My mom was my rock, my person. As a child, she lost her mom when she was fourteen so I felt fortunate that she knew how important the love between a mother and a daughter was and that she brought it to our relationship.
If someone had asked me from age seven to age thirty three what my biggest fear was, I would have immediately said that losing my mom would be the worst thing I could imagine. I mention age seven because it is most likely around school age that children begin to understand death as "final" (Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, n.d.). When I was thirty three, the unthinkable happened and my mom passed away from breast cancer. It was devastating and I will never ever have words to explain how much it has changed me but in going through this grief, I realized that I had unresolved trauma from when I was younger. My grandma passed away and my parents got divorced within a short span of time when I was six and I never fully processed that grief, in fact I don't remember the entire year after it happened. I know that it was not a catastrophic event, but it still remains that childhood trauma can affect people well into adulthood if it is not dealt with at the time. From my childhood trauma, I developed anxiety and abandonment issues even though I had a pretty normal childhood and was very well loved.
Grief is such an odd concept and it is so unexplainable in words to people who have not experienced it. In the words of Mary Louise Parker (2015), "It would be like blue trying to describe the ocean” (p. 14). Grief comes in waves and can affect you in ways you didn't know possible. It truly is like the waves of an ocean or like some kind of natural disaster.
In thinking about grief and trauma in class, I realized that even in all of the sadness and disaster, the grieving process truly does show beauty, because without deep love, there would not be deep grief. One of the things that has always been my outlet is writing. Something about being able to get my feelings out in a creative way has always helped me. I write poems, short stories or sometimes just free write. For my final project, I decided to write a poem about grieving and how it feels to be in the depth of grief and trauma. I named it "Force Majeure," which means "greater force" in French.
I hope that if you ever have dealt with grief or trauma that you know you're not alone and that there are so many wonderful resources out there for you. If anyone reading this ever needs someone to talk to, please feel free to reach out to me. My friend Jesse did a Ted talk about grief and it's very eye opening. I've linked it below.
There is so much more that I could say on the topic of grief and trauma. It is something very dear to my heart. Now that I've gone through grief and my worst fear, I feel that I can make it through anything. Grief and trauma can change you and make you realize how resilient you really are. There is so much love in grief. It can break you but when things break, they can sometimes be put back together even stronger than before.
Everyone will go through losing someone they love in this life and even when it happens to you, you will still never have the words to say to comfort others. Just please be kind to yourself and know that you truly are stronger than you know.
References:
Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. (n.d.). A Child's Concept of Death. Stanford Children's Health - Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford. Retrieved November 5, 2021, from https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=a-childs-concept-of-death-90-P03044.
Parker, M. L. (2015). Dear Mr. You. Scribner.