My journey of grief Part IV Why I posted these blogs about my daughter's death

On May 24 it will be thirteen years since my daughter Christine died.  For several years I considered writing about my reaction to her dying and death.  I resisted because death is a private, painful  matter, too personal to air publicly.   But then I changed my mind and published  these excerpts from journal entries over a year’s time to show what had taken place within me during that period.

Death  and dying needs more openness.

Too  often I hear that a funeral “brings closure” to a loved one's  death, whether from natural causes, accident, or illness.  The assumption is that in a matter of days,  after the official rites have been held, mourners can get back to everyday  living and the huge hole caused by the death will close over. 

I want to shout loudly: Not true!

Grief is a journey, sometimes a long journey.  That death becomes  part of the mourner’s life. It can’t be dispensed with quickly like the wilted flowers after the funeral service is over.  It lingers in the soul,  leaving and returning,  bringing  pleasant memories, but also the hurt in the soul. Death should never disable a person permanently.

In our society death is a taboo subject, except in jest, like “kicking the bucket,”  Some people cannot get themselves to say, “Mother died,” as if  death  is a four-letter word. Instead I hear, “My mother is deceased,”  or “My mother passed on.”  Never “Mother is dead.”

Some mornings I check the  newspaper to find out how the obituaries announce a death: “Mother .... went home to Jesus,” “went to be with the Lord,”  “entered eternal life,” “flew to her eternal home.”  Few people die anymore.  “Passed away” is the most frequently used term and is easier for some to say than “Mother died.”   Death seems so final, so they turn to euphemisms like “my mother is deceased”   to make death seem less certain.

While the language of death is becoming vaguer and more reticent, the language and depiction of sexual relationships is becoming bolder and more detailed. Necklines are plunging deeper and deeper, plumbers’ cracks becoming more visible as are ads with men in bulging briefs or facing a urinal. 

“Breast” and “leg,”  taboo words in Victorian times, brought  into usage vaguer terms like  “chest” and “lower limbs." No vagueness today.  Today we get the full frontal view. It seems urgent to get as naked as possible in public.

In the Victorian age death was an everyday occurrence for a population whose life expectancy was in the early forties.   People expected to die. They knew they would die. They saw it happening all around them. Infectious disease was rampant, medical care mediocre and infrequent.  Death was a daily fact of life.

Today a daily fact of life is nudity.  People bare the skin and lay open to public view what once was considered sacred and private.  Nudity in public is a plot to keep from having to reveal one's soul,  someone has said. Instead of getting rid of qualms and fears, feelings of inadequacy and sinfulness, we rid ourselves of our clothing.Adam's fig leaf has become a joke.

Keeping what is private covered is considered uncool today because sex symbolizes strength and power,  and victory over weakness – good sex seems to erase death – at least temporarily.  Good sex is important. Lots of sex  and talk about sex is even more important to make up for the  meaninglessness that invades people’s lives, while thoughts about death are taboo. I think it is important to talk about death more.

I wrote this blog also because our attitude toward death affects the way we bury the dead.  We dispose of our dead and conduct our funerals according to what we think happens after death.

We buried our Christine according to her wishes in a plain pine casket in a simple funeral without all the extra fake greenery,  funeral vans, and so forth as a reflection of her life and beliefs. She believed in the simple life.

Yes, we also celebrated her life, over tea, the love of her life.   In that regard we followed the modern trend to “celebrate life” at a funeral, in other words eulogize, reminisce, joke about, show PowerPoint clips. 

We did that but also wanted to say that death had come, but it was not the end. Death is defeated by the power of God in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It became a service of worship and praise that God was, is, and will be—a service of hope.  “Death, where is thy sting? Grave, where is thy victory?” 

This Memorial Day Susan and I drove  to the cemetery to place flowers on Christine’s grave.  The sun was shining like it shone  13 years ago. But there was a strong wind blowing, so the meadowlarks  remained hidden in the thicket.  Susan trimmed the grave and placed a beautiful bouquet in the vase at the head. The grave marker reads: Christine R. Wiebe, daughter, sister, friend.  My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is my portion forever.  Psalm 73:26

My heart is at peace.   Christine  is in God’s hands.I have to go on living.

