Today is a special day. It is Deziray’s birthday. Deziray was my best friend’s daughter, who at 6 months of age, was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She received surgery and actually beat the tumor completely. Her brain was perfectly healthy when she died at the age of 2 due to Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Because she still had a trach, the common cold was very dangerous for her. When taken to the hospital, my friend told the nurse not to give her that much oxygen at once, but the nurse decided my friend wasn’t a medical professional to know what she was talking about, and we think that’s what put her in respiratory distress. Body organs shut down one by one, and machines were keeping Deziray alive.
Meanwhile, I was halfway across the country serving as military spouse (my rank after military separation), and my husband was in Puerto Rico visiting family. I took a pregnancy test with my sister on the phone consoling me through the process, and it was positive. I instantly called my best friend to tell her the good news.
“Jamie, I have something to tell you.”
“I have something to tell you too.”
“You first.”
“No, you first.”
“No, go ahead. Tell me.”
“We are unplugging Deziray from the machines. The doctors say there is no chance she’ll come out of this….”
[conversation about details]
“What’s your news?”
“I can’t tell you now.”
“What do you mean.”
“I just can’t tell you. I want to tell you, but now I can’t.”
“Don’t tell me you are pregnant.”
“YESSSSS!!! [tears] I’m so sorry.”
Seven months later, I gave birth to my first child: Gabrielle Deziray.
Every year, I call my friend today to make sure she’s doing ok. Losing her daughter is the worst thing that has ever happened to her. The holidays are rough for people grieving anyway, but for my friend, it’s even worse because the day after Christmas is her daughter’s birthday.
I understand how difficult the holidays can be on those who’ve lost loved ones along the way. You get the family together to “feast to Odin” or celebrate Christ’s birth, and you stare at an empty chair thinking someone should be sitting there with you. Someone you love. Someone whose presence made Christmas special for you. Someone who just simply cannot be there anymore. And it takes away the cheer. It takes away from the enjoyment. It takes away from the holiday experience you had as a child.
Me personally, I have not enjoyed Christmas since my father and grandmother passed away.
Christmas of 1998. My grandmother was desperately sick in a lot of pain. Her liver was failing her, and her body was full of fluids. We didn’t realize how much pain she was in because she smiled the entire time. She never once complained.
My mother gave her a sweater as a gift and suggested she try it on. My grandmother responded, “Why don’t you try it on for me?”
We were clueless to her needs at that point. Meanwhile, my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. He had been given 6 months to live, and we were at almost 2 years in it. He started shaking really bad, so we took him to the Emergency Room on Christmas day. I was scared I was going to lose him. He recovered from the moment, and we returned to family.
The next day, my grandmother was admitted into the hospital. She must of been wanting to do that for some time, and wanted to wait until after Christmas so as not to ruin the holiday for us, and I think she knew her time was coming and just wanted one more Christmas with her family.
I visited her in the hospital, alone in the room with her as family talked about adult things behind the backs of us children in the hallway (even at the age of 20, I still wasn’t considered an adult). She told me, I’ll never forget this…
“Michelle, you have to tell them to let me go.”
She explained that prior to this moment, months prior to it, she had passed away and they revived her. In that moment of death, she saw a white mansion. A big beautiful white mansion with a huge garden and a trickling brook, and it was so peaceful. It was the most peace she has ever felt. She wanted to go back to it. She wanted us to let her go back to it.
I believe she passed away on December 31. During her funeral, there was a freak snow storm that hit only our area with the biggest flakes of snow I had ever seen (and that includes the weather in Wyoming). I swear that snow was related to her death, as if her tears froze in the sky and fell upon us all because she would miss us just as much, if not more, than we miss her.
The following March, my father passed away.
Christmas just isn’t Christmas without my grandmother’s meal. My mother does a great job with Christmas dinner, don’t get me wrong, but I’m just not really prepared to make new memories, and I don’t think I ever will be even though I do anyway. And my father? I hate that he is only with us in spirit and not in the flesh.
