The Powerful Force of Grief

The Powerful Force of Grief
By Summer Nicklasson, RN, CHPN

Grief is something that happens to all of us. Anyone who goes out into the world and loves will eventually feel loss. The loss may seem overwhelming for some, tolerable for others, but for each person it is an emotion that cannot be skirted or forgotten. It comes up and hits you in the face, demanding its attention.

As a hospice nurse I see a lot of death. People often say to me "I don't know how you do it", to which I reply, "It's not my family. I can handle that". Grief to a family member and grief to a hospice nurse will surely look different. To me, it's an accumulation of loss and sadness that yields to the tightness in my chest and the solid, cathartic cry that I need every few months. For families, it's the loss of a person you loved. Very often a solid, cathartic cry is just not enough.

I did experience a great loss once. In my late 20's my father passed away. It was difficult and heartbreaking and my first taste of the great beast of Grief. My sadness was profound, and I walked in the world of people who were NOT grieving, who really had no idea how I felt, and I noticed how isolated grief made me feel. I realized, in retrospect, that grief is a terrific force, a monstrous headwind that you must walk through. On the other side of the headwind is a new you, perhaps a more jaded you who experienced such monstrous grief, but there is a peace on that side. It could be within arm’s reach, or it could far, far away, hidden behind the layers of tears and memories and achings of your heart. After the death of my father it took me a solid year to feel even somewhat normal. Years later I would still cry when visiting my memories. Now, over 8 years later, the emotion I most associate with my father is gratitude. He was a good man, and the people that you lose are good people, each with their own offering to the world. The loss of a human being is a loss for all humanity. It's not something that is easily forgotten.

My point is that grief happens, and sometimes it happens hard. So you do your best. You get up each morning, you get dressed, and you go through the motions. Sometimes this might feel hard. Sometimes you might just want to stay in bed. That is okay. Be gentle with your grieving heart. Sometimes all you need to remember is to just breathe.

There is no limit on grief. There is no perfect formula letting us as humans know how long we will grieve. It's an individual, unique experience. It is your experience and whether big or small, heavy or light, long or short, grief is your own headwind to walk through. I'm here to tell you that you can do it. If there are people you trust that want to help you, let them. If there is a support group that beckons to you, go. Just know, that one day when you are ready, (whenever that may be), you may wake up and realize the holes that grief carved are now filled with gratitude.

The quiet center

Over the weekend I visited the Museum of Nature and Science along with my daughter, my friend Annie and her son. While there, Annie and I played a game where we both strap electrodes to our head, electrodes that control a ball in the middle of the game table. The more meditative you can get, the further along you can push the ball. Annie won.

The exercise had me thinking, rather ironically, about trying to get into that place of meditation. Granted being surrounded by people including our own children didn't create the sort of space where one would go deep into a meditative state, but it was a moment where I made myself  try to actually relax. It was a challenge for me. I don't relax well.

I live my life with the knowledge that meditation is a life giving activity that helps to center our busy minds. But I neglect to do this. I make excuses that there's no time or space that helps induce a meditative state, but really those are just excuses. A meditative state can come by simply closing your eyes and slowing down your brain waves..

This world is so damn busy. My days are so busy, but I make them that way. I often say that I thrive under stress, that I get more done when there's more to do. This baffles me and makes me wonder if really I'm just running from that quiet place. In the quiet place there is no doing, no planning, no processing...just being. It's a state that I avoid throughout the day, filling up my hours with a constant barrage of thoughts and activities.

Humans are funny like that...always thinking, always doing. We run from the quiet place and try to find harmony in piling more thoughts and activities on our already burdened minds.

I know that there's a beautiful diamond inside my quiet place, a jewel of contentment and peace. Like a diamond in the coal, one must break through the dense thoughts to reach the beautiful center. Getting there can be challenging,, but like all things in life, easier with practice.

This is good to remember, and better to actually do.

Lucky in love.

Nothing like a fantastic Colorado weekend to rejuvenate the ol' soul. For as much as I can get caught up in my own emotional cycles, I live each day knowing how blessed I am. I do believe that life is what you make it, your own empty pot of potatoes and veggies, and you can get as creative with that as you wish.

And me? I am blessed with the sweetest little love. She enchants me every day.

At three and a half.....

