A Year of Grieving
An angel statue honoring Helena on Jane’s deck.
A Year of Grieving
It wasn’t until this hose season that I figured out what had been going on last summer.
A few times a day, I drag the hose from the back of my house around the property, a never-ending task of keeping the critters’ bowls rinsed and filled with fresh water. Last year, anyone passing by would have heard me cursing as I yanked and wrestled with a hose that kept kinking before and after every watering stop in my routine.
As August came and went, I was still swearing at the hose, struggling through chores, and my body felt tied up in a constricting knot. By the end of September, I was completely wiped out.
This year, as I calmly move the hose from place to place, I understand: last year I was angry—furious.
Grief does that. I didn’t understand at the time how angry I was as I lashed out at the hose, or how my sorrow after my granddaughter Helena’s sudden death had leached away all my energy.
From the moment I’d picked up the phone and heard my son-in-law Brad say, “Helena has been killed in an accident,” the world as I’d known it had stopped.
Anxiety took over, leaving no room for me to breathe or think straight. Worry about my daughter, Jessica, became a full-time job. Had she gotten out of bed? Was she able to get through her work day? If the phone rang, my heart sped up and my mind raced: Was someone hurt? Did someone else die?
Depression weighed me down. I’d sit slumped on the back porch, unable to move. The Duck Hall needed cleaning, the grass in the