Yesterday, I made it through the day without thinking about my lost loved ones for the most part, yet I could not enjoy the day. It’s not my loss that kills my holiday spirit. It’s their absence. They are what made my holidays special when I was a kid, and without them, I just can’t get into it.
Then I look at my Facebook, and most of the statuses on my newsfeeds are one or the other.
1. Please pray for my family. (Grief or sickness)
2. I miss… or One more Christmas without… (loved one who passed away years ago)
It almost seems this is as normal as learning to walk.
Now that we are in the taint of Christmas and New Year’s, I think this is the time we reminisce the most about those we love who can’t join us in festivities. We are reminded of that loss, another year, like it just happened but at a little more peace with it than last year.
If you are one of us, my advice to you based on experience and psychological research on the grieving process:
1. Talk about your loved ones. Tell someone somewhere, whether it’s a friend, a gas station clerk, or your Facebook wall, about your loved one. A fact or a story. Something you love about that person.
2. Talk about your feelings. Express yourself in print or in voice about how you miss that person. Sometimes the emotions just need to release, and words release emotions as well as tears.
3. Cry. It’s ok to cry. It’s ok to sit on your bed covered in old photographs, cards of condolences, and funeral pamphlets and cry.
4. Pray. Send a message to your loved one via God. What would you have told them had they been there this Christmas? What did you want to tell them that you didn’t when you had the chance?
5. Visit their grave and leave a card. Talk to them. Maybe bring a little gift whether it’s flowers to decorate the grave site or a figurine to place on the grave.
6. Take a minute after reminiscing to think of the new memories you have made as if they were distant ones of the past. Your child, your surviving family… you are making new memories, and some day, they will become those memories you miss. Enjoy them while they are fresh.
7. Write a poem. They are meant to be abstract, and grief is an abstract. In the same way we journal to deal with the daily emotions of life, a poem is a great way to journal the less frequent emotions of death. It does NOT have to rhyme. Just write words and moments that come to mind as you grieve.
8. Toast to your loved ones. Sometimes, when I do a shot of my favorite liquor (vodka), I toast to loved ones who passed on. If I toast to all of them, drink by drink, I get drunker than a drinking game. You don’t have to toast to an alcoholic beverage. Just take a minute to think of them and celebrate their life and memories.
9. Remember them. One of the biggest fears of losing a loved one is that we will forget. It’s ok to talk about memories with family members, and sometimes you learn things you didn’t know about that memory. For instance, I had no idea my grandmother asked my mom to try on her sweater until my mother and I reminisced together.
10. Embrace the concept of death. Most of our feelings about grief and ghosts are manifestations of our emotions regarding death in general and the notion of facing our own deaths. As a Christian, the concept of everlasting life in heaven usually puts me at peace with the idea that I will some day die and face the next life. Death is a huge transition, one we fear because it’s unknown what happens afterwards. It’s the unknown ignorance that keeps us scared, anxious, worried, and latching to the past for comfort in facing the fear of the future. Remember, death is a very natural thing. It would be unnatural to live forever, and nobody would enjoy such a thing. Death brings us rest, something we all deserve. In many ways, it’s an impending vacation, but like any vacation, there are things we have to do such as pack (spiritual awareness during life, life insurance), get on a plane (face the fear of flying, the idea of dying), find your way, embrace the new culture, and then we can relax and put our feet up.
To all those grieving, I wish you many blessings, peace with your loss, and comfort in the process of finding that peace. And remember, it’s ok to visit the spiritual world in our minds, but don’t spend more time with the dead than you spend with the living. Close your eyes as long as you need, but don’t forget to open them. Embrace the life around you. Like Bruce Willis said in The Whole Nine Yards, for some humor, “It’s not important how many people I’ve killed. What’s important is how I get along with the people who are still alive.”
My grandmother will be featured soon in The New York Times: Motherlode. We found some things she wrote in the 1970s, and The Motherlode will be publishing one of the pieces within the next week. So keep an eye out for that.
Update: Grandma is featured on The Motherlode.
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