Blues for Persephone

Category: Grief

• Stages of Grief

  Posted at 12:21 pm by bluesforpersephone, on August 16, 2018

  

   

  I just realized that this blog has changed from just a resource that I wanted to put together for some people who are about to go through something similar to a way for me to process through stories, like I used to do with my mom. It took us a long, long time to figure out how to be genuinely supportive of each other in a way that worked for the other person. My mom and I are very different people and she had a very difficult time with differences between herself and people she cared about. She just didn’t want to have differences of opinion or style. When someone disagreed with her she reacted like they were telling her that everything she was was wrong. It was very hard for her, and it was also hard for me until I realized that she had infused me with a similar problem but that problem was hers not mine.

  So, along that line of thought, I’ve been thinking about my stages of grief. The most current thought is that there isn’t a linear progression (duh) but that the process is always in flux. Control freaks hate that. That makes me love it. I pretty much love anything they hate because I am so sick of their shit.

  My sister was talking to a colleague about this kind of grief, the deepest, cataclysmic kind of grief.Her colleague told her that when her mom died, she went to work one day and forgot to wear pants. From then on, she said, she knew she was doing ok if she was wearing pants when she left the house. Now we gauge our days as pants and no pants days. There’s no way for anyone to understand it until they’ve lived it. It’s like so many things.

  My first few days were after mom’s death were comprised of pretending to be a whole person while I made arrangements with the funeral home, crying so hard that I would choke on it, completely leaving my body while watching television with my fur babies, and panicking because something went wrong and I simply did not have the cognitive capacity to make quick changes or bounce back from bumps in the road.

  When I got back from signing papers and all that at the funeral home, my dog was in such horrible pain that the couldn’t lift his head. I rushed him to the emergency vet and they told me that he had degenerative inter-vertebral disc disease. That was one of those moments that my heart and brain unhooked. I just couldn’t process the eventual paralysis of my little piglet right after I fell into the tiger trap that was my mom’s too early death. The problem with falling onto spikes is that every move you make hurts more.

  I’ve actually met people who didn’t experience loss until they were in their 30s. When I heard them say that I had one of those head exploding moments. My uncle was murdered when I was four and my sister wasn’t yet born. My mom told the story that it was all that people were talking about until Roseann Quinn was murdered but as it turns out, she was murdered on New Year’s Eve and he was murdered on January 6th. Huh.

  I have a large extended family and had lots of great aunts and uncles and mom’s cousins and my own aunts and uncles. I’ve been to a lot of funerals.

  I’ve done lots of cat rescue so I’ve also had to make the decision to let someone furry go on to the other side more times than I’d like.

  I held my childhood pet in the back of a station wagon as she aspirated on her own blood after being hit by a truck. I cried as her tongue turned blue and her eyes rolled back in agony. She was broken beyond repair and died before we got to the emergency vet.

  You could say I know my way around grief.

  Today was a pants day. Yesterday was a no patience day, but I was wearing pants.

  Posted in Death and Dying, Grief | 0 Comments

• Resources

  Posted at 12:04 am by bluesforpersephone, on August 16, 2018

  

  You didn’t have to read the last post. That was me being myself, which it turns out is hard to do. I get a lot of static for that but meh…

  So I have been collecting a mass of amazing resources on death and dying because I am considering making a career transition into the field. Either funereal work or grief and trauma counseling. We shall see.

  The first recommendation I have is where I began my learning. Maybe I mentioned it before but it doesn’t hurt to mention it again. It’s the Order of the Good Death.

  I could, and will, link you to the many sites that they have linked on their site but I really don’t need to do that. They have legal information about what you can and what you must do with regard to disposition of remains and funerals and so many other things.

  It was through that site and affiliated groups that I learned about alkaline hydrolysis. It’s like cremation but with a much lower environmental impact. It’s amazing. It turns out there is a place near me that will do it for pets but no facilities exist in California yet.

  My sister and I went to Better Place Forests and bought a tree on which we will be spreading my mom’s ashes. She would have loved this place because when you buy the tree and spread the ashes it means that the area can no be developed and stays a forest for as long as the laws are the way they are. A non-profit will be managing the legal guardianship (or whatever, that sounded good) of the forest.

