Welcoming grief as my constant companion

I’m going to be taking the next two weeks off from writing. I know, this sometimes happens in my writing schedule unintentional, but this is one I’m declaring. I’m going to visit my family in Michigan and then have a week back home with zero childcare which means, I’ve decided I’m not going to torture myself by expecting I’ll find an hour window where I can sneak away or put my child in front of the tv and get some work done. I want to completely give over to spending a week at home with my child, being a mom. Not being pulled into my creative work, teaching work, career responsibilities. It seems like a gift to myself as well as a challenge. I’m always pulled into this idea that I have to keep working nonstop or everything will fall away. Sometimes that means even just thinking about work, otherwise everything will fall away. I’m currently (or constantly?) in one of those spaces where I’m evaluating my habitual mindsets and wanting to intentionally shift to something that might serve my health and my family more in the long run. I guess, trying to live more intentionally by my own design, if you will. 

But I wanted to share one thing before I start this intentional break. Something that’s been on my mind. 

My daughter turned 3 this week and it has had me reminiscing and reflecting about how much life has changed since she has come into the world. Having a child feels like it simultaneously speeds up, slows down, zooms out and zooms way in on life. The way I see the world, view my own life, my goals, how I want to spend my time, what I value, it is constantly shifting and changing while actively trying to let go of the deep grooves of how I was living pre-motherhood. It feels like I’m constantly looking through one of those twisting kaleidoscopes. It reminds me of our good friend Jeff, who is not a father, but told me while sitting around our dining room table when I was about 4 months pregnant, that he was interested to see how my life and career changed and progressed because from what he had heard, parenthood was more psychedelic than the best psychedelics. I’ve never taken psychedelics but I think he may have been right. 

Along with all of the magnifying and minimizing, shifts and changes in the past few years, grief has been a constant companion of motherhood that I hadn’t quite anticipated. I’ve long feared and avoided grief but I’m learning to welcome it, accept it and truly value the depth and soulful knowledge grief can give us. Grief for the true loss of what or who we had, who we were, the life we were living, the people that were in it as well as the grief over the loss of the ideas of what we thought life was going to be. Learning to accept and let go of those plans and ideals feels especially tedious and painful. But I’m learning, from this constant companion, if I let it, grief can be one of my greatest teachers. 

I was thinking back on what I consider the beginning of my ever present grief. When I was maybe 3 months pregnant, my 10 year old cat Leroy, was diagnosed with stomach cancer. We tried to treat him for a few weeks before accepting the inevitable and that the kindest thing to do was to put him down. At the time, it felt like overwhelming grief. It was a loss that I just didn’t want to accept. I was incredibly hormonal but he also was my first pet as an adult and a particularly special cat I felt bonded to. I also had all these beautiful dreams about my sweet boy Leroy cuddling with our new baby. I had a vision of my future life and him dying was absolutely not part of it. I couldn’t accept not experiencing the life I thought was meant to be.

And then a few months later, my mom had her stroke and was in a coma for weeks, could not speak or move for months. And that actually was unbearable grief. Emotional and mental anguish I’ve never experienced. I could not accept my mother would only possibly survive and if so, would maybe just be a disabled immobile body, severely brain damaged and unrecognizable from who she once was. I had all these beautiful dreams of my life as a new mom with my mom. My baby shower with her there, my mom taking care of me postpartum, traveling together, going on tour, walking the beach with her and her grand baby. I believed that my future was only possible because of my mom. I absolutely could not accept not experiencing the life I thought was meant to be.

Since the birth of my child, it feels like I encounter new grief to contemplate every day: lost opportunities, career goals and ideas that have slipped away, friendships that have faded or ended, the loss of my autonomy, things that felt like freedom, the loss of the ability to be completely self serving, the loss of energy, the loss of aspects of my body…. All things that I can specifically point to or blame on motherhood. Blame feels too harsh a word because even as I grieve these losses, I am grateful for them. I know it’s all part of my own path. One I feel is essential for the growth I am meant to do in this life, but it’s still so damn hard some days. (Thankfully, I find motherhood provides immense, indescribable joy and love that balances this grief).

It comforts me when I talk to others about this and recognize this is all an inevitable part of life. Some of us just experience it earlier than others. Some of us may not address, contemplate and share as much as others. Compared to some, I reveled in arrested development for quite some time. And compared to others in my peer group, I feel like I’ve aged decades beyond them in the past few years. 

When I reflect on this, it makes me think of the moment it was pointed out to me that it was time. It was time for me to learn, to grieve, to grow up, to become a mother and to learn to mother myself.

It was early in the morning, still dark as I was driving to the hospital to start my day sitting alone with my thoughts and fears, staring at my unconscious mother. February in Michigan is depressing to begin with. The gray, heavy, slush filled streets were the fitting background to the depressive panicked fugue state I found myself in. I was on the phone with Aaron as I weaved my way up the hospital’s parking garage ramp to the visitor check in level. As I pulled into my parking spot, I was crying and telling him, “I can’t do this, this can’t be real, this can’t really be my life.”

He started slowly, “Michaela I’m saying this to you with a lot of love.”

He paused to wait for me. 

Okay….

“Your mom has always been there for you, no matter what, right? She has always made everything ok and better for you, emotionally, financially, physically, mentally… no matter what, she was there and always helped you, right?”

Yes.

“Now it’s your turn.”

I took a slow breath and closed my eyes.

“You can learn to do that. You can be that for yourself and learn to do it in time for our daughter. You can be the type of mom she has always been for you.”

Three years…. I’m still learning. 

I’m thankful for all around me, like Aaron, like my daughter, like my mom, like my new companion of grief, who help me continue to learn. 

I’m thankful my mom has slowly been returning to a closer version of the mom she used to be but even if she hadn’t or doesn’t completely, I know the deep gift of what I had for so many years before that and how it has prepared me to welcome and accept grief and all that is for the constant growth and lessons of life. 

I’m curious, what ways do you feel like grief has helped you?

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As always, these essays are written quickly, from the heart, without an editor. Some days I feel inclined to apologize for the heaviness of the subject matter and then I stop myself, I know I need to read these from others, so hopefully, when it’s a particularly heavy essay, it is finding someone who needs to read it. Thank you, as always, for being here.