Grief – Barbara Heagy

Alone, Again. Christmas Grief.

There is a burden of grief that hangs on my heart this holiday season. I feel it everywhere. It’s in the grocery store as I go down the aisle, I feel it on the streets, I sense it in the air around me. It’s almost palpable. A tension, a fear, a sadness, worry. I look into the face of a friend and I feel it’s heaviness as he faces a Christmas alone. I hear it in the voice of another who isn’t so sure what her Christmas will be like this year.

The pandemic had its own horrors and grief as we were all forced into isolation. Many of us sat alone, unable to see and hug our own family, our own friends. Many of our loved ones died, quarantined in hospitals or nursing homes and we were not allowed to say our goodbyes in person. Funerals became small and private or not at all, with only a public announcement in social media for most family and friends. We all faced that collective misery together but at least we were all facing it the same. As the saying goes, “Misery loves company.”

Now the pandemic has eased its stranglehold and things have opened up. People are gathering as groups again for inside events. Plans are being made for traditional Christmas celebrations and there is joy and excitement at the thoughts of gathering together once again after two years of “bubbles” and masks.

But there are those that are still isolated and alone as others ramp up their joy and holiday plans. Some still are faced with their solitude and absence. For those, life has not returned with its business and plans. And they grieve. And this year, I feel the grief has doubled because of what we have been denied the last two years. The pandemic has intensified it. Being alone becomes loneliness.

Let us remember those for who Christmas will not be noisy and joyful and full of people. Make that phone call. Drop off that unexpected present. Visit for a short time. Bring over that plate of turkey and stuffing. Share a moment. Share the joy.

Merry Christmas to all.

Vision Boards Bring Hope

With my recent renovation, I have been cleaning out shelves and cupboards that have held things for years. One of the things I found was a vision board that I made 12 years ago when my husband Tom was diagnosed with cancer.

A vision board is a visual collage of images and words that reflect your goals and dreams in life. I made mine with magazine photos and words as well as some art made by my Gr. 1 students at the time. My vision board includes pictures of dance, nature, travel, and good health. I posted it in my kitchen where we would see it every day and it inspired us and gave us hope for the future during our cancer journey. It was our daily reminder to live our best life.

Perhaps a vision board could help you through a difficult time of your life. No matter what’s happening, we can still live every day with zest and joy and be full of gratitude for the many small gifts that come our way. A vision board reminds you to be filled with hope for the future. Never stop dreaming. Never stop loving life.

Cracked Open

December 11, 2018, was the anniversary of Tom, my beloved husband’s death. Eight years ago, he passed away into another world. Facebook, my main social media site, has a feature that takes you back on your timeline with each passing day. You are able to see what you did and said on December 11 from 2008, 2009, and so on. I was able to trace my life for the weeks and days preceding Tom’s death. I could see all the things that were happening and my comments on them, and I couldn’t help but think over and over again, If I only knew that one week later, three days later, Tom would be dead. It put a very different perspective on life for me. We just never know, do we, what life will bring. It reminded me even more to live each day fully, with zest. This is the main theme of my book, our story, in 10 – A Story of Love, Life, and Loss that I published after Tom’s death. His death and the grief over the subsequent years has taught me much about living a full life.

Grief has softened me. Not at first. First I felt raw and torn, laid open like a jagged wound. But with time that has healed and in the opening of that wound, deep in my gut, I have come to recognize a soft, vulnerable place. And I mean I physically feel it that way. There used to be a hole, a place where the pain of losing Tom and never having him in my life again sat like a dark cavern. It has been replaced. Now there is a fullness filling that empty hole, a soft spot, almost like the yolk inside an egg. It sits in the same place, never forgetting, but always accepting. Tom’s death took away a piece of my soul, but left behind a soft, accepting centre of love and gratitude. It may be delicate, but it’s not weak. In its softness is strength, courage, empathy. It’s pliable, secure, and forgiving.

Reading Mark Nepo’s , The Book of Awakening, I came across this passage. He seems to know about that soft spot within that comes after deep pain. He writes:

“It leads me to say that if you are unhappy or in pain, nothing will remove those surfaces. But acceptance and a strong heart will crack them like a shell, exposing a soft thing waiting to take form. It glows. I think it is the one spirit we all share.”

Grief has cracked me open, and because I was able to look and experience it full in the face, it has left behind a soft jewel in the centre of my soul.

