Some fragmented thoughts on my beloved late mother-in-law, the impossibility of preparing for sorrow, and the weirdness of recognizing the magnitude of love
Jan Richardsons poems have meant a great deal to me in grief, and people bringing food. Not: platitudes. This was beautiful, thank you for sharing your experience with us.
Your memories of Ashie have me tearing up. She sounds like a wonderful person. Thank you for sharing about her life and how well she loved. My heart is with you and Tristan as you walk through this tender, terrible time.
I am so very, very sorry for your loss, and am holding your entire family up in light and love. What's helped me in grief is leaning into it, and not trying to minimize the loss, to realize grief will revisit in odd moments of recall, sometimes painful and cutting, and sometimes bittersweet. The words I turn to again and again are Mary Oliver's "In Blackwater Woods." Thank you for sharing.
Dear Jeff and Tristan - Sending you my deepest condolences and prayers for much comfort in the days ahead. Grief is such an interesting emotion - sometimes sweeping over us like a giant wave and slamming us to the ocean floor below and at other times like tiny glimpse back into the life we once shared with someone. Be gently with yourselves. Asking Jesus to hold each of you so very close! Susan PS Thank you so much for the postcard you sent while I was so very ill with Covid -19 last year! It was much appreciated.
To walk well-worn trails. That's the thing that has helped me most in times of deep grief. To walk on the same trails I've been on a thousand times before. It's a bit like walking a labyrinth. To be outside and moving in the most familiar of spaces so I don't have to think about where I'm going or where I'm stepping and that's where I can remember and mourn
Your remembrance words are beautiful. I have 2 funeral home experiences after the passing of my younger brother at age 16 and, almost 30 years later, my dad. I was so grateful to hear other people's memories of my loved ones. Yes, some people said platitudes and awkward things (but I also am guilty of meaning well but saying the awkward thing.) It's important to show up for people (with food if you can.) If I know someone is near to the end of their life, I make a conscious effort to write down specific ways they have touched my life and send it to them, instead of waiting to tell their family at the visitation or funeral. Grief ebbs and flows like the tides of the oceans. Praying for you as you remember and mourn your dear one.
My heart hurts with you as I can feel the ache in your writing as you’re processing what a future looks like without Ashie. For me, since the death of my dad & my son, it’s been learning to live in incomplete. My sister read this quote at my son’s memorial that continues to be a guide for me…. “The thing is to love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it and everything you’ve held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands and your throat is filled with the silt of it. When grief sits with you so heavy it’s like a heat, tropical, moist, thickening the air it’s so heavy like water, more fit for gills than lungs. When grief weighs on you like your own flesh only more of it, an obesity of grief. ‘How long can a body withstand this,’ you think? And yet you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face with no charming smile or twinkle in her eye and you say, ‘yes, I will take you and I will love you again.’” For me, this is where Hope lives…. The birthplace of hope is in the ruins….in the mess…in the gut wrenching pain. And not the flippant hope that says “everything will be okay” because those who know deep grief already know that everything will not, is not okay. But the hope of the little seedling pushing its way up through the cracked concrete toward the sun…life.
I found, as each of my grandparents passed, that there was a strange interregnum feeling to the days between the passing and the funeral. One of the things, in my family, that would happen during those strange days outside of time was picking out the pictures to put on boards and take to the funeral home. After dinner, the albums and boxes would come out (along with the wine and the scotch) and the pictures would unlock the stories: The time a grandfather volunteered to help a friend with heating oil deliveries on Christmas Eve and crashed the truck. My uncle, recounting the time he went fishing with his parents and accidentally hooked his mother. Pictures of weddings and anniversaries and Christmases, and stories about long-gone relatives in them. After my other grandfather died, his youngest brother regaled us with tales of taking a rowboat into New York Harbor and nearly drowing while convincing the sailors on the freighters to throw stalks of bananas overboard for them, and proudly dripping all over their mother's floor in their Staten Island home while bringing her their prize. Granddaddy had never said a word about any of it, but suddenly his insistence that we all know how to swim made a strange kind of sense. And then you would take the pictures to be put up around the room at the funeral home and watch as the mourners had their own memories unlocked, as more stories joined the collective retelling. My favorite words at a funeral are "Do you remember..."
I'm so sorry for your loss, and I thank you for telling your stories of Ashie here. It's how we keep the love with us. I hope sharing your beloved memories bring you all comfort together.
I'm so sorry. It's clear Ashie was a very special mother-in-law.
The day after Thanksgiving, I lost one of my closest friends. Just as you scrolled through past texts, I, too, turned to technology: I went through every single one of her Facebook posts (she was on for 12 years and did not post daily, nor did she post during the last couple of months of her life, so it was not an overwhelming amount to scroll through). I made notes of books she'd read, shows she'd watched, music she loved, food she'd eaten. I copied the posts in which her personality particularly shined through ("MPR says it's the hundredth anniversary of the premiere of Rite of Spring. Commemorative riot today at my place." and "I couldn't stay indoors on the stunning afternoon. I brought my reacher with me and toodled around the neighborhood gathering pretty leaves. It was so lovely! I even wheeled through a pile of crunchy leaves - the total October experience."). It was like a small taste of being with her.
