I had to take time to honor it and really let it surface again.  I also want to find peace, not something that I am always trying to manage the fallout, but internal peace....

The rest of my post is my thoughts to Madie...

Dear sweet Madeline Rose,
I have now lived 464 days, without you and it has been the longest hardest period of my life, but you already know that.  I miss everything about you!  I am grateful for your hard work to communicate to me through various things that I take as "Madie hello's"  I wish I could communicate with you better, but I am thankful to now not have faith in a belief, but to know that we exist when we die, and that the spirit world that you are now a part of is right here, so very close.  I am so grateful for the help you continue to send, and wish I could see what it is you are doing, but my eyes don't pierce the veil as I wish they could.  The massage chair this morning was really a cool hello from you.  When it sat me up minutes before my piano lesson I thought, "Madie's telling you to get up and get ready!"
  I am jealous so often of your perspective on the big plan, but I know that you are always watching out for us as we grope through the sludge of recovery.
I would give anything to feel you and give you a hug, to tell you how very, very much I miss you.  Until my eyes see as you can now see, I continue to work at finding peace and happiness in life  without your physical presence.
Thanks for all you help me to be,
Love Mom

Personal changes that have occurred since Madie died

On the eve of returning to Houston after a week in Utah with Taylor and Bailee and friends, I wanted to record some of my thoughts about how my life has changed in the past almost 15 months.
I feel like the person I was on November 20, 2012 died with my daughter Madeline Rose, and part of the challenge has been to figure out who I am and how to continue to live with meaning and purpose.

I lived with fear before Madie died, and for some reason I live with very little fear now.  I feared headaches: Traveling because of related migraines, eating anything that wasn't healthy.  In fact my typical diet was a green smoothie for breakfast, loaded with lots of healthy oils, greens fruits, nuts and protein... a salad for dinner, and protein from organic sources.  I ate very little sugar,  dairy, gluten, and never hardly ate anyone else's cooking or restaurant food.  I had lived and breathed this healthy lifestyle for several years.  I feel like it is now another life.  I remember doing those things, but because so much of it happened during Madie's teenage years, and she became my partner in healthy living, including my exercise buddy, I have a very hard time putting the effort into being that person now.  I have attempted several times to return, but it feels like I am trying to live in someone else's life.  Too strange.

I now eat whatever sounds good, and just spent a week eating out at least once every day (it's so weird, but fun).  My diet is the biggest shift that has happened.  I would still like to find a healthy balance, but it is a part of my life that is still completely altered.

I also have traveled extensively since Madie died.  I hadn't been on an airplane in three years when she passed away.(I had developed a phobia of traveling because I found myself with severe migraines that ruined several trips consecutively)  This wouldn't have changed except for the necessity to fly out to Las vegas to be with Taylor.  I found myself in a completely feared environment, but through a priesthood blessing of healing I was given the day of the accident, I was blessed that I wouldn't have problems with headaches, and I can say that it immediately became a personal miracle.
 I have now flown 7 times since she died and have loved the freedom of traveling again.  It has helped to have the trips to look forward to, because being home alone during the day often gets difficult if I am not careful with my thoughts.  I have reconnected with old friends and relatives, and that has been wonderful!

I find that I don't sweat the small stuff like I used to, and that I honor whatever helps me feel happy, avoiding the slippery slope to depression. I have learned that as I have worked my way around this issue, that it isn't something that someone heals from but rather it is something that you figure out how to live with.  The loss is always there not too far from my thoughts, ant really not hard to pull up the emotions of grief and sadness.  I have found that I like doing things for others that is unexpected, that it brings me happiness as I see them surprised, and that helps to make my day feel better.  I also have learned how to use the 17 second rule like it is an old friend.  It doesn't mean that I am never sad or even extremely distraught, but I am able to better control when it happens.  That is true for everything but church.  That is still the place that I am the most vulnerable.  I think it is because it is when I recall my week, and try to figure out how I can do better, what the Lord wants me to do, and it is when I am the most connected to the spirit, which also means I am in my right brain emotional territory.

I must confess that I have developed an addiction to a game on my phone.  It is something that has helped me pass time and for some reason I find when I play that I don't think about being sad.  It is analytically challenging that constantly has new problems to figure out. For that reason, at this point I am taking it as something to get me through more time.  I can say that even though time doesn't heal the wound, it does ease the rawness, and has helped me want to be more engaged in the land of the living instead of the land of the dead.  It is a very real choice that I have to make, but a choice none the less.

I also feel that it is important to me to find ways to lift others as the opportunities arise in my day to day activities.  This brings me purpose, that otherwise would be lacking.

