This is a conversation that I had with a friend of mine recently.
“OK you go weekly. Stop that... I know that sounds harsh, but when I lost my Momma, I went to her grave every day that GOD sent. And I was just as torn up everyday. THEN, I had a friend who told me words to the effect of what I just said to you. She was a Christian woman and she told me that my Momma was not in that grave anyway. She told me that only her body was there, anyway. Then I started crying and said to her, but that's my Momma! And yes I was crying loudly when I said that. She told me that my Momma would not want me making myself sick with stress by visiting her gravesite every day.
Sweetie, then she said something that shocked me down to my toes! And you know what it was? She told me that she was a grief counselor and that in her training class, they were taught to teach the grieving not to visit the gravesite but once a year, maybe twice! I was shocked and angry because she didn't understand because we were talking about my Momma!
She hung right with me and never missed a beat and said, ‘Yes, I know that was your Momma, but if you don't stop going to that grave every day, you will NEVER get better.’ I was shocked and mad at her; then she softened her tone and quietly told me that each time I went to her gravesite, I was rubbing salt in an open wound. She told me that each time I went, I was waking the pain back up, thereby never giving it time to heal. I didn't believe her and was mad at her, but her next words stopped me.
She told me that in a year when I went back to the gravesite, the pain would come back for a little while but not nearly as bad as it had been and would last only a few days. And she told me not to feel bad or ashamed when in a few days, I actually laughed out loud with joy about something.
I was still mad at her, but she said, stay away for a week and see if you don't start to feel better?
Yes, my child, she was right. At the end of that week I told her that she was right. She said, “I don't know why it works that way, but it does and that is the way that grief counselors tell us in class.”
She never said another word to me about that, but I saw the care of GOD in giving me a friend who later became a grief counselor. No, I never went to a grief counselor because GOD sent one to me in the person of one of my best friends. And I know HE knew how much my Momma meant to me because we did everything together and discussed everything and I do mean everything! And that's why I think HE had a good friend of mine to become a grief counselor years before I lost my Momma and I didn't even know this friend of mine was one, but GOD did. You see, HE knew that one day on down through the years that Alma, HIS little child, was going to need a strong but friendly grief counselor. And I saw GOD's love wrapping HIS arms around me through that best friend of mine that HE had prepared years earlier. I saw this as a way HE was letting me know, ‘I've got you; I see your pain and I'm helping you.’ And every since then, I've continued to walk with HIM; I've continued to trust HIM.
I thought at the time then nothing else in this world could hurt me worse, but you, my darling, have had the worst thing to happen to you because you have lost a child.
I want you to remember something that you taught your baby when she was little. Remember when she would get a sore that scabbed over and you had to tell her that her sore would never heal if she did not stop picking the scab off. Well, baby, you cannot keep ripping the scab from your grief wound. You gotta let it go. You gave her the best years that you could, so much so that you did everything that you could together. But you've got to let go because if you don't, you're going to destroy yourself.
Every time you go back to the grave you are ripping that scab off that sore again. I know this sounds tough and hard but it's not honey, it's just necessary and you have to let go baby you have to let go because you have to heal and that is what your daughter would want for you.
If you have to scream in your house then scream, but don't go back to the gravesite. Just like a sore time will heal it if you stop picking the scab from it.
And yes, I know you know that you might be going along in your kitchen doing your chores, and get hit with this wave of grief so large that you ball up and just cry, but when the crying spell is over, you will go on until you get the next crying spell. You'll find that your crying spells will happen less and less and of shorter duration. One day you'll go maybe a whole day without crying and then one day you might find yourself belly-laughing about something only to feel guilty about laughing. But the grief counselor had already told me that I might do that, so I started reading up on grief and found as I read up on it, that it is a part of the grief process to feel guilty for laughing because it's like their life is ended and you don't have a right to laugh anymore. But, yes you do, because your soul is healing and your daughter would want you to heal, just like I want you to heal and you know she would.
And don't get mad at me because I told you not to go to the gravesite. I'm just telling you what my grief counselor told me and it helped me with my grief.
GOD bless you and I'll see you this week to wrap you in my arms.”
That is a part of the conversation that I had this week with a grieving mother who is dear to me. If there are those among my readers who are in similar straits, it is my wish that you be comforted with these words as time works it’s healing magic through the providence of GOD.
Alma L. Carr-Jones Author of Get Yourself Up and Chopping My Row
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