My journey of grief at my daughter's death Part IV

July 4 Firecracker Day. Five weeks since Christine died. I sorted some more of her stuff. Will it never end? Worry means we are concerned we can’t get our own way, says Oswald Chambers. Always true?  I am inching back to God. I don’t have all the answers, yet God loves me. I know that.

July 6 Beginnings are easy to determine. Endings are harder to predict. I knew Christine would die young, but not so young. She often said she wanted to grow old and have gray hair and wrinkles like mine. But she knew it would probably not happen. I don’t feel rich inside with peace and joy. I am alone but not lonely. I treasure my solitude while grieving.  Plants grow in the dark of the night, not at noon during the heat of the sun. Maybe I can also.

July 10 My “spiritual” friend phones to tell me to count my blessings. I try to accept her words graciously. A friend comes to spend time with me. After an hour and a half talking about her heavy schedule, her trips, her hobbies, I felt my ear drums had been blasted full of holes.  Maybe she needed to talk more than I needed to tell her about my grief. I was selfish expecting her to comfort me. I sense the goal of much contemporary Christianity is to release people from suffering rather than to have them acknowledge it and let it teach them something.

July 16 The dark night is lifting, the morning twilight beginning. I have felt a return of joy to live, a readiness to get up in the morning, to read, to do something. Yesterday was quiet, but I was not lonely. I met Peter F. in church yesterday. He lost a son in spring. He knows about the wound in the heart that does not heal. We didn’t have to speak words to one another.

July 18 Last night I went to a grief support group of five women and two leaders. I don’t think I’ll go again. These women had all lost a husband. The only support was a gentle murmuring of the leaders that any feeling was all right. 

July 20 Oswald Chambers says it is unnecessary to keep asking, “Lord, lead me.”  He will lead. If our common-sense decisions are not his, he will press through. We must be quiet and wait for new direction. I am waiting, Lord.

July 21 Donna and I have lunch.  I can talk freely about my loss to her. She spent the most time with Christine in the last months.  A recently retired woman in church is dying of cancer. She has decided on no more chemotherapy.  Death had clamped onto Christine and now onto Marilyn.  We live in a world of life and death. Pain and suffering are part of life. To deny suffering is to deny reality.  The point is to keep affirming life. Thank you, Lord, for healing that has started.

Chris was always in a state of waiting for the next siege with her illness, and the next. A crisis seemed preferable to the waiting.  Death beckoned, daring her to let go.

July  25 I feel like an intruder when I sort Christine’s personal files. I don’t belong here, a voice tells me. This is private. Don’t you see the Private sign? But I enter anyway. The files are getting thinner. She saved nearly every piece of paper that entered her world.

July 27 The sunrise this morning was a vast diffusion of gold and pink over the whole city. Something is stirring inside me. I don’t quite know what. I cringe when people defend God to me with great statements of the way he works.  God does not need our defense. God can take care of himself.

July 28 All summer seven-year-old Jennifer has come every Wednesday to learn to sew. Sometimes we go to Botanica to the Butterfly House. Jennie has learned to coax butterflies to rest on her fingers.  One day we saw a luna moth that had just emerged from its cocoon. “I am a happy girl,” she told me as we worked on a small coverlet.  Her willingness to tackle new projects gives me joy. She is in love with life.

August 19 I struggle with guilt and Christine’s indirect condemnation of me when I argued with Joanna about behavior I disagreed with. Chris believed in a perfect world, especially in Christ-believers, and then was disappointed when they revealed they were human. I was often too human for her.

She never fully came to terms with her father’s death as a seven-year-old. His death and her birthday coincided and, consequently, she became the pampered guest at the family funeral  gathering 38 years ago. She complained she didn’t get to see him before he died. Hospital rules didn’t allow children to come in. I was fearful his appearance with a week’s growth of beard, without dentures, cheeks sunken and body wasted, unable to talk, would harm her. I was wrong. I should have taken her to see him.

Christine was angry when friends disappointed her. She was angry that she had to live with me because she could not support herself when she returned to Wichita from Chicago, a city she loved, and where she had a huge community of fun-loving friends. She went into a low-grade depression.

She was angry with me that I wasn’t dancing ecstatically when she didn’t die in 1994, even though we had had hospice in our home for six months. I had braced myself for her death during that time and watched her steady deterioration.  I was planning to go to the funeral home the next day about final arrangements. I had slept on the floor for about six weeks to help with sudden vomiting or bathroom needs.  My own emotions were shredded. I felt exhausted. Death would have been a relief for her – and me.