This isn't brilliant writing but it's where I am now in my journey.  I miss Madeline Rose every waking moment, but have learned to live mostly in my left brain as of late, and that seems to make the day to day easier.  The 17 second rule works, and I am grateful to now know when I feel the emotions rising, that I need to shift and just thinking shift, diverts me to letting the emotion subside.

I should be cooking, and yet my mind says write...

Last year the memories of Thanksgiving are deeply embedded in my brain. 

 Our family splintered,

 hospital halls,

 pacing, 

wandering.

 My thoughts all askew.

 funeral planning, 

Taylor's eyes;
 pain, 
 unknowing.. 

My mother heart ripping to shreds, 

wondering- where will this lead? 

Picking flowers; a casket.

 Seeing Madie,

 holding her close, touching her hair.

 wondering how to part ,

 the truth being too hard to bare,

 shrouding the holidays...

Saying goodbye to 17 years of traditions... more change

Change is an inevitable aspect to life, and yet I am struggling with the change that is staring me in the face with the closing night of Klein High School's musical The Pajama Game tonight, and the end of Musicals for our family on this particular stage.  Since it is the only stage my children have performed musicals on, and other things with choir and standleaders,I have many happy memories, but it is really weird to know that this whole thing is going to be torn down rather soon..

Add we had in the program for The Pajama Game

 I have wondered about how I will say goodbye to a place that has been such a big part of my life over the past 17 years, and yet perspective is everything.

 So many priceless memories.  I am  grateful to have been able to be involved with costumes,

MarShae made most of her factory dress

 hair and whatever else I could find to busy myself with. 

Doing Madie's hair for Guy's and Dolls

 Working on this year's musical has helped me to have the best month I have had since Madie died.  There have been so many wonderful moments and the show to focus on which has left me not wanting to focus on how much I miss her.  I also can say that I have known she was very aware of this show. 
 I personally had a very wonderful connection to her last Friday, Jan 31st.  I woke that morning knowing that it was going to be a really good day, and that the show was going to go well that night, I don't know why, I just felt it. 

picture right after getting her hair finished in the dressing room

 The weird thing was the show started with a mic issue, and I thought "What?"  This is not what I had been feeling would be the way this show would go. 
 I was so proud of the entire cast and crew though because they really didn't let it shake them up and went on to have great performances that night.  I felt so much love for the entire group as I watched a show that had so many obstacles, come to life and really have wonderful moments.  When I was talking to MarShae after the show on the ride home and telling her how proud I was of her she said, I knew when I woke up this morning it was going to be a great day, and show.  I thought how did we both know? 

 Then I remembered something else. The night before she had said that some of the cast were going to wear skirts with their cast tee shirts to school Friday.  She had thought she wanted to wear Madie's mustard yellow skirt, but it had a small hole in it that I needed to repair and the color was slightly wrong.  I mentioned maybe she should wear Madie's Anthropology skirt that Rachelle gave her for her graduation gift.  She has only worn it once to church and Madie only wore it a few times.  I saw her at school when I went up to do her hair for the show and was excited she had worn it.

  In the course of her getting ready this brand new very well made silk skirt had the entire hem just come out.  I wondered how in the heck that had happened, but then I thought "Oh Madie you are letting us know aren't you that you are so aware of all that this show means to MarShae and I."  Madie was there over all the years of the big brother's performing, and then finally she was able to participate in 3 musicals at Klein herself. 

Madie and MarShae were so beyond excited when they were both cast in "Once Upon a Mattress". I will never forget how much they loved doing that show together.

 I will also never forget them performing in the Tommy Tunes awards downtown and their show winning best ensemble.

All this aside though I have pondered so much on the opportunities that have been given to many of my children over the years.   I am very grateful that MarShae has been able to have such incredible opportunities and to be tutored by such great directors with the vision and legacy that is a part of Klein Drama. 

 I do find though that change brings some feelings up about other changes in my life, and it is because of this that I realize that change is what stretches us.  It has the potential to destroy as well.

  Even though I am sad to say goodbye to the memories, 

the traditions that our family has participated in,

Marielle painting a sign, something MarShae told me she did several years ago as well.

 I also realize the auditorium has many issues that will be very nice to not have to deal with any more. 

I  take comfort in the thought that one act play will be starting and I will get to see, it also performed on Klein's stage. I am excited to see what the possibilities are with the new facility. 

Magic circle for the last time in the dressing room, private dressing rooms, the freezing temperatures, so many things going away; things slipping into photos, memories. 

 If Klein's stage could talk the stories it would retell... Soon it will be a parking lot, and a place that I fondly remember, but tonight I will be in the present and relish every nuance of the closing show.