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.