But she didn’t die, but began a long convalescence. I felt pushed against the wall.  I was the only one on whom she could vent her feelings. I imagine her in heaven exclaiming to me, “Mother, you didn’t manage my death any better than Daddy’s.”

I wish we had talked about death more, about all these feelings, but then we did – somewhat. I still have my notes on what she wanted at her funeral. She often said, “I feel as if I have death perched on my shoulder.” 

My guilt overwhelms me at times. Did I really do enough for her? During the years she lived with me we ate her kind of food, lived according to her schedule, attended functions she enjoyed. But was it enough? Were there enough words of love, focused attention, symbols of caring?

I state firmly to myself Christine died because of her illness, not because I didn’t do enough. I need to say this. I regret not having been present when she died, but she wanted everyone to leave.  Maybe she couldn’t let go of life when we were all around, says Donna. She was too self-reliant. The newspaper had an article this morning on the need to mourn. Two days, two weeks, two months is not enough.

Sept. 13 Three months is not enough. I watched the entire public television series by Bill Moyers on death and dying. Donna tells me that Christine probably processed death so often within herself and with her spiritual director, she was determined to stay alive to the end.

 I am puzzled by the absence of pastoral care after a death.

Oct. 7 Chris, you are still here with me—just gone for a while. I am lonely today for you.  I wonder what great heights you would have risen to had you had a healthy body. You were gifted in all areas –singing, writing, public speaking, spiritual discernment, caring for others. I could extend the list endlessly.

Oct. 9 At a university forum on poetry I told one of Christine’s former professors of her death. She was floored. She sat down to grasp my words.  “Did she die at home? Was it hard?”

Oct. 21 Susan and I went to a hospital memorial service for those who had died in there in recent months. A large crowd filled the chapel, some obviously recently bereaved. It helps to mourn with mourners.

Oct. 31 Three years ago Chris and I visited the kidney dialysis unit. We were given a tour and more information than I wanted. We came home and cried. That path seemed too hard.

Nov. 6 Her congregation held a memorial service for anyone who had experienced death in recent months. I find great comfort to hear Scriptures read and hymns sung related to God’s role in healing.  Yet I felt pain when I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out a list of Christine’s medical appointments for one week in May, the last time I wore the coat. She always gave me a weekly schedule so I would know when to pick her up.

Nov. 15 I am waiting for dawn to break through, for someone to tell me boldly that it’s okay that Chris is gone. Some prisoners of war say they learned from their experience—became better persons. Can I become a better person because of my loss? Suffering is an extremely complicated emotion. It was hard to feel strong faith when Chris was dying. I felt an instinctive revolt against death, though submission to God’s will was in the background, by habit, mostly.

Nov. 21 I feel I am moving to something new. I don’t know what. I am in a holding pattern, with openness, waiting for God to reveal himself to me.

Nov. 23 Thanksgiving Day. I am alone. The children went to the in-law sides of the family. What am I thankful for? That Christine’s suffering is over.

Dec. 26 It bothers me that no one talks about Christine.  Must I grieve alone? I have heard others say the same thing. I remember after Walter died mention of his name in conversation cast a pall over the group.

Jan. 5 I wish I had known Chris was going to die in the next few days. Yet if I had known, what would I have done differently?  We would have talked more about dying, I say. I feel bravely certain about that now.  But I know I would have waited for her to introduce the subject. No mother should have to tell her daughter she is dying.  In the hospital I talked to her about the DNR order she had once agreed to. In the hospital I told her she was dying. I think I was telling myself.  I don’t know if she grasped what I was saying. I stumbled trying to explain her critical medical situation to her. I didn’t grasp it myself.  

Jan.  17 Time does not heal all things. Time does not heal all grief. Time heals grief as we work with it. I have worked hard at my grief this summer and fall. I am bothered when people who escape a tornado say, “God was watching over me,” knowing their neighbors’ homes were devastated. Does God pick and choose his favorites for special care? Does he let a tornado destroy some while he holds others close so no harm can come to them? How does God decide?