I've had dreams in which we've had short conversations together. I spent an entire session with my spiritual director telling her just how wonderful my friend was.
These are all things that have helped. What doesn't help is how much people just don't talk with you about the person you are missing. I'm glad you have Tristan to talk with about Ashie. I hope many other people also will go there with you with no fear that they are hurting you or desire not to see your tears.
Dearest Jeff, holding you and Tristan close in love and prayers on the passing of Ashie. As always with your lovely writing, you've captured both the beauty of her essence and the shock and pain of grief and sorrow. Without knowing it, you have walked me through a season of grief the past 15 months following the passing of my mother. I hope you are feeling this community doing the same for you and Tristan today and in the days and weeks to come. You are loved.
I am so sorry for the loss both of you are feeling. What a beautiful tribute to your mother-in-law.
The butter....it's the seemingly simple things that still leave me in tears, even now, five years after my daddy, the one who loved me best, left us. I discovered and continue to try to implement some sage Facebook advice to, "be the things you miss the most about the person you lost." I don't know how much comfort it brings me, but it does give me purpose. The world needs the love, patience, gentleness, wit and humor my dad poured into me, so I must pour into others.
I lost both parents and our 13 year old dog last year. On any given day, I'd be hard pressed to tell you which was hardest. Words like yours help. Friends to cry with and remember with. And as much as it is a tired trope....time does help. For me the waves of grief are still hard to stand up against but they seem to come a little less frequently. But again, on any given day, the memory of my mama's laugh, my daddy's hug or our sweet Lucy's gaze can undo me. Thanks for sharing this space with all of us.
Sending hugs and love for your loss. She sounds like a wonderful person. I think for me in grief, I have appreciated the check-ins from friends who have built safety around not being okay, not because I have the words to answer but because it means someone cares and is sticking with me even when life isn't fun or bitingly witty or profound.
When my dad was in the midst of cancer treatments, very close to the end of his life (although we did not know it then), he spent some time in a rehab facility in an attempt to regain some of his strength before returning home. Now, seven years after his death, I drive past that rehab facility every day on my way to and from work. Every day I blow him a kiss and talk to him. It's a small ritual, but it is helpful to me and one I look forward to each day. You and Tristan are in my heart and in my prayers.
Jan Richardsons poems have meant a great deal to me in grief, and people bringing food. Not: platitudes. This was beautiful, thank you for sharing your experience with us.
Your memories of Ashie have me tearing up. She sounds like a wonderful person. Thank you for sharing about her life and how well she loved. My heart is with you and Tristan as you walk through this tender, terrible time.
I am so very, very sorry for your loss, and am holding your entire family up in light and love. What's helped me in grief is leaning into it, and not trying to minimize the loss, to realize grief will revisit in odd moments of recall, sometimes painful and cutting, and sometimes bittersweet. The words I turn to again and again are Mary Oliver's "In Blackwater Woods." Thank you for sharing.
I don't know that poem. I will have to look it up. Thank you!
Dear Jeff and Tristan - Sending you my deepest condolences and prayers for much comfort in the days ahead. Grief is such an interesting emotion - sometimes sweeping over us like a giant wave and slamming us to the ocean floor below and at other times like tiny glimpse back into the life we once shared with someone. Be gently with yourselves. Asking Jesus to hold each of you so very close! Susan PS Thank you so much for the postcard you sent while I was so very ill with Covid -19 last year! It was much appreciated.
To walk well-worn trails. That's the thing that has helped me most in times of deep grief. To walk on the same trails I've been on a thousand times before. It's a bit like walking a labyrinth. To be outside and moving in the most familiar of spaces so I don't have to think about where I'm going or where I'm stepping and that's where I can remember and mourn
Your remembrance words are beautiful. I have 2 funeral home experiences after the passing of my younger brother at age 16 and, almost 30 years later, my dad. I was so grateful to hear other people's memories of my loved ones. Yes, some people said platitudes and awkward things (but I also am guilty of meaning well but saying the awkward thing.) It's important to show up for people (with food if you can.) If I know someone is near to the end of their life, I make a conscious effort to write down specific ways they have touched my life and send it to them, instead of waiting to tell their family at the visitation or funeral. Grief ebbs and flows like the tides of the oceans. Praying for you as you remember and mourn your dear one.
My heart hurts with you as I can feel the ache in your writing as you’re processing what a future looks like without Ashie. For me, since the death of my dad & my son, it’s been learning to live in incomplete. My sister read this quote at my son’s memorial that continues to be a guide for me…. “The thing is to love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it and everything you’ve held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands and your throat is filled with the silt of it. When grief sits with you so heavy it’s like a heat, tropical, moist, thickening the air it’s so heavy like water, more fit for gills than lungs. When grief weighs on you like your own flesh only more of it, an obesity of grief. ‘How long can a body withstand this,’ you think? And yet you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face with no charming smile or twinkle in her eye and you say, ‘yes, I will take you and I will love you again.’” For me, this is where Hope lives…. The birthplace of hope is in the ruins….in the mess…in the gut wrenching pain. And not the flippant hope that says “everything will be okay” because those who know deep grief already know that everything will not, is not okay. But the hope of the little seedling pushing its way up through the cracked concrete toward the sun…life.
