A Checklist Doesn’t Work When It Comes to Grieving

What I have been able to do is shift my paradigm

Photo by mahabis footwear on Unsplash

There are so many things in my life that I could get done with a good checklist. I’m that girl who gets a kick out of checking off things on the list. Ah! It feels good to complete the list, crumble up the paper, and get something done.

Unfortunately, I have discovered that grief doesn’t work like that.

Though I sure would like it if it did.

To make a list, I need to know the steps I must take to complete a task, and in terms of grieving, I am driving blind. Couldn’t tell you what I need to do or how I need to do it.

So when well-meaning friends ask me what I need, I look at them puzzled. I have no idea what I need.

Every day is different in this new world, and I am so foggy about what I need that the only thing I can do is keep going and remain watchful.

Left foot, right foot, breathe.

I have a small box full of Post-it notes. Yellow, green, light blue. Color-coded for the task at hand. They are useless in this arena. Seven months after my adult son’s death, I am finally understanding that the only thing I can do with my grief is meet it with gentleness and kindness.

It will tell me what it has to say if I am quiet enough to hear its soft voice.

Initially, I was afraid of its message. Would it break me? Would it paralyze me? Ironically, the only way I can break through this feeling of being stuck is to wait and listen. If I push the grief away, it comes back with a vengeance.

Left foot, right foot, breathe.

This is a new relationship for me. Yes, I have grieved the loss of many loved ones, but never the loss of a beloved adult child. Like any other relationship I have, I need to enter into it in the spirit of discovery, not control. When I do, I am learning more about myself than I ever have.

Please do not misunderstand. Grieving an adult child is painful, unpredictable, and intense. It is leading me down paths I have never seen before, most of them spiritual in nature. No longer is my faith theoretical. Mortality, that of my son’s as well as my own, and everyone else I love stares me down every single day.

Left foot, right foot, breathe.

But this generous teacher stays by my side. In the darkness and in the light. I feel it's alchemy transforming something in me. I know I will never be the same.

Once, a counselor asked me where in my body I feel sorrow. Where does this grief live?

Sometimes it is lodged in the center of my chest, a rope around my heart. Other times, it feels like it is stuck in my throat, words that won’t come out of me. It is always in my lungs, preventing me from taking a full breath.

Left foot, right foot, breathe.

What I have been able to do is shift my paradigm. Grief is not something to do. It is a place to be. It is not a destination. It is not a task that fits on a checklist. It is a relationship: with loss, with myself, with my Creator.

Left foot, right foot, breathe.

I can do this.