Life is Eternal, Love is Immortal

Yesterday my Snack ‘n Chat group that meets weekly had one of our potluck lunches. One of the women has been recently widowed after forty-seven years of marriage and she told us a beautiful story about the loss of her wedding ring in a local store shortly after her husband’s death and its miraculous recovery.

For two weeks after the loss of the ring, she returned to that store over and over again, asking in different departments and areas of the store if it had been found. No one had seen it.

Again this week, she asked a young clerk if the ring happened to be under the cash area on a shelf perhaps. It wasn’t. My friend moved on to do more shopping and the young girl went to talk to one of her friends in the store. The next thing my friend heard was her name being called over the P.A. system. She was to return to the same counter again.

“Now, I don’t want to get your hopes up,” the young girl said. “We have found a wedding ring. It may not be yours. Security is bringing it to us.”

They all watched with anticipation as a uniformed guard approached. He stood before them and pulled out a clear plastic bag from his pocket. Inside was the wedding ring!

My friend was overjoyed and broke out in loud squeals and a mixture of tears and laughter. The clerks and guard all joined her causing a joyful ruckus that could be heard throughout the store.

Where had the ring been all this time? No one was sure but my friend’s persistence and prayers paid off.

We each shared stories that day about miraculous events after the loss of a loved one. One woman felt her deceased husband had visited her in the night leaving a kiss on her lips. Another spoke of a knock at a door, and her deceased father entered the room, fully clothed, in the flesh. She felt he had returned so she could say a final goodbye to him. I shared my story of a medium’s message of eternal love and gratitude from my beloved Tom.

I found it quite amazing that four women had four stories about miraculous events after the loss of a loved one. We tend to not talk of these things in our society. I believe there are more stories out there. It appears that our loved ones do go on and can send us signs and symbols from eternity. Love lives on.

Good Grief

We had a very successful book launch. Thank you to all who came out. Here is my speech:

The first thing I want to say is how honoured I have been to be a part of this very special book, Good Grief People. I knew none of these authors, except for a slight acquaintance with Donna Mann, until we began working on the manuscript last year. Glynis M. Belec, Carolyn Wilker, Ruth Smith Meyer, Donna Mann, and Alan Anderson, I now count you as best friends, my BFF’s, and I admire and respect you all so much. My friends have taught me much about death, dying, and the grief process.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about what ‘good grief’ is. And now that I see the book in its final form with all our stories and poems, I think I would have this to say about good grief.

Good grief is about bravery, sensitivity, acceptance, and a generous, fearless attitude to life.

Grief is much like falling in love – to do it well, we have to drop the barriers holding us back from fully stepping forward into it. Yes, it’s a powerful emotion, as powerful as love. But that’s what grief is – love. When we have loved deeply, we grieve deeply.

Good grief means facing the fear, the anger, and processing it in good faith. It’s about examining one’s life and finding new purpose and a new identity. It’s about a willingness to live and find a new you.

Like a woman in labour, who works with her body and mind to embrace the pain, to release it instead of fighting it and bottling it up, when I grieve well, I learn to ‘go with the flow’. These stories have taught me that I can birth myself into a new identity. It will be a world without you, a different world, but I will still be in it and will find my new life.

Grief is like a wounded athlete who learns to work through an injury, strengthening the other muscles and joints to heal an injury to regain our health and wholeness once again. Grief can be like an amputation, and when you think about it, losing someone dear to you is like losing a part of yourself. But even through that, we can learn to do things in a new way and go on.

Good grief is the fork in the road, and although we may hesitate, we choose to take it in good faith. It’s the willingness to continue the journey, a journey into the unknown.

Good grief is the willingness to accept the end of one story and move on to the next chapter or book. We all have our favourite books and stories that we just hate to see end. We stretch out the best parts, savour it, read it again slowly, or even stop reading because we can’t bear for it to be over. But it does come to an end. And then we move on to the next story, but not until we have placed that story in our ‘favourite books’ shelf for safe-keeping and re-reading. We know that we can return to it again and again, but we know too that it will never be the same as that first time experience.

I hope that our book, these stories, will help you find hope in the midst of despair, comfort from the pain, joy in the sadness, strength out of the weakness and acceptance in the midst of denial. They all sit on the same plate. We can learn to live with both.