I found, as each of my grandparents passed, that there was a strange interregnum feeling to the days between the passing and the funeral. One of the things, in my family, that would happen during those strange days outside of time was picking out the pictures to put on boards and take to the funeral home. After dinner, the albums and boxes would come out (along with the wine and the scotch) and the pictures would unlock the stories: The time a grandfather volunteered to help a friend with heating oil deliveries on Christmas Eve and crashed the truck. My uncle, recounting the time he went fishing with his parents and accidentally hooked his mother. Pictures of weddings and anniversaries and Christmases, and stories about long-gone relatives in them. After my other grandfather died, his youngest brother regaled us with tales of taking a rowboat into New York Harbor and nearly drowing while convincing the sailors on the freighters to throw stalks of bananas overboard for them, and proudly dripping all over their mother's floor in their Staten Island home while bringing her their prize. Granddaddy had never said a word about any of it, but suddenly his insistence that we all know how to swim made a strange kind of sense. And then you would take the pictures to be put up around the room at the funeral home and watch as the mourners had their own memories unlocked, as more stories joined the collective retelling. My favorite words at a funeral are "Do you remember..."
I'm so sorry for your loss, and I thank you for telling your stories of Ashie here. It's how we keep the love with us. I hope sharing your beloved memories bring you all comfort together.
Simply beautiful, Jeff. Continued prayers for the coming days of grief mixed with sweet memories.
Oh my gosh, what a lovely MIL and what steadfast love she gave you!! My heart feels like breaking now too...
I'm so sorry. It's clear Ashie was a very special mother-in-law.
The day after Thanksgiving, I lost one of my closest friends. Just as you scrolled through past texts, I, too, turned to technology: I went through every single one of her Facebook posts (she was on for 12 years and did not post daily, nor did she post during the last couple of months of her life, so it was not an overwhelming amount to scroll through). I made notes of books she'd read, shows she'd watched, music she loved, food she'd eaten. I copied the posts in which her personality particularly shined through ("MPR says it's the hundredth anniversary of the premiere of Rite of Spring. Commemorative riot today at my place." and "I couldn't stay indoors on the stunning afternoon. I brought my reacher with me and toodled around the neighborhood gathering pretty leaves. It was so lovely! I even wheeled through a pile of crunchy leaves - the total October experience."). It was like a small taste of being with her.
I've had dreams in which we've had short conversations together. I spent an entire session with my spiritual director telling her just how wonderful my friend was.
These are all things that have helped. What doesn't help is how much people just don't talk with you about the person you are missing. I'm glad you have Tristan to talk with about Ashie. I hope many other people also will go there with you with no fear that they are hurting you or desire not to see your tears.
Dearest Jeff, holding you and Tristan close in love and prayers on the passing of Ashie. As always with your lovely writing, you've captured both the beauty of her essence and the shock and pain of grief and sorrow. Without knowing it, you have walked me through a season of grief the past 15 months following the passing of my mother. I hope you are feeling this community doing the same for you and Tristan today and in the days and weeks to come. You are loved.
I am so sorry for the loss both of you are feeling. What a beautiful tribute to your mother-in-law.
The butter....it's the seemingly simple things that still leave me in tears, even now, five years after my daddy, the one who loved me best, left us. I discovered and continue to try to implement some sage Facebook advice to, "be the things you miss the most about the person you lost." I don't know how much comfort it brings me, but it does give me purpose. The world needs the love, patience, gentleness, wit and humor my dad poured into me, so I must pour into others.
My prayers are with you both.
I lost both parents and our 13 year old dog last year. On any given day, I'd be hard pressed to tell you which was hardest. Words like yours help. Friends to cry with and remember with. And as much as it is a tired trope....time does help. For me the waves of grief are still hard to stand up against but they seem to come a little less frequently. But again, on any given day, the memory of my mama's laugh, my daddy's hug or our sweet Lucy's gaze can undo me. Thanks for sharing this space with all of us.
Sending hugs and love for your loss. She sounds like a wonderful person. I think for me in grief, I have appreciated the check-ins from friends who have built safety around not being okay, not because I have the words to answer but because it means someone cares and is sticking with me even when life isn't fun or bitingly witty or profound.
When my dad was in the midst of cancer treatments, very close to the end of his life (although we did not know it then), he spent some time in a rehab facility in an attempt to regain some of his strength before returning home. Now, seven years after his death, I drive past that rehab facility every day on my way to and from work. Every day I blow him a kiss and talk to him. It's a small ritual, but it is helpful to me and one I look forward to each day. You and Tristan are in my heart and in my prayers.