Jan. 19  I had the strangest dream. I was called to the hospital. Chris was dying. Another family was also there because of death. Then Chris came into the room, smiling radiantly, with long curly hair, not the short wispy stuff she had in recent years. I felt comforted. This morning I read Psalm 65:8: “Where morning dawns and evening fades, you call forth songs of joy.”  The night has passed. The morning twilight is turning to sunlight. My grief journey has not ended, but is moving to another stage. 

[To be continued]

My journey of grief at my daughter's death -- Part I

Christine, my daughter, my daughter Christine

(When my daughter Christine was 17 she was diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosis.  This event began 27 years of hard work to stay alive. She had good years and bad years. After three years as a Mennonite Central Committee volunteer, she moved to Chicago and spent time with the poor and homeless as well as in a parish nursing ministry. She had completed a degree in nursing at Northwestern University in addition to her B.A. degree in English at Tabor College and had started a master’s of fine arts degree at Wichita State University.  She wanted to become a writer and so wrote copiously about her struggle with health as well as her work. The following are journal entries about my grief work after the death of a daughter. She died May 24, 2000.)

May 27, 2000 I kneel to scrub the floor. And to pray.  It’s been a long time since I’ve knelt to wash the floor—or to pray. I do each the more modern way—standing, with a long-handled mop I swish across the floor, or sitting, at my desk, with my journal and Bible close at hand.

But the floor is dirty from the many feet that tramped through the kitchen to talk, to cry, discuss, to plan, during the last few days. And the mop is broken. Prayer doesn’t reach the ceiling even from the elevated position of a chair. So I am on my knees.

Yesterday we buried Christine. I am now the mother of a child who died too soon. Her death was expected, yet unexpected. We buried her as she had wished—in a simple pine coffin built by her friends. The staining of the exterior became a celebratory event in the church parking lot with several dozen friends each making a few brush strokes. One  took the dress we had chosen for her burial to a fabric store to find matching lining material. She  draped the interior beautifully and covered several pillows from her bed to rest her head on.  A quilt made by sister Susan draped her feet.

The church cemetery is small, distanced from the hustle of the city. Our small family group and a few friends gathered around the oblong wound in the prairie. White clouds drifted lazily across the clear blue sky. A meadowlark trilled a clear message of joy from a fencepost. A white egret headed for its destination.  Life did not stand still for our grief.

The young pastor read Psalm 131, which I had read to Christine the last night she was home: “I have quieted my soul like a weaned child.”  Her soul had seemed quiet as we prepared for another long night.

Around the grave a few people sang a hymn. A few people spoke briefly about their loss.  When it came time to lower the casket no family member had thought to bring straps to lower it into the grave. We had agreed on minimal mortuary services. No canopy. No artificial grass. No hearse. No ostentatious display of anything. We were burying a loved one who would live on in memory, not in a shiny metal casket. The funeral director had left behind the lowering straps with this different arrangement.  Someone had a new ski rope in his trunk. The men took over, business-like, and lowered the casket in its bright yellow sling into its final resting place. Christine would have liked that. We each threw in a small handful of dirt and left. The backhoe waited in the distance for us to finish.

I have moved from the twilight zone of waiting for death to the darkness of grief. During twilight the sun is below the horizon. Somewhere I read that the twilight zone of the ocean is the lowest dept to which light can penetrate. For months now I have waited in the twilight zone for Christine’s death. But now I am in that time period when twilight loses and night wins. Morning twilight leads to sunrise; evening twilight leads to night. The curtain of death has been lowered. Evening twilight has ended. I am in the dark night of the soul. I long for dawn.

On my knees I think over the last weeks.  Late in April Chris sideswiped a car, scratching both vehicles and breaking the other car’s side mirror. Her own car was drivable, but it only made it as far as my alley. Battery problem. She was shook up. I was shook up. Whenever she failed to arrive at my place at the agreed upon time, in seconds I pictured her in the emergency room with another heart attack or a car crash. Her eyesight was weakening because of cataracts even at age 46. Her strength was limited, although she refused to admit it.

That evening I drove her to her home. The car stayed with me. I insisted.  She was upset because this meant she was dependent on me once again.  She knew she shouldn’t be driving, but she feared dependence. I hated having hard feelings between us.

Three weeks before her death, May 4 Chris is getting weaker. She faults me for not letting her drive her car home and causing her to lose self-confidence.  She threw up yesterday—again.  That is happening more often. She is losing weight steadily.

