...on losing a loved one.

Everyone's experience is different, because we are all different.  Individual ways of coping, grieving and mourning are also, very often, different.  The way I grieve and the way hubby grieves are worlds apart.  That doesn't mean either is better or worse.  They just are, and they are wildly different.

Each of my children have different ways of grieving... some things they have taken from their father, some things they have taken from me, and some things are very individual to them... just as I am alike/different than my parents... Just as hubby is alike/different than his parents.

Still no matter how different the ways are, grieving happens in every life as a part of living.  The grief that accompanies death is one that no one can escape forever.  We all lose loved ones.  Recently I lost someone I love, someone I grew to love even more as I cared for her for the last 5 months of her life.

On Friday night my mother-in-law passed away.  She left this earth very peacefully.  She must have, we had a monitor present that caught every sound she made and we didn't hear anything.  The first indication I had that their was a problem was when our Tucker woke me up and indicated that "gramma" needed something.  It was dark, 11 o'clock.

For the last few month the pups were my alarm system...  They knew when mom was awake, when she was anxious, when she was "looking for the exit"... and even when she was starting to get hungry.  They gave me little "signs" that I needed to pay closer attention to her needs, and figure out what was wrong... The ability they had to understand her needs, even when she couldn't express them, fascinated me...  I found it very comforting that they were the ones that noticed right away that mom had left us...  Tucker warned us probably within minutes of mom "crossing over", as she put it to me a few months ago in a conversation we had.

That conversation happened not long after we moved them here.  We had been to visit my father-in-law at the facility he resides in, and she said to me in the car going home... "He's dying, you know?"  I indicated that I understood that too... but he wasn't worse than he had been so I told her "not for a while probably yet."  She stared out the window and after a long pause said... "I'm not afraid of crossing over.  I know my Savior, and I am not afraid. When it's time I will be happy."  I appreciated her sharing that opinion with me.  Within minutes of those comments her "clarity" was gone again.

That conversation has come to my mind several times over the last two weeks... There were occasionally some tense moments for her, but at the very end I believe she was very much at peace.

Earlier this summer I read this quote and it stuck with me:

Robert Blatchford, in his book God and My Neighbor, attacked with vigor the accepted Christian beliefs, such as God, Christ, prayer, and immortality. He boldly asserted: “I claim to have proved everything I set out to prove so fully and decisively that no Christian, however great or able he may be, can answer my arguments or shake my case.” He surrounded himself with a wall of skepticism. Then a surprising thing happened. His wall suddenly crumbled to dust. He was left exposed and undefended. Slowly he began to feel his way back to the faith he had scorned and ridiculed. What had caused this profound change in his outlook? His wife died. With a broken heart, he went into the room where all that was mortal of her lay. He looked again at the face he loved so well. Coming out, he said to a friend: “It is she and yet it is not she. Everything has changed. Something that was there before is taken away. She is not the same. What can be gone if it be not the soul?”

Later he wrote: “Death is not what some people imagine. It is only like going into another room. In that other room we shall find … the dear women and men and the sweet children we have loved and lost.” (God and My Neighbor, Chicago: Charles H. Kerr and Co.) ~ Thomas S. Monson, “‘I Know That My Redeemer Lives’,” Ensign, Apr 1990, 2

That thought, ~ that mom had just gone into another room ~ a room which I couldn't physically see came to me as I was there in the room and hubby searched for signs of life.  Her body still warm for some time yet, but I knew that she, the woman we all knew, loved, and will miss was gone from the room, no one had to tell me.  Hubby needed his stethoscope to be medically sure she was gone, but I could feel that she had crossed over.

It was a precious gift to experience the last few months with mom.  It wasn't easy... but then, few really worthwhile things are...  I am grateful to all who supported us in our efforts to allow mom to stay at home.  We feel it was what she truly wanted.  She was happy here.  She had her "Precious" [Chloe], hubby's presence comforted her a lot... and she was on the whole content.  Towards the end there were hospice workers, hired caregivers, friends, and family, that helped in so many ways... too many people to name individually.

I know many of them feel the loss I feel, as well.  She was a sweet lady in many ways.  She tried so hard to be polite even when she was so confused all the time.  In time the pain of loss I feel will fade and the waves of grief will only be light sprays of longing... for a voice I miss, the touch of an aged hand, the joyful laughter and smiles that could light up a room, but are now silent and still...

Loss reminds us to appreciate the ones we still have with us. That is a very good thing to do.  So to those that I still hold close:  I love you.  I appreciate you.  Thank you for being a part of my life.  I don't say all of those things nearly often enough.