I have a 3 year old girl who is so funny and light,

Who absolutely LOVES to dress up

Who loves taking pictures

Who loves her daddy

Who takes a LONG time to hike due to important need to draw, always

Who is very artisic

in both print and fashion

Someone who is a fantastic snuggler

and a collector of fine things.

She has the most beautiful smile

that I find completely irresistible.

She loves to ride her bikes

and pretend she's a cowgirl.

She lights up my life

and I love her with all that I am. 

Very lucky, indeed.

in mud

I dropped the ball on the whole poem a day thing. That lasted a good, solid, hmmmm 5 days? To tell you the truth I was boring myself. I mean writing a poem is good and all, and I really like writing the occasional poem to express how I'm feeling. But when I write a poem just to write a poem? It just doesn't have the kind of punch I'm looking for. This isn't a poetry blog.

Winters get hard for me. The lack of sunlight, the reduction in exercise, it adds up. I start to feel it creeping its way deep into my psyche. The state of my overall emotional health is noticed first thing in the morning. Sometimes I wake up feeling free, excited to get out of bed and start the day, and other days, days like lately, my initial thought is one of dread. Some mornings it's all I can do to get out of bed at a decent hour.

Things add up in our bodies, things that are not dealt with properly. Just like the noxious fumes of carbon monoxide, so too are the noxious feelings of grief, sadness, guilt. This has been a hard few months for me. A miscarriage, a lot of deaths at work, being sick, the news, I find myself carrying a twisted knot of anger and sadness around with me, I notice it in the morning. It lives in my heart, even when I forget that it's there.

We all have to take care of ourselves. But sometimes we don't. Life feels like a rollercoaster in this way. Sometimes we, well I, do so well. I exercise and meditate and process and stay present. And then, in the shadow side, I get lazy and shut feelings away and hide behind screens. I try to stay away from the bottom of the rollercoaster, but sometimes, well sometimes I fall.

When you fall you pick yourself up. But right now I feel like I'm still squirreling my hours at the bottom of the rollercoaster, not yet finding the energy or willpower to pull myself back up. I recognize what's going on. I stand away and shake my fingers at myself. "What are you doing?" I say to myself. "I'm just not ready". I answer back.

But see, I'm ready to be ready. But being ready means starting. Sometimes I don't know how to start, don't know how to process, don't know what exactly I'm supposed to do. Sometimes I feel very stuck, trudging my feet through mud, trying to figure out how to make things feel lighter.

I should exercise more. Write more. Talk more. Love myself better. Be the kind of person I want to be. Be more present. Be more forgiving. Love more. See more. Let myself feel grief and sadness and not try to hide from it. I need a good, old fashioned, spiritual healing.

I just need to start moving.

Winter

Winter: poem a day week

Like each season my body changes rhythms,
from the fast, furious pace of summer,
to the slow, molasses mid winter.
Here, January,  my house is strewn with scarves and hats
and tissues and vicks
and our skin is scaly from the heat that is pouring through the veins
of our home
and the days are short, providing a few solid hours of light
to get done that which you must do.
With the biting cold and the earth frozen, I move less, eat more,
make more, write more.
I am at home, convening into this location
with my family, together, all of us slowing down,
getting to know each other more.
Now, with the light so out of reach, off in the distance,
we get to let our souls rest, relax,
and prepare for the intensity of the sun.

Here's a taste of our winter, this new year of 2013.

Indoor fun

Ice skating

Frozen earth

Family unit

Large Jesus

Thoughtful stillness

Musical melodies

Xcountry skiing

Funny children

Home cooking

Fabulous friends

Being God (attempted poem a day 4)

"Take my hand
And lead me to salvation
Take my love
For love is everlasting
And remember
The truth that once was spoken:
To love another person is to see the face of god"
[finale, Les Miserable, 2012]


Being God

My path, is destiny its name?
This lot that I've been given,
my own sacrifices, my own joys.
Each man lives a life that is his own,
each carries on their shoulders their stories,
earned and carved.
The child born to poverty, 
and the child born to kings. 
Where do they connect? 
A tall, gated difference, so difficult to cross.

