She died during a time of change in my life. She also came to me during that change for the first time. You might say she was a catalyst for that change. One minute I'm a sullen teenage nobody in a huge high school failing Biology with few friends. The next, my parents are sending me away and not telling me why, only to have me come home two weeks later to tell me they are divorcing and that my Dad is moving in with his new girlfriend and who did I want to live with. I guess I was too busy just trying to get through the days to see the warning signs of impending doom ... as an adult many moments stand out as signs of the end. At that moment though, it was a complete shock and it was the beginning of the end of my innocence.
My dad was completely moved out by the end of summer and by that fall I was having regular weekend visits with my new family of Dad, Stepmom and Stepbro. Whoa.
I had a relatively normal tenth-grade year with dates, sleepovers, clique wars, mean girls. My dad moved three times in a year-out of our house to a few streets away, then to a row home in Baltimore, and then to a tiny ranch home in Pasadena. I helped him with each move. My mom dated for a while, found the guy she wanted to marry, and he moved in by Thanksgiving. And then she moved us three counties away, so I had to leave school.
And while I was wallowing in the depression of saying goodbye to all of my friends I had grown up with for sixteen years or so, my Stepmom had a heart attack and died. My Stepbro was forced to move out of my Dad's house, and my Dad was alone for the first time in his adult life with his spirit completely sucked out and stomped on.
All in a year.
I went cuckoo bananas, okay? I sobbed every day for months. And the whole time my mom has no idea whatsoever how to help me deal. She was just trying to keep me alive, really. She said all kinds of things like, "God doesn't give you more than you can handle" and "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." This article explains why that's supposed to be a bad thing.
Is this something you've told someone recently? Don't beat yourself up. Here's why it's not the worst thing in the world to say:
I don't really believe that God punishes us for things. Okay, real talk: I don't know what my religious beliefs are. It's totally up in the air with me. Do I believe in the Bible? I don't know. Do I believe there is a higher power? Sometimes. Do I feel like I could have a relationship with Jesus? Sometimes. Real talk, okay? I'm still feeling this out. There have been times in my life where I've been so Christian that I wanted to be a Catholic Nun, and there have been times in my life where I am an atheist. So just go with whatever I say and realize it's how I see things, whether it agrees with your religious views or it doesn't.
Anyway, God is a provider of good things. God is not Santa Claus ... you're not going to pray for winning lottery tickets. You're going to pray for strength, wisdom, courage.
Those feelings I felt that summer were more than I could handle. God provides a way to give those feelings over and not hold onto them--give them over to God through prayer, talk it out with other people, express it through art and writing and music.
I did not feel like my grief was trivialized by my mother saying God doesn't give me more than I can handle. I felt like she provided an outlet that I needed at the time. Something productive to do with my grief rather than let it build in my chest.
That doesn't mean everyone would appreciate that. As someone who has not lost a small child to murder, the article is right. I can't imagine what it is like or how they're feeling. But I do know there are several things that were said to us that were completely horrible during her funeral.
A family friend came up to my Stepmom's son who was only 11 or 12 and told him he had to be a man now and stop crying. Uh, no. Don't tell someone how to feel.
And that's basically the gist of the article. Without all the platitudes about God, if you look at each item, it's trying to tell the grieving person way to "look at the bright side." It is not a grieving person's job to look at the bright side, or to obey you when you tell them how to feel. Grieving people will react however they feel is right. And if that means breaking out in hives and screaming in the fetal position, then that's what it means. No more, no less.
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