When Does Grief End?

My wife Catherine, taught me an important lesson about grief.  It was the fall after our daughter was born.  She had a very serious look on her face when we sat down to talk.

“Every year during the fall, you get sick.  Now that we have our daughter that has to change.”  I really didn’t understand what she was talking about.  She could see it in my face.  “William, every year at this time, you get sick.  When you get sick, I get sick, and the baby will get sick and we’ll have a miserable Christmas.  It has to change.”  I was still confused about what she wanted from me.  “Let me put it this way, your mother is here in our marriage and she’s fucking with us.  Get her out.”    

This was a challenge.  At this point, my mother had been dead over ten years. I was sent to the basement (exile) to “work” on this issue.  At first I didn’t think she knew what she was talking about.  But she knew me well and I knew she believed it.   

My mother died in late September.  The anniversary of her death was always a powerful time for me.  My parent’s wedding anniversary was in October, my mother’s birthday was around Thanksgiving and Christmas was our big holiday.  Fall was filled with emotional anniversaries.  In September I would start to avoid my feelings.  Clearly, the cork was put in the bottle with the anniversary of her murder.  As Fall proceeded I would get more and more depresssed.  I bottled up the sadness I had from all those family times that I used to celebrate.    I would get more and more depressed and numb, until I would get sick.  Catherine was right.

Then I had a memory of an experience I had shortly after her death.  My brother and I had decided to rent out our farmhouse in Rochester.  We should have sold it then, but neither of us could consider parting with it.  I was given the job of going up to the house, cleaning it and preparing it for sale.  

I knew that this was going to be tough.  I knew I would have to clean up blood.  When I arrived at the house, I steeled myself to the task at hand.  If I allowed myself to feel the sadness, I would never be able to complete the job.  So I turned off all my feelings and went about my cleaning.  By the time I left there, 8 hours later, I was sick as a dog.  I felt like I was coming down with a flu.  But I needed to get back to Connecticut, so I jumped in my car and started driving.  I was outside of Albany, when I finally had to pull over.  Once again, I felt the hurt.  It was the familiar pain that accompanied losing my mother.  It was excrutiating.  I believe I sobbed for over 15 minutes.  It was deep and cleansing.  It took me a while, before I could regroup and get back on the road.  But by the time I reached Massachusetts, I was totally healthy.  My body had washed away whatever it needed to.  

I knew what I had to do.  In order to get my mother out of our family, I had to spend some time with her.  Each Fall, I had to allow myself to mourn my mother.  I needed to cry and feel the loss.  Some years I would pull out pictures of her and that would open me up.  Some years I would write her a letter and tell her about my life.  To this day, I can still find tears if I think about how much my kids would have loved their grandparents and vice versa.  That thought will always be a trigger for me.  

For several years as fall would approach, my wife would remind me that my mother was sneeking back into our lives.  Would I kindly get her out?  For more than a decade, this was our ritual every year.  In fall, I would start taking time to think about my family, my childhood, my mom and dad.  Eventually, I would open the flood gates and have a good cry.  Once I opened up to the tears, I wouldn’t get sick.  

I don’t know when I noticed that Catherine stopped bringing it up.  Eventually, it was no longer necessary.  While the pain will always be there, as time and my family healed me, my mom’s death lost its power over me.