I've lost idealism through grief
and school shootings 
and neighborhood crime.
The ones that live the path of righteousness
are not spared, not always. There is no fairness, 
no mercy in where the ax falls down. 
We do our best, sometimes,
Or we give up, sometimes.
Either way we all meet the hand of God
the cold flesh at the end will spare none of us.

So we all are born
And we all die
And we all GET the privilege of the middle. We all get the parts
where we are NOT newly born, and we are NOT dead.
And as separate as we can feel, 
there is so much that makes us the same.
Love, I believe, deepens this knowledge.
For if love is the face of God,
then I have seen God, I have felt God,
and this touching of God, of Love, of humans connecting,
is why I do this, this living.
For without this God, this Love
I would shrivel away.

If I die tomorrow, and I hope that's not so, 
I will say that I got it.
It's not about achieving or accomplishing 
or pretending or searching.
It's about being, present, 
with a heart full of love
a heart full of God.
I acknowledge that together, united in our sameness, 
in our Love,
we are all beautiful
and worthy
and God.

Death of a good man

Death of good men happen every day,
and we all know this, and count on this.

I know a man who died last night,
a man I came to know,
a man with depth in his eyes
and a creative and wise soul.
I remember his tender touch as he took my hand in his
and told me he knew that I cared
and how my heart opened up, wanting, even more
to do what I could.

But pain, physical, can transform
into a true demon.
And it was with a forlorn heart that I watched this man
morph into the kind of existential pain
you pray you never know.

His family and hospice team gathered around him in those last days.
Yesterday, while a harp played and the beautiful, soothing voice
of our music therapist rang out
I watched his eyes go from panic to calm,
from living to dying..
It took time.
I prayed as I sat with him,
that if there were angels, they would guide him
and show him the peace that he needed so badly.

People are here, and then they're not
Where they go I do not know
I guess. I see clues amongst the dying.
Ghosts that visit.
Angels, I think.

The face of a good man that dies no longer looks like a good man.
A body, devoid of soul, does not look human.
But herein lies the power of memory
of those beautiful eyes
piercing, with wisdom,
now gone, into the ether.

Home (poem a day 2)

This weekend I visited them, those glorious mountains,
I felt the snow crunch under my feet,
followed the sun as it lurched its way back behind those wondrous peaks.
And as I stood there, surrounded by trees, and snow
and air and stillness
I knew that my heart was healing
for that's what it does
when it finds its way home.

Glass House....a song for the new year

A little VLOG and a song for the new year.
Blessings and love and laughter and magic...2013!

--Summer

Ready to swim. (poem a day)

Happy New Year!
I am attempting to write a poem each day. It doesn't have an end date, not now anyway. Being creative is a muscle, one to be flexed continuously, and I am the happiest when I'm creative. So here's the start and a very poetic, reflective and creative new year! - Summer
...............................................................

ready to swim

I've been obsessed with these hip New York scenes
youthful creativity, reckless machines
I sit here in Denver, completely aware
of a scene I'm not part of
of a place I'm not there

Time's had it's way with me
that sinister bitch
To love it or hate it, I never know which.

But my youth, it has not just come and then gone
Like the haunting melody of an older, loved song
My fires burn deep, just sometimes hard to access
Responsibilities do their job to repress.

How we identify
the who what and why
I am a woman and wife
A nurse and a lover
A homekeeper, billpayer
I am a mother.
But this who what and why
it is not all I
there is more to be seen and more to be formed
a nebuli existing, a perfect storm.
I quietly exist, at times, sometimes not
Sometimes my voice needs to be heard, a gunshot!
We're here, then we're not, and then we quietly combine
And we twinkle and dance in the massive starshine

And see there's not much to say here, we all meet our match
But sometimes the words are the much needed patch
to a heart that feels broken, sometimes, not always
to feet that want to find their way out of the crawlways
to lovers that find they can no longer connect
a proclamation from qualities you want to correct.
These words that you see, that you comprehend
One day they'll mean nothing, when it's our end.
Or maybe the words will become so much more
a deep kind of listening without any score
United in knowing that we're part of much more

And so here we are, you read and I wrote
And the two needed each other
To put meaning to note.
We need each other, though mysteriously so
my heart extends outward,
wanting to grow.
It wants, oh it wants
to grow and know more
though I can be a bit scared
at each new closed door.

I'd like to do this together,
you. me. him
We are all made of water
and I'm ready to swim.