Christmases Past

There are those who are facing difficult circumstances this holiday season. It’s not easy being surrounded by cheery music, glittering decorations, party-makers and celebration planners when you feel your world is falling apart. It all looks so joyful and we can’t help but feel isolated by the merriment that we’re not feeling ourselves. The whole world seems to be a part of some great coming event that we just don’t look forward to.

Six years ago today, just before Christmas, my husband Tom passed away and he was gone forever. That first Christmas I was numb. I hadn’t truly accepted the fact that Tom was no longer with me. I had bought gifts and stocking stuffers for him and he had bought gifts for others that were still arriving by parcel post and courier. I chose gifts for his family, wrapped them, and wrote personal notes on Tom’s behalf as if he had given them himself. The Christmas card I had bought for him said it all: “Life gives beautiful gifts. It gave me you. Merry Christmas (our last one).” In truth, the Christmas the year before had been our last one, but I wasn’t ready to accept that reality. Family helped me wade through the grief of that first Christmas with love and understanding as we celebrated together.

The next Christmas was actually harder to go through without him for he was no part of the preparations. For the first time since I had been with him, I wasn’t choosing a gift for him, I had no need to fill his stocking or buy a special Christmas card. Any gifts I bought for others were from me, not us. What I did do is light a memorial candle in his memory. It sat beside his framed photo on the mantel of the fireplace. With the help of family, I made it through that holiday season.

I continued to light a memorial candle each Christmas. He was still with us. Family celebrations continued to be a part of all my Christmases and stories and memories of Tom were always encouraged from family and friends. His memory lived on. Christmases got better.

This Christmas will be the seventh one without Tom as a living presence. But he continues to be with us in our hearts and minds. Special decorations, food, drink, so many things still bring back memories of our lives together. We still share the stories and our fond memories of him. For us, he lives on, just in a new way.

The black grief of that first Christmas is gone but I continue to feel melancholy at times. How could I not? We had a great love. I will always love him. But life moves forward. There have been weddings and new births and grandchildren growing. Reaching out to others has helped. I have cried with those who miss their loved ones as they pass on and I have laughed with delight holding a newborn baby in my arms. We share our lives; the joy, the grief, the celebrations and the losses. I continue to live in hope and faith for all that life offers me.

I made it through that dark valley. I wasn’t afraid to feel the shock and the grief. I accepted all the dark feelings and let them run their course as the tears flowed and turmoil reigned. I reached out to family and friends for support, encouragement and even distraction. They helped me laugh again. I stayed an active participant in life by continuing to work, joining clubs and making new friends. I am stronger for having gone through it all, and can now reach out to others to help them through their difficult times. Together we can make it.

Stay hopeful. Stay strong. Better times are ahead. Believe that Christmas will once again be joyful for you. I wish you a Merry Christmas. Even if it doesn’t feel like it. It will.

Lay Me Down

Karen and I met for tea today. She is deeply grieving her beloved husband who passed away just weeks ago. Every day she visits the grave site still fresh with dirt and flowers.

“I can’t go on. Today I just wanted to lay down right there in the grass and mud and die beside him,” she sobbed.

I told her, “Then you should have. It’s okay to feel what you are feeling, and think what you are thinking. You have had a great loss. If you wanted to lie down right then and there, then you should have just done it. There’s no wrong here. It’s okay to meet the grief head-on and yield to it and your feelings.”

What I didn’t say is this . . .

“As you’re lying there in the dirt, maybe, after a while, you will realize that you’re still alive, and it’s cold on the ground, and you are hungry, and the kids need to be picked up. And because you are still alive, there are things you must do to keep living.

“And when you stand up, you will still be sad and filled with grief at the loss of your husband, but you will go on. Not with him walking beside you, but in a new way.”

Cheryl Strayed, writer, has said, “If it is impossible for you to go on as you were before, so you must go on as you never have.”

Give yourself permission, the right to grieve as long as you need to and whatever way you need to. Rest, pause, from life for a time but then get up, brush yourself off and go on.

“Ah, but the sweetness is gone out of life,” you cry.

You are surrounded by sweetness – the sun beaming down from a blue sky, a child’s bubble of laughter, a fragrant flower. When you are ready to look up, you will see it. Today you are blinded by grief and the painful reminders that you will never have yesterday’s sweetness again. But tomorrow’s sweetness is waiting patiently for you – just up ahead.

(A revised copy of this entry is in “Good Grief People”, authors Barbara Heagy, Alan Anderson, Glynis M. Belec, Ruth Smith-Meyer, Donna Mann, Carolyn Wilker.)