May 5 Christine is depressed, angry, frustrated, because she sees life disappearing. She grieves the steady departure of the things she loves –taking walks, doing volunteer work, eating foods she loves, writing poetry, talking to friends. Her kidney function is worse. I am discouraged with her. Friend Donna agreed to bring her car to her, but then didn’t because she knew Christine was too weak to drive it. We promised to drive her wherever she needed to go. Her list of medical appointments each week is long.  The pastor, Donna, and Kathy have agreed to help with driving.

May 15 Mother’s Day noon meal at my place. Christine walked in looking like death warmed over. Cyanotic, medical student Susan said. I wanted her to spend the night with me. She wanted to go home, so I took her home against my better judgment.

Is Chris dying? 

“Why should I stay alive?” she asks. She is now down to the basics of living – trying to eat something that will stay down and trying to sleep—both functions that no long work well.  “Something doesn’t feel right,” she said.

The mourning doves coo loudly outside my bedroom window. I heard their plaintive cry for the first time the year we moved  to Kansas in 1962, in those weeks before Walter died. Do they mean anything? Are they mourning her approaching death?

May 16 Christine phoned about 10:30 a.m. “Mother, please come and take care of me.”  “Can you unlock the door?” I asked.  She thought she could. I drove quickly. I found her in night clothes crouched in fetal position in an armchair, barely able to walk.  We called the doctor for an appointment. I helped her dress, made some lunch, washed the stacked-up dishes, cleaned the bathroom which had obviously been the scene of several accidents. 

Before we left she slowly looked around her home, tastefully decorated, which she loved because it meant independence, if only for a few weeks. I watched her saying silent good-byes to tea parties at the oak table, to checking her e-mail, to cuddling the cat.

The doctor had little help to offer though I brought with me a long list of her medical problems.  After about four hours with several professionals  I took Chris home with me.  The evening meal didn’t stay down.  I returned to her house to look after the cat, a morning and evening procedure for the next weeks. People may die but cats have nine lives. I seem to be always in the car.

May 19 I think Christine is throwing up blood. She had a bad night. I did too. The doctor said to bring her to the hospital. At once we were sucked into a medical whirlwind – doctors, tests, decisions, waiting for medical pronouncements. Kidneys, liver, heart are shutting down. I refuse to believe it. Son James wants to call his sisters to tell them if they want to see Christine alive, to come at once.  I am convinced if I deny what he says, she will revive as she always had after other similar crises—severe attacks of lupus, heart attack, stroke, cardiac arrest, several arrhythmia episodes.  Roger called her “Christine ‘Lazarus’ Wiebe.” Denial stops us from listening. I want a healthy Christine so I can get on with my life.

May 23 Since I brought her to the hospital she has had tests upon tests. One on-call doctor, a stranger, says we are headed toward the end. The other says little. So I decree no more tests. Palliative care only. Tuesday was a little better day, a little perkier. I tell myself she will rise like Lazarus again. It has happened before. It will happen again.  Daughter Susan has the same thoughts. She is going to beat death once again.

May 25 Christine died yesterday, in the hospital, alone at night. We wanted to stay but she wanted everyone to go home. So we all left. The call came at 3:30 a.m.  that she had passed on. We all rushed there. Lying on her hospital bed, she looked so peaceful, so calm. No more panting for breath, free from the challenge to stay alive. We watched and cried. I touched her cold hands and kissed her face. Son James prayed for us all. The nurses thought he was a preacher. I blessed my three remaining children.

After a momentary lull – breakfast at my place of bacon and eggs for anyone who showed up.  Life took on whirlwind speed as we made arrangements with the mortuary, minister, funeral service, reception. People called, bringing food.

May 29 Christine was buried May 27. Joanna left yesterday for Ontario. She had already been gone from home for a week on business when James located her in New York. Susan returned to her medical studies at Kansas City to prepare for board exams postponed to be with Christine. James has a business trip scheduled for tomorrow.  Only my grief  stays with me. And you, Lord. I know you’re there somewhere. I’m not quite sure where as yet. I am numb with pain.

Her obituary in the paper was preceded by that of a 100-year-old man. That’s the right time for people to die, not age 45. 

[To be continued]