  I was thinking of having my body placed in the ground at Fernwood Cemetery because they place you in the ground naturally. It was the closest legal thing to a Sky Burial I could legally have in California. It turns out maybe I could have one in Texas. Maybe I’ll do that.

  I love the idea of returning my body to the ground. Maybe I’ll still do that. If I do that, I plan to wear one of these burial shrouds, provided there’s someone to do that for me when I die.

  I’ve got more and I’ll continue adding to this post. If you’re interested in any of this, keep checking.

   

   

   

   

   

  Posted in Death and Dying, Grief | 0 Comments

• What happens after…

  Posted at 11:45 pm by bluesforpersephone, on August 15, 2018

  

  subtitle: What the fuck did they just say to me?

  For a very ling time I knew my life would crumble when my mom died. She was the focus of my life for so long. Even as a little child I worried about her. My poor mom never had the chance to integrate her true self with her lived self and that was through no fault of her own but shortened her life.

  She lived for other people. When I was young she was always worried about what every single person would think of us if we did this or said that and how that would impact us. She would never have said this but she truly believed that if you stay still and quiet the monsters will stop hurting you and go away. Her advice to me about kids who were cruel to me at school was to not react at all (freeze) and then they would get bored and move on to another person because they would get nothing from me.

  It turns out that doesn’t work. It never worked for her, not when she was molested by someone she should have been able to trust, not when she was treated like she was not worth as much as other people, not when she lived in fear of my father for most of my life.

  As she grew older, she started to say things she wished she could internalize and wished she could do. She gave wonderful advice but found herself unable to make it real in her own life. The more I learned about psychology, trauma, grief, and resilience the more I taught her about how to help herself find some safe space within her mind. It didn’t really work. She was just too afraid.

  The saddest thing, for me alone, about it was that she so very desperately wanted to see me happy. She wanted to see me working a job I loved, living a life in a supportive community, and with someone who loved me especially dearly. She never got to see that. She died still worried about me, knowing I was alone in the world but for her and that I might not be ok. That breaks my heart.

  So, that being said, what happens after someone you love dies is that you have to make some choices about their remains, the ceremony, the location, the after party, etc…

  I recommend that you not do what I did.

  I organized a ceremony and after party for everyone but myself. Not surprisingly, the majority of the attendees didn’t give a single shit about me and how I was coping. I appreciate the people who came up to me and asked how I was doing with genuine concern. They were few and far between.

  I also appreciated the people (blood relatives) who sat with me and laughed and talked about a lot of nothing. Though it was crushing that, unlike the funerals we’ve had for male members of the family, there was not the drinking and crying and laughing and telling stories about my mom. Maybe it was precisely because her life was so sad or maybe my family really doesn’t care about its women. At this point, I know I can do nothing about it so it really doesn’t matter.

  Some of the attendees had an invitation only party without us.

  It took me months to process that.

  While my family was sitting in a hotel lobby (because I forgot to reserve a suite while working an unforgiving job, struggling with my own health issues, and managing my poor little dog’s disc disease… that’s what happens when you’re alone in the world, balls drop) some other folks were comfortably in a house. Did I mention we weren’t invited? We weren’t.

  So that’s what happens after. A lot of business happens, with a lot of phone calls and mistakes. I imagine it would have been better if I hadn’t been doing it mostly alone but who knows.

  And then the services happen. I hope that no one tells you to behave yourself when someone you love dies. That shouldn’t happen to anyone.

   

  Posted in Death and Dying, Grief | 0 Comments

• Where Do We Go From Here?

  Posted at 9:18 pm by bluesforpersephone, on June 6, 2018

  

  Writing this now is extremely difficult for me but on the chance that it will help someone I want to navigate the pain. I don’t want to hurt myself, even though that’s been my way of coping with stress and shame and loss. I want to clarify my thoughts so that what I know might help you. I plan to write out the whole story for anyone who wants to read the whole thing but if you’re in a hurry or don’t like my writing style, here is a list.

