Three Months of Loss

Three of our dearly loved family members have passed away in a 3-month time span.

• My husband’s cousin, a mother of 4 children, passed away unexpectantly in February. We drove to Tennessee to be with the family and attend the funeral.
• My paternal grandmother, Oma Wilma, passed away in March. She was 90 years old.
• In April, my aunt (dad’s sister) passed away. It was only a month after her own mother’s passing and the birth of her fifth grandchild.
• Also, the one year anniversary of my dad’s death was the first week of May.

We have all been processing how to handle so much loss in such a short period of time. The emotions and feelings are overwhelming at times. We are finding comfort in each other and on the memories shared, but it is a difficult road. I’m learning how we all process death differently. I know grief can cause us to act in ways that are not true to our personality. I give grace, I accept grace, and I trust things will get better with time. Here is a list of things that are helping me cope.

10 Tips for Handling Grief

1. Listen to worship songs while pouring your heart out to God.
2. Keep dinner very simple. Cooking dinner is very challenging when I am grieving. My sister mentioned they have smoothies and popcorn some nights as a quick dinner solution. I think that is a great idea. The thought of coming up with an idea and carrying it out is just too much for me at times. At other times, the act of cooking dinner has been therapeutic for me. Being able to complete a task feels normal when so much around me feels unpredictable.
3. Give grace to yourself.  If you forgot to cancel an appointment, pack a snack, or remember the school permission slip it is okay. All of that can be forgiven.
4. Spend time journaling your thoughts and feelings.
5. Talk about the person that passed away. I bring up memories of them to my children. It feels good to know their story lives on.
6. Buy fresh flowers every week. If you have a Trader Joe’s near you they have great deals on fresh flowers (under $5). As a free alternative, I cut flowers or greenery from my yard and put them in a vase.
7. Daily exercise or at least go for a walk outside. Spending time outdoors helped me a great deal. Also, I joined a BODYPUMP™exercise class at our gym after my dad passed away. It really was one of the top activities that helped my grief. The fact that the class could be completed in an hour felt good. I didn’t know when the grief would end, so having something I could control felt empowering.
8. Spend time face to face with your family members, give and receive lots of hugs, share meals together, and make time for talking.
9. Plant something so you can watch it grow. There is something so powerful about watching something grow after you have lost a loved one.
10. Take time every day to do something that makes you happy. Reconnect with an old friend, dig out your crochet supplies, bake something new, whatever makes you happy, do it.

So here we are on the ocean of grief, letting the waves carry us. Trying to look toward the future, but longing so much for the past.

I would love to hear your experiences with loss and grief. How did you handle it? What seemed to help you most?