to katie: about grief

I shared this letter with Katie – this was the letter that kicked off the blog.

Background: On May 10, 2008, which was both Mother’s Day and the 12th wedding anniversary for Katie’s parents, Katie’s dad collapsed at Katie’s soccer game. Katie had to run to other field to get her mom (my sister) and her sister, and then spent about 20 minutes not knowing if her dad was okay.

Turns out, he had a massive heart attack, but he survived, in a way most would call “miraculously”. His life was saved by some parents on her team who happened to be emergency room doctors, and a quick-thinking marathon runner who happened to remember the defibrillator in the gym, which happened to be unlocked.

This letter was written as the one-year anniversary of that event approached.

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Hey Katie! I have a thought I wanted to share with you.

You don’t have to read this today – it is about your parents anniversary. Read it any time you want (or never if you don’t want to read it ever, that’s ok too).

I’m going to put some “filler space” paragraphs so that if you want to quit reading now, you can – if you want to keep reading, scroll down.

filler

filler (repeated about 25 more times)

This should be far enough.

I’ve been thinking about something about you and I have in common: we have powerful good memories mixed in with powerful bad memories.

I wish life were less complicated.

For you, you have good memories of your dad surviving, and happy feelings about your parents’ anniversary, and about Mothers’ Day, all mixed in with traumatic memories of seeing your dad collapse, and having to run across the field to get your mom.

Big things to celebrate, big things to grieve.

For me, I have good memories of my birthday growing up sharing it with my dad. I don’t know if you remember, but I was born on his birthday! So for the first 22 years of my life, we celebrated our birthdays together, and we had many happy memories that way.

The bad part for me is that since he has died, I am very sad that he’s gone, and I miss him a lot, especially on our birthday. It seems like he should be there.

My dad died in Jan of 1993, so I have had 15 birthdays since then. Some years, I think I have handled it better than others.

I want to share with you a few thoughts I have had along the way in case they help you.

In the past couple of years, I realized something important: I need to have time for me to grieve AND for also have time for me to celebrate.

What I tried to do several times was just to be happy about my birthday, and that didn’t work – the truth is that I also felt like grieving Dad’s death.

And a few times, I just let myself be sad and grieve, but then something was missing – I’m glad that I was born, and I think it’s a good thing to celebrate!

So the past few years, I have scheduled something fun and celebratory AFTER my birthday was over, so that on my birthday, I had plenty of time and space to grieve. But then shortly after, I could still celebrate the fact that I was alive.

After all, I’m still alive, and I’m very happy about that fact – it seems like a great reason to celebrate!

Anniversaries bring up memories. It happens. It’s possible that every year, you might need to have some time to express some negative emotions.

I know other people have told you this too, but here’s what I think: It’s better to figure out how to express negative emotions in a healthy way than to bottle them up. Negative emotions need a place to go so they don’t just stick around in your head causing problems.

Here is what I hope for you: that you also feel free free to celebrate – maybe the day before, maybe the day after, maybe the week after, you’ll just have to figure it out. I think it’s a great time to celebrate what you like about your dad, what you have learned from him, ways that you hope you end up like him – on these anniversaries.

Your dad isn’t perfect (because nobody is), and there will be things you won’t like about him (and your mom, and your sister, and your gramma, and me and Kevin… ), but I hope that you can figure out how to celebrate the good things about your Dad, and about your parents relationship, on their anniversary, in addition to the hard stuff.

I love you so very much, Katie. Of course I wish I could wave a magic wand and make it so that you are never sad. But I know there is no magic wand, and everyone has hardships in life – it just comes with the package of being a human being.

These are very grown-up thoughts. You are dealing with very grown-up emotions. I believe that if you can learn how to deal with this in healthy ways, you will be so well prepared as an adult to really express and cherish the happy/celebratory parts of your life as well as the difficult ones.

There is a quote that I couldn’t find exactly, and I don’t know who said it, but the idea is: Treasure the friends who can comfort you when you’re down, and also celebrate with you when you’re up. If they can only do one or the other, they’re not worth as much.

I think that you are going to grow up to be an amazing friend – someone who will be fully able to help others with their sorrows, but also able to fully and wholeheartedly celebrate all the joys life can bring.

You never ever have to choose just one or the other (joy or grieving), but sometimes, you may have to do them on separate days :)

If you ever want to talk, you know that I am always here for you.

Love,
Aunt Angie