Grief Waves- When your body remembers first

I actually wrote this almost exactly a year ago, but it felt a little too vulnerable to share at the time. This is a post that shares some of my own experiences of grief, and how memories can affect the present. I hesitated to share it because grief isn’t easy to talk about, and my prideful self didn’t want to share how I struggled.

After reading it, I realized, a year later, so many of the events were exactly the same this year- my husband was out of town, it is still blackberry season, I had another license to renew, and so many other things that have been the same, but my feelings and thoughts were different. I was more aware and felt a little more grounded, and my thoughts were much more at peace. If you are experiencing grief, have hope, and I hope that sharing this story helps you better understand your own reactions, as well as points you to Jesus, who is our ultimate comfort.

I woke up feeling like it was a typical summer Friday morning. I rushed to get the garden watered and pick all the blackberries before getting ready to start work. It was peak blackberry season and I remember thinking that maybe I would make some black berry ice cream to use some of them up. This brought on the fleeting memory of when I was little and my dad came home with a bag of peaches a few times in the hot summer during peach season and made homemade peach ice cream. 

Fridays are typically pretty busy work days, which means back to back sessions all day. I also had a state license that needed to be renewed, so I needed to fill out the online paperwork to get that done. Midway through the morning, I started a session with a woman who was mourning the loss of a family member, and as she was talking, I noticed myself feeling warm, jittery, and tense. I internally say “huh” and shrug my shoulders, thinking I drank too much caffeine, and redirect my focus back to my client. 

I had a little break in which I used to start the license renewal application. I noticed feeling nervous and even having some negative irrational, intrusive thoughts like I was going to get audited and found that I never should have been allowed to be licensed in the first place, or that I probably made a mistake and lied about something but didn’t even know that I did it, and I was probably going to get in trouble for it, and my career would be over. I was thankfully able to dismiss those highly unlikely possibilities, but I felt a little frazzled by the end. I did an exercise to help calm down my out of whack nervous system and felt a lot better.

I grabbed some water and took some deep breaths and finished my last 2 sessions for the day. When I was done, I had a nice phone conversation with my husband, as he was preparing to travel back home after being out of town all week. About 30 minutes later, I notice that I am really feeling anxious and I have no idea why. I start dismissing those feelings, thinking that I’m probably just anxious about my husband being on the road, or tired from a long week. Then I start having intrusive thoughts again like how I am probably not very good at my job or even that these anxious feelings are God's way of preparing me for something really terrible that is about to happen. 

Life keeps going and I need to drop my teenage daughter off at her friend’s birthday party. We are talking about all the birthdays and events this time of year, and it hits me. It was my dad’s birthday. He would have been 76 years old that very day. It is also near the anniversaries of several days of extreme highs and lows. On June 27th, 2008, my dad turned 59. It was the night of our rehearsal dinner. My father and I had a lovely conversation where he imparted wisdom about life, birthdays, and hopes for the future. June 28th, 2008 was my wedding day, where he walked me down the aisle and gave me away. It was a wonderful celebration with family and friends. In the early morning hours of June 29th, 2008, he went to bed and passed away from a heart attack in his sleep. The days after were a blur of changing honeymoon plans, grieving with family and handling business that happens when someone passes away, especially unexpectedly. A few weeks before all of those events, I had graduated with my Masters degree, so I had also been in the middle of looking into all that it takes to become a licensed professional counselor and taking on more responsibilities at work. 

Back to the present- studies have shown that our bodies gain information through our senses, and our brain uses that sensory information as a major way to store our memories. Therefore, our memories are often triggered by our senses. For me, it was feeling a warm summer day, thinking of sweet ice cream, witnessing and hearing someone grieve, and even seeing a bunch of forms to fill out. 

I dropped my daughter off and I felt this wave of understanding. My body was telling me something, and my brain had been too busy to notice. This time of year is always hard, with lots of conflicting emotions. It has been a time of sadness and grief, joy and gratitude for the past 17 years. It has been a time of insecurity and fear, and a time for compassion and hope. My body remembered this, and my nervous system was reacting, but my mind was too distracted to see it. Later that day, I was able to give myself space to think about and feel all the different feelings, shed some tears, and rest in God’s love.

I would like to think that I am a pretty self aware person, but the truth is, it is easy for me to stop paying attention to myself, especially when life is busy. I tend to focus outward more than inward. I’m honestly not surprised by how I felt. A couple of weeks ago I had thought about how this time of year tends to hold some hard emotions. I’ve experienced this before. After all, I’ve been remembering these anniversaries for the past 17 years.  I’ve had these reminders of how much I have missed my dad, and also how blessed I am for my own family that started 17 years ago. 17 years is a long time, so I’ve had plenty of practice, but still some anniversaries have been more difficult than others. Part of me says “when am I ever going to get it right?” But then I think, “there really is no ‘right’.” Grief is complicated, and grief never completely goes away on this side of heaven. Grief is hard, and doing it “well” isn’t the mission. The mission is to walk by faith, trusting in our loving Father to heal and comfort us as we continue to live in a broken world where things aren’t the way they are supposed to be.

Our senses and bodies are wired to remember, even when our minds want to avoid and dismiss our emotions and stay busy with the tasks of the day. My instinctual behavior with hard emotions is avoidance, but deep down, I don’t want to avoid the memories and emotions. They are a part of my story, and are reminders of God’s love and grace in my life. Avoiding the emotions means avoiding seeing God’s hand through it all. Maybe you, too, have grief in your life. Whether your grief is 70, 17 years or 17 days old, remember that grief waves may come. But don’t be discouraged, having a wave of grief isn’t a failure or a sign that you are stuck or won’t heal, it just means something has triggered that feeling. It may be a small sensory trigger like a sound, smell, or scene that feels familiar. It may bring up secondary emotions like anxiety or irritation. I would invite you to lean into those feelings and messages that your body is sending you, give yourself space to check in and feel what you feel, and lean on the Lord, the ultimate Healer and Comforter.