{"id":852,"date":"2020-11-20T10:17:13","date_gmt":"2020-11-20T18:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherylrostek.com\/?p=852"},"modified":"2020-11-20T10:17:13","modified_gmt":"2020-11-20T18:17:13","slug":"grief-and-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherylrostek.com\/index.php\/2020\/11\/20\/grief-and-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Grief and Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

This image is loaded with grief and love; it was taken mere days after my glioblastoma diagnosis when I was in the thick of grieving my prognosis and grasping to hold on to this man, the love of my life.\u00a0 This week the connectedness of grief and love resurfaced in my life in a serendipitous sort of fashion.<\/p>\n

Yesterday my cat threw-up on our front entry rug.\u00a0 Gross right? Normally a behavior like this from my cat would elicit disgust, frustration and annoyance.\u00a0 Yesterday was different.\u00a0 Yesterday, my cat\u2019s puke tumbled me into grief- raw grief that caught me off-guard.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Our 13 year old cat Fritz has been acting older lately: moving slower, drinking more, losing substantial weight and yesterday he puked for no known reason.\u00a0 \u201cMaybe this is the end.\u201d my husband chimed teasingly from his office beside the entryway.\u00a0 It was a small, seemingly weightless remark, the sort of remark that I would usually brush off with an eyeroll and half-hearted chuckle.\u00a0 Not yesterday.\u00a0 Yesterday while my husband worked in the office, my children played boisterously in the living room and I was preparing to take my oldest daughter Christmas shopping, grief stopped me in my tracks. \u00a0 I was taken aback by the intensity of grief I felt in that moment.\u00a0 Yes, maybe these are my cat\u2019s last days.\u00a0 Yes, he\u2019s a hallmark in our lives, he\u2019s been part of mine and Ryan\u2019s family for 13 years, always part of the kids\u2019 lives.\u00a0 Yes, he is a sweet cat.\u00a0 Yes, I know grief over a dying pet is real and warranted.\u00a0 But this was something more.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As I welcomed grief and explored why she was there I realized grief over my aging cat had triggered the intense emotions of grief I felt when I was processing my prognosis after I learned of my glioblastoma diagnosis.<\/span><\/p>\n

Historically I am not good with feelings.\u00a0 They are inconvenient and inefficient.\u00a0 I like to box them up and pack them away for a later date\u2026.or never.\u00a0 However, as the book <\/span>The Road Back to You (1)<\/span><\/i> illustrates, if you never revisit these feelings they cumulate into an overstuffed closet waiting to burst.\u00a0 My closet of grief burst open yesterday.\u00a0 I had somewhere to be, I didn\u2019t have time to sit in this grief right then.\u00a0 I wanted to box this moment away, try to shove it in a different closet and pretend I didn\u2019t need to deal with it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, I am learning there is a better way to deal with uncomfortable emotions: move towards them with self-kindness and compassion. (2)\u00a0 I am practicing choosing to take a stance of courage towards awkward, inconvenient feelings. \u00a0 So, with tears threatening to spill from my eyes I texted my dear friend explaining the perch of grief I was sitting on.\u00a0 I sent this message so that as I pressed into my day and the shopping date with my daughter, I had accountability to revisit this conversation and to sit in these emotions and feel them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Incredibly as I revisited my grief later in the day, I found a connection to something so much bigger than myself. Let me explain. Scripture tells us that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses- our ancestors who have gone before us. (3)\u00a0 In my grief I found comfort that I am not alone. Furthermore, a couple of days ago during my 15 minute quiet time I was meditating on the scripture Revelations 22:1-2.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. <\/span><\/i>2 <\/i><\/b>It flowed down the center of the main street. On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit,<\/span><\/i>[<\/span><\/i>a<\/span><\/i><\/a>]<\/span><\/i> with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

