It has been over 2 years now since Daddy has passed and we are coming up on 4 months since Momma has been gone and I’m still learning that there are stages to grief that no one talks about!
There are the obvious sides of grief like anger and denial and depression and supposedly there is an acceptance stage but I think that stage looks different for everyone.
There is no real pattern to the stages of grief and apparently you can go back and forth between them, and skip over some, but you are told the stages of grief are normal and you are allowed to feel your feelings!
…BUT, no one warned me that I would lose it over a 40+ year old green stock pot! It’s SO old. It’s scratched up. It has no “non stick coating”. It’s not cast iron. There is no value in this old pot…Except my sister remembers and smells chili being cooked in this pot. She remembers the smell like it’s cooking in the next room.
No one told us that my sister would want to keep all our mom’s clothes. Mom was tiny! No one over the age of 13 could fit in Mom’s clothing, but my sister wanted to keep it. She feels close to Mom when she can run her fingers over Mom’s royal blue sweater or touch the big chunky costume jewelry that sparkles. She wanted it all. It brings her comfort. For me, it makes me sad Mom isn’t here to wear it. Sissy and I have some of her good jewelry and Sissy feels close to Momma by wearing it, and I have some safely tucked away in a jewelry box.
It’s how we grieve. We are not the same, but we are both mourning the loss of the same people!
No one told me it would be normal to avoid sitting in my dad’s recliner to then crave time IN the chair just so I could feel like he was holding me. Then to have those feelings change, yet again, where I couldn’t even look at his chair, AND AGAIN have those thoughts of, “this is dumb…If Dad were here he would tell me that ‘it’s just a chair’ and to get rid of it and that I can’t keep everything!” … To the realization that I don’t want to bring the chair to my house because I’m not sure I want to look at it everyday, BUT I don’t want it going to someone who will not appreciate it and understand how much I loved the man that sat in that chair!
Why do we not talk about this stuff? Why do we not share these thoughts that just flip flop and roll in our heads? Why do we feel like we can’t open up about this?
I’m telling you today, let’s talk about this! Let’s talk about the ugly parts of grief. Let’s open up to our friends about how hard it is to let our loved ones belongings go…
…because every piece of furniture or jewelry or stock pot we hang onto is something that will remind us of them and those feelings can bring comfort to one of us but to someone else it can bring pain. On the other side of that, every piece we say “no” to, feels like a small part of losing my parents over again and I feel like if I say “no”, I’m pushing them further and further away from me.
I opened up to someone at church about having to go through our parents’ house and they said, “Oh that’s so hard.”, and I said, a little more loudly than I should have, “It really really is, and why doesn’t anyone talk about this?” My friend was gracious and shared a few things that were hard for them when they were clearing their parents’ home and I felt a connection with my friend that was never there before.
FRIEND, PLEASE OPEN UP ABOUT THIS! Please know that you are allowed to have all the feelings and those feelings can flip flop and roll and tumble and change day by day and you are allowed to just feel!
Let’s change this “not talked about stage” of grief to an open, honest, REAL conversation!
I’m here if you need me. I’m here to talk.
Let’s talk about the golf bag in the garage that has spider webs all over it, or the Bible that has all the handwritten notes in it, or the stained recipe cards that hold Great Grandma’s sweet potato casserole.
…Let’s talk.
As for the 40+ year old green, scratched up, faded stock pot…I plan to make chili in it this weekend!
