Grief Like Yours

A hand to hold as you navigate loss

Grief. It’s a beast. A universal one. And although it’s a shared experience, it’s also a uniquely private one.

This past week, a new grief anthology made its way into the world, and I was honored to have an essay included in it. Curated by fellow She Writes author, Cindy Eastman, who has also become a treasured friend, GRIEF LIKE YOURS: A STORY COLLECTION OF LIFE AFTER LOSS is a beautiful compilation of poems, stories, and essays about grief—a reminder that we are not alone in our loss.

Here’s a brief excerpt from my included essay, titled Loss Lessons:

When it was time to put my mom into hospice two years ago, my

sister made the call. As I’d done most of my life, I accepted her decision,

always certain that everyone else but me knew more, understood

better, had information I wasn’t privy to. I was an acquiesce-er by

nature, easily convinced by those with more confidence and louder

voices.

Less than 24 hours into her hospice care, however, I broke down

in the hallway.

“I feel like we’re just letting her die,” I cried to my big sister, Carrie.

“How do we know it’s the right time? How do we know it’s the right

decision?”

One of Mom’s hospice nurses hugged me in the hallway, smoothed

my hair with her wrinkled, gentle hand.

“It’s okay to feel this way,” she said. “But Katrina, your mom told

me she was ready over a month ago. She said she was tired and always

in pain. She said she was embarrassed that she couldn’t walk, couldn’t

tend to her own personal needs. She wanted to stay here for you girls,

and that’s why we waited. But she’s been ready.”

I sobbed at the thought of letting my mom go, shook at the

thought of her staying just to ease my inevitable pain instead of

focusing on relieving her own.

While she was dying at Springhurst Health Campus, the hospice

nurses brought us a trolley of drinks and snacks. I ate oatmeal creme

pie after oatmeal creme pie, drowning my sadness and grief in sugar.

Food has always been my constant companion through the hardest

times. Life could throw me curve balls, but Oreos remained

consistent.

At Mom’s burial, we released monarch butterflies. They were

reluctant to leave the confines of their container. My great-niece had

to coax them out with gentle shakes. Once they felt the freedom of the

outdoors, however, they flew eagerly into that beautiful, blue day.

I like to think Mom felt the same way as we said our final

goodbyes.

~ ~ ~

One year after burying my mom, my older and only sister, Carrie,

got up to use the restroom in the middle of the night and couldn’t find

her way back to bed. Shortly thereafter, she was diagnosed with Stage

4 glioblastoma. We watched with horror as she lost her words, her

ability to eat, her ability to walk.

Within four months, she was gone. She was only 58.

~ ~ ~

When I was learning about heaven and hell at St. Michael’s

Catholic School, my mom and my sister were my world. It was just

the three of us—our little female power trio. Mom worked three jobs

to keep Kraft macaroni and cheese on the table, and Carrie, six years

older, took care of me when Mom’s working hours ran into the night.

They were what I knew of family, of love, of belonging. They were

my heart, my soul, my world. As I grew up, started my own family,

and moved from our hometown, our dynamic changed, but our love

never did. We didn’t always agree on life’s biggest issues, but they

were my rock, my origin, the source from which I grew to be me.

Losing them both in such a short time frame rocked me to my

core. I had also recently come out of the closet, divorced my husband

of 25 years, and begun a new life as a gay woman. Friends stopped

calling. Some even looked the other way when I walked by, erasing

my very existence. I moved to another state, rescued a new puppy

who had more anxiety than I did, and held our old family dogs as they

took their final breaths. Everything that had been safe and familiar

was gone.

I had never felt so alone or so unequipped. I did not know how to

do life as me, without everything and everyone that had made me.

~~~

GRIEF LIKE YOURS is now available wherever books are sold. If you need a hand to hold while you navigate your own loss, here’s mine.

(But please reach for my left hand because my right hand is going to be under the weather for a while.)