As a pharmacist, I loved this scripture because it speaks of heaven and there in heaven are trees growing alongside a river and on these trees are leaves that are used as medicine to heal. \u00a0 Medicine without side effects; medicine with the promise of curative, perfect healing. I <\/span>love <\/span><\/i>the idea of <\/span>that <\/span><\/i>kind of medicine.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This scripture\u00a0 also depicts \u201ca pure river with the water of <\/span>life<\/span><\/i>, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God\u201d. \u00a0 Engaging in the world of glioblastoma there is so much death; oh how I am thirsty for the water of life.\u00a0 That dark morning as I pondered this scripture, my 8 year old daughter reading a book by my side, I thought of my Grandma Krahn, who died over 20 years ago.\u00a0 When this Grandma babysat me as a child she would sing at bedtime for my sister and I from the bottom of the stairs, her health too poor to want to climb them.\u00a0 She would always sing the gospel song, \u201cShall we gather at the river.\u201d – The river, depicted in these verses.\u00a0 My thoughts of my Grandma were vivid, as if I was right there with her at heaven\u2019s river edge: a reminder that I am indeed surrounded by ancestors who have gone before me.\u00a0 I could almost hear and see Grandma\u2019s ever-booming voice softened by her joyous smile reminding me of how much work I have yet to do on earth. \u201cLove deeply and passionately\u201d she seemed to say to me, \u201dyou are never alone\u201d.\u00a0 I think about my youngest daughter who is teaching me so much about living passionately; in this moment I found a connection between those gone before me and those who will continue after me.\u00a0 I am part of something bigger than myself.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am grateful I have learned a bit about embracing grief.\u00a0 There as I sat with my oldest daughter on our worn couch wrapped in blankets to ward off the chill of the morning, I was grief-struck.\u00a0 Tears filled my eyes, as I grieved the loss of my Grandma; this may have been the first time I cried over the loss of my Grandma.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always loved funerals, they are beautiful celebrations, but I am new to the process of grieving well.\u00a0 This same daughter, beside me, asked me a couple of times recently if I miss my grandparents,\u00a0 I said, <\/span>well no, I don\u2019t miss them, they died so long ago<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 Now sitting in my grief I see that my daughter\u2019s question was a remark that <\/span>she <\/span><\/i>doesn\u2019t want to lose her grandparents and perhaps she was asking for a pathway to deal with the grief if such a loss were to happen. \u00a0 That dark morning I turned to my daughter, asked her to put down her book, and with tears in my eyes, I declared, \u201cI miss my Grandma Krahn so much.\u201d\u00a0 I paused to swallow the lump in my throat and continued, \u201cbut her love will never die and it is still with me and always will be.\u201d\u00a0 I hugged her as she wriggled, uncomfortable in the vulnerable conversation.\u00a0 I hope that she heard, grief is normal.\u00a0 Grief is meant to be shared.\u00a0 And I hope she also heard, love lasts forever.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I open my eyes and think about the Chapter on Love I am organizing for my memoir.\u00a0 I\u2019m beginning to ponder that perhaps love is just as much like an energy field as it is an emotion.\u00a0 I think of my other Grandma, Grandma Elias, and the remarks that my cousin made at a family sharing time before her funeral when I was 17 years old.\u00a0 He spoke of the first law of thermodynamics-\u00a0 the conservation of energy and that the total energy in a system is a constant and does not change. He spoke that when grandma died her grandma energy remained.\u00a0 I feel this grandma-energy as love: the love of my ancestors still with me.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been on a journey lately, towards a greater understanding of love.\u00a0 Love is the crux of belonging and connection.\u00a0 I like self-sufficiency, but in writing my memoir I am unearthing the vital nature of embracing love, vulnerable love. And what\u2019s more, I now see that love and grief are intertwined; if you choose to love, you open yourself up to grief.\u00a0 Grief like I experienced when I learned of my prognosis: when I saw my future vanish and envisioned my kids growing up without a mom.\u00a0 Grief that my husband traipses through most milestone moments such as my birthday and survivor anniversary as he is reminded of the brutal reality of his potential future.\u00a0 Grief that has no words and can only be consoled with a warm vulnerable embrace of love.\u00a0 In seeing anew this connection between grief and love, I was curious what others have spoken of this relationship, so I googled it and found this:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0Queen Elizabeth II made popular Dr. Colin Murray Parkes words, \u201cgrief is the price we pay for love.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s it! And Brene Brown\u2019s words come rushing to the forefront: you cannot selectively numb emotion.\u00a0 If I want love I need to embrace grief.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My high school English teacher, who I adored and think of often lately, wrote a beautiful book called Vidh:A Book of Mourning.\u00a0 Here she recounts with striking vulnerability the grief of losing her husband.\u00a0 One of my favorite sections is called Vows where she promises not to turn away from the things that remind her of her late husband. \u00a0 \u201cI turn to love and all that you once lived, and though it brings you back to me I will not turn away.\u201d (4) That is love and that is grief.<\/span><\/p>\n

What a journey it is pressing, pulling, and penetrating the length and width, height and depths of love –\u00a0 and grief.\u00a0 I promise myself, my husband, my family and my community, I will not turn away.\u00a0 I will not turn away from grief.\u00a0 I will not turn away from love.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

XOXO
\n<\/span>Cheryl<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Notes:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The Road Back to You<\/span><\/i>, by Ian Morgan Cron & Suzanne Stabile, p.143<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. This comes from the concept \u201cturn towards the difficult feelings with kindness and compassion\u201d voiced by Emily and Amelia Nagoski on Brene Brown\u2019s Unlocking us podcast, Oct 14, 2020.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Hebrews 12:1
    \n<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Vidh: A book of Mourning, <\/i>by Phyllis Nakonechny. p. 112.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Photo Credit: Vicky Falk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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