  Admittedly, it will be different for everyone but there are some consistent themes.

  Here’s my bullet point list:

  • Get a second opinion. Maybe get a third opinion. If something doesn’t feel right DO NOT BE AFRAID to challenge the doctors. They may have developed a very aggressive way of being to get through medical school but that doesn’t mean your intuition is wrong!
  • It is NEVER too soon to start planning your funeral. If the person with a cancer diagnosis or other serious disease is not ready to talk about it, there are death doulas and therapists who specialize in working with fear to allow a person to look honestly at planning for the worst. We all die. It’s never too early!
  • Look at all of the options for final disposition of remains. Home funerals are legal in some places. There are more environmentally friendly methods if you are interested in lowering your impact. There are so many advances and options. The Order of the Good Death is an excellent starting place.
  • That said, make sure anyone who might be in a position of having to make medical or funeral decisions has access to any and all necessary paperwork. DO NOT leave them hanging. It is a terrible position to be in to have a doctor ask you if they should resuscitate your loved one when you don’t know what they wanted when they wrote their directive.
  Posted in Death and Dying, Grief | 0 Comments | Tagged bullet list

• The Beginning

  Posted at 8:01 pm by bluesforpersephone, on May 3, 2018

  

  A little less than two months ago by mother died earlier than I expected.

  It was a shock to my entire system. Everything I was and everything I knew fell to ruins around me. I’ve studied grieving and trauma and have lots of psychology of resilience strategies and it didn’t matter. A lot of that is because I’m alone in this world. Community is so important at times like that. I don’t have one of those.
  

  Since then I’ve been in conversation with many colleagues and friends who have asked me to write something to help guide others through this challenging experience. I’ve made so many mistakes and have so many regrets and I don’t want you to have those so I’m going to take a chance and write this blog in hope that whoever reads this will learn from or feel supported by my choice to share my experience.

  I could start at the end and give you a list but I’m going to start at the beginning.

  In October of 2015 my mother diagnosed herself with breast cancer. When I say she diagnosed herself I mean that, as a registered nurse, she saw something on a medical image for something unrelated and recognized it as an unusual mass. She brought her observation to her doctor and the journey began.

  Hers was not the most aggressive breast cancer. It was only stage 2 so I thought, “She’s tough, she’ll kick this thing’s ass.” I was wrong. My gut reaction was to think she was going to die but she reassured me (the way her family always does by pretending it’s not that serious when it actually is that serious) that she would be fine and would live a very long time. When I told her I was worried that if I died no one would take care of my fur babies, she said, “I’ll take them.” and I, of course, said, “Mom, they might live another ten years.” She insisted that she would be around for the rest of their lives. I decided to believe that.
  

  I wish now that I had allowed myself to consider the reality of breast cancer. I wish I’d done more research. I wish so many things but there’s no going back. That’s the most important thing. THERE IS NO GOING BACK. Don’t second guess yourself. Don’t think someone else knows better. Follow your intuition. Intuition is gut plus experience. Follow it without hesitation and without apology because in the end when you look back you will be able to say, “I did what I deep down in the bottom of my soul believed was right.” That’s the best possible outcome.

  When my mom called to tell me she had cancer, I was in an abusive relationship with someone who was struggling with serious mental illness and I had just taken on a new job that appeared to be perfect for me but had, by then, taken a truly harrowing turn.

  Things were all around horrid for me and I was struggling to stay alive. I was not capable of being fully awake to my present condition much less of considering the reality that my mom, who had been my only source of emotional support for as long as I could remember, might not be here any more.

  Instead of facing it, I was only able to get through the next fifteen minutes. I didn’t do a good job of supporting her. Many other issues in our family made it hard for me to go visit and my own issues made it hard for me to support her with all of the medical details. Nonetheless, I couldn’t get my head around it so I did what I could. That’s all you can do.

  If you’re in it now, please be kind to yourself. If you over extend yourself now you may not have it to give later.

  Look for the post tagged “bullet list” and the one called “Resources” if you don’t want to read the whole story.

   

   

  Posted in Death and Dying, Grief | 1 Comment

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