Hard to Say Goodbye

Hard to Say Goodbye

Today, I discovered something about myself: I do not like saying goodbye. This year I have had to say goodbye to some key people in my life and it was not easy. It was and continues to be a struggle to go on and do the needful day to day tasks without daydreaming about them and wondering whether they were happy with me and with their lives.

This past December I lost my father, he was 90 years old, then my mother passed one month and one day later in January, she was 90 years old as well.  Then last month we lost my mother-in-law. She died from complications from cancer and was 83.

In my life currently, I am struggling with the grief journey and continue to struggle with my post-cancer journey. I felt that once I had finally got a stronghold on my health and healing from cancer and started a new teaching position, I was hit with the loss of my parents.  Grieving is a process I am learning, which is very different for each person- no one way is better than the other.

Time For a RESET

I started attending group grief sessions pretty early on in the process.  I have attended meetings and a couple of individual sessions which have helped me understand my emotional roller coaster and setbacks, with attempts to keep living a balanced life. It seems when I am faced with so much change at once it can be difficult for me, but I truly feel like at my age and situation, I am in search of change, or a “RESET” life button.

This is analogous to how sometimes you have to shut down your computer to reset connections with applications and programs to make sure it is running at its optimized level.  I have realized we have to do that with our minds during our lifetime or we might have some sort of crash in our systems. Mental or physical crashes do exist and can truly cause havoc in your life, if not handled correctly.

Grief is definitely one of those crashes, those down winds, those fights you can’t win, those tears that do not stop falling.  Grief does not heal  like a broken bone or my breast cancer.   My grief feels like something that has been a part of life for a long time.  Now with the people I loved gone, grief has brought forth true pain and hardship that I have never felt before. It feels as if the scab of all my past sufferings, that I had tucked away to keep going on this journey we call life, has been opened up to cause fresh hurt and pain.

My Journey with Grief

I was introduced to grief very young. One of my first memories I can recall as a child was my first funeral, when my grandmother Petra died.  I was about 4 years old when she passed, and I remember my sister staying home from school that day. When the call came in that morning, my second eldest brother was home, which was unusual as he had just moved out to his own place.  I remember my mother answering the expected call from the facility that grandmother was at, holding the phone to her chest, hanging her head, handing the phone over to my brother and embracing him with tears. I knew something horribly sad had happened as I had never seen my mother shed tears like that.

Effects of Grief

The next memory of my grandmother’s death was at the burial. My mom did not want to go in the Hearse alone and asked me to ride with her. I also remember my first spanking in my life was when we were walking to the grave site.  It was my first time to a cemetery and as I was walking holding my mom’s hand, I saw all these gravestones in the ground, like the game of Hopscotch. I started hopping from one gravestone to another.  When my mother caught a glimpse of that, she picked me up by my arm and spanked me in front of all the people that were gathered for the burial. I truly didn’t understand what I had done wrong, but today I understand why my mother was so angry-she had suffered tremendous hardship with my grandmother and her death was causing her pain. Some people exhibit anger with pain and grief.

After my mother’s death, I had researched her genealogy to discover that my grandmother had lost six children to death- most from illnesses, as vaccinations were not available at that time.  My grandmother lost her eldest living child, my aunt Pauline, my mother’s older sister, when she drowned at her high school church trip when her canoe flipped over.  So, my mother had to become the instant big sister of the family and even take on the role of a mother as my grandmother struggled with her alcohol addiction and depression from all the years of sadness and loss from the tragic deaths of her children.

My mother said she had never heard someone scream and cry like her mother the day my aunt drowned. Those must have been difficult times, which my mother never spoke of, because mental health was not a discussed issue-it was so taboo.  It was a death sentence if someone even said anything about depression-they would want to put you in a facility which no one would want.  Sadly, my grandmother would die in one of those places.

I have fond memories of me sitting on my grandmother’s lap, enjoying her favorite Fig Newton cookies in her backyard with her chickens, while my mother would have coffee with her father.   My grandmother was known for walking around the neighborhood at night after drinking wine at home and would not be found for hours. I remember she had a coffee can full of pencils and pens that she would find in the street and collect. Everytime I would visit her, she would offer them to me.  I would love to see her collection.

Choosing a Path with Faith

My mother was blessed to have not lost one child in her life; she was blessed to see each of her children grow up into their own lives.   She was saved from that child-loss pain, because she had witnessed it all her life with her mother. My mother lived and walked with God always, she put her faith in God as a young child.  She truly believed her 13 children were all blessings from God.

She was a firm believer in her faith in God and her journey with Him in her life- that was her strategy to raising 13 children in this crazy world.  My mother ruled her world with her strong faith in God, that was what was in her toolbox. Praying her Rosary, weekly church services, and her family’s hard earned weekly donation to their church, to make her community a better place to live were part of her regular actions. My mother constantly reminded us that God has a major role to play in everything we are today, and that we are not in control of everything-God is.

Moving Forward

As I move forward with my journey as CEO of MaximizeU, LifeCare Life Coach, and Texas Certified Special Education Teacher, I am here to help those who might be looking for a “Reset” button on life to move past addictions, relationship stress, or even grief. Here at MaximizeU we can start your improvement journey with a behavioral assessment like the DISC Assessment and move forward with customized coaching sessions to help you maximize your potential in every facet of your life. There is so much we can do to help you when you are ready!

For questions or to schedule a complimentary discussion on how you can better handle grief to maximize potential and transform to lead a balanced, happier and impactful life, please email me at coach@maximizeu.life

Live, Work and Lead with greater Freedom, Power and Peace of Mind.

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