Grief is a strange monster. He throws a fit when ignored for too long, then grabs me by the throat when I look him in the eye. He morphs and wears disguises, vying for my attention, craving my consumption. Sometimes I can keep him confined to the closet, but eventually, I must deal with him.
Often I feel like grief lurks around every corner. Grief can turn an everyday encounter into a painful experience.
In some ways, my memories of Dominic taint my interactions.
For example, both my neighbor and my friend have sons who recently turned one. When I overheard my neighbor’s party and saw them making preparations for weeks, I felt a twinge of sadness and jealousy. “I will never host Dominic’s parties,” I thought.
My friend invited me to her son’s party; it was a joint celebration with her older daughter, whose birthday is around the same time. Since my friend and I were pregnant at the same time, her baby has always reminded me of Dominic.
Because I attended Dominic’s birthday party, I somehow feel like first birthdays are “tainted.” Even though I’m glad I went and grateful I was welcome, first birthdays automatically cause me to recall how hard it was to be there among Dominic’s family and his parents’ friends, feeling like a fly on the wall.
But I’ve realized: Anything can hurt if I let it.
Celebrating with my friend and noticing my neighbor’s party didn’t need to become about me.
On the day of my friend’s son’s real birthday, I treated her to lunch. Instead of letting depression take over, I used my knowledge of being a mother to honor her. As a parent, she’s sacrificed much and as a woman, she endured a lot to bring her son and her daughter into the world.
By shifting my focus from myself to her, I was able to keep my grief and ego in check.
Pregnancy counselor Sandra Cantrell, who I interviewed for a series on peace (read part one and part two), suggested a similar method to dealing with grief: gratitude.
“By ‘counting our blessings’ we balance out our feelings of being injured and damaged with feeling loved, cared for and blessed,” she said. “Giving thanks is good medicine.”
