Coping 101

There has been a significant slow-down in my writing lately, and the reason is the season. Christmas was my favorite time of year until my mom got sick. Everything having to do with Christmas now reminds me of her, but not in a positive, happy way, in the way that I am constantly flooded with images of her as a sick person, a suffering person, a dead person. I don't need to be reminded of the horrific times we had as a family watching her die. Unfortunately, Christmas still reminds me of the sickness and death. I am hoping that this will eventually wear off- each year it gets a little easier, but this is now the third Christmas since she died, and I am still getting used to it.

My next few writings will focus on coping- what to actually do with yourself, and some suggestions that I have for what people can do to survive when grief has taken over your happiness. Suggestion number one follows.

Write to them. Sit down, write a letter or two, or fill up an entire journal of letters or conversations to your mom or whoever you are missing. When my mom died I went for weeks feeling endlessly verbally constipated with all of the things that was so used to talking about with her. Even when she was sick and unable to speak, I chewed her ear off on the phone and in person about everything we used to talk about. After she was gone, there was a hole left in that part of my day when I used to talk to her. At first I tried to find a substitute for her- someone else in my life with whom I could banter endlessly about the food network or people's rediculous outfits. I tried talking to friends, family members, even helpless people in the grocery store. Somehow no matter who I talked to, nothing made me feel like there wasn't a giant hole in my life without my mother. What you need to do is try not to fill that hole, but to find a way over it. Go down in the hole and see what is there. Embrace the hole. I started writing to her. I got myself a nice empty journal and I started writing messages to her. I wrote whole letters, short quips, little hellos, and long diatribes about how much I hate Oprah. In the beginning you think you are a crazy person and that you might be a part of a Nicholas Sparks novel (that is NOT a good thing) but then you come to a place where you need to write, and it feels fulfilling when you have written. Sometimes, a lot of times actually, all I could write was "Where are you?" I wrote it over and over. She didn't answer.

One more thought on God before I move on...

There has been a bit of a lapse since my last entry because I have been thinking about this entry for a while and didn't really know how to say it so that it came out just right. I have now resigned myself to the idea that it probably won't be right at first, but someday when I make this all into a book, I will make it perfect.

I have one more thought on God and the presence or absence of a higher power in my life, and it is because of a special friend of mine. My dad has always said that you will only have four or five true friends in your lifetime if you are really lucky. I am really, really lucky, because I almost lost one of them but we found each other again, and I am not letting go now, or ever.

I met Molly when we were about 11- neither of us can really remember exactly when we went from being bitter rivals to best friends, but it must have been a smooth transition. Through our friendship we helped each other along through the ups and downs of middle school and high school, through finding and letting go of our first loves, and all of the other firsts that come and go in those years. She was more than just a friend to me, she was my family, my insides. She went on family vacations with us and my mom in particular had an extra special fondness for her. Molly is a constant fixture in the story of my life.

When we went away to college, a lot of things changed- we were living on different sides of the country, studying completely different subjects, hanging in completely different circles of friends. In the natural sway of the wind of life, we drifted apart. Both of us resisted this drifting and tried to hang on, but something forced us finally to take a "break" from each other. Our lives moved on in separate directions. It was like I woke up one morning and she just wasn't there. I was devastated. Unfortunately, what I regret most is that I didn't work hard enough- I didn't try to save us, I just glided along on the wind and allowed it to happen. My own immaturity got in the way of having my best friend with me when I graduated from college, planned my wedding, and worst of all, my wedding day. I thought we would never speak to each other again. We were different, our existence as an "us" was gone.

Not long after my wedding, both of us were in attendance at the wedding of one of our mutual best friends. My mother had been very concerned for those two years about the fact that Molly was not in my life anymore, and I remember her crying on the phone to me about it on numerous occasions. Days before the wedding she pleaded with me to patch things up, to try harder, to reach out in some way. I dug way down deep inside and I went up to Molly at the wedding and told her I missed her. We talked and hugged and it was like I had my old Molly back. It was like finding and old teddy bear that you thought had been given away ages ago, and all of the fond memories come flooding back and you are overwhelmed with a sense of nostalgia, happiness, and sadness all at once.

The repair of our friendship took a while, but it is now better than ever and I know that she will be a significant part of my life forever. What is it that makes two people who have drifted so far away from each other come back together, and then, to be closer than ever before? Why did my mother continually remind me of someone that I loved when she knew how much it hurt me that we weren't friends anymore?

Fast forward three years- my mother is diagnosed with a terminal illness. My mother, my guiding light in my life, the greatest source of guidance and calm in my life, taken away. My sense of balance and good in the world shattered. Here's where the idea of a possible God comes in for me. If there is a God, could he/it forsee that I was going to need Molly in my life, and know what was ahead for me? Did he know that I wouldn't be able to get through the loss of my mother without such a valuable person in my life? The way these events in my life were woven together in such a significant way leads me to feel that something somewhere must have been looking out for me. Furthermore, after my mother's death, three other extremely important friends from my past became closer than ever to me and each other- are the major events in your life that are involving different people all over the country inextricably linked in a completely random way? IS that really possible? I will talk more about those other three people in a later section about positive outcomes from negative events.