Two weeks ago, I lost my sweet grandmother. Her name was Bernardine Donton and she had 95 beautiful years. Time, age, and the natural order of things took her. She was/is such an important person to me and my family; this loss is particularly hard and the grief is difficult.
The Importance of a Pause
I work in a school district where compassionate leadership is the norm and generous bereavement time was granted by a personal phone call from our superintendent, who offered support and asked questions about who my grandmother was. The space and time I needed to be present with my gram as she was transitioning, to be with my family to lay her to rest, and time for me to just be present with my grief was important- it still is. To be honest, I am religiously over-scheduled, intent on busyness, and driven by creative impulses. I am simultaneously shocked, yet unsurprised at how difficult it was for me to take a pause and not work, not check email, or do my ritual of social media scrolls. My grief-scattered brain wanted to lose myself and the painful moments and just work- plod forward and find a way.
The Important of Presence
Although grief is difficult, I would not allow myself to lose the moments. Bereavement time was not work-at-home time. Instead, I spent the time resting, talking with my family, taking quiet moments to think about her, to wonder where she was, to cry, and to slip mid-afternoon into the sleep of the distressed, falling quickly and deeply only to wake startled and confused in my momentary forgetting the reason for my exhaustion. All of it is necessary and meaningful.
Challenges to Silence
Culturally, we acknowledge the necessity and importance of taking care of our mental health and well-being, yet I will admit that one of the challenges I had in taking the pause I needed was the interruption from the outside world. Outreach, work-related requests, and expressions of support all wriggled their way into the silence I craved. While some things could have waited, it was comforting to hear from friends who are family and coworkers who are friends. Checking in has a place; honoring one’s space and needs does too. So yes, check-in, but ask what is needed, what space is preferred, and be careful to not push folks back into “regular life” too soon.
What’s Learned
“You gotta do what you gotta do…” was something my grandma said to me in her final weeks. I was visiting and needed to go home to get ready for my work week ahead. It’s stuck with me. I can still hear her voice. While the lessons from her life and death are innumerable, doing what we must do sometimes means mindfully and compassionately drawing boundaries for ourselves. It means making space to feel and explore expressions of these emotions. It is honoring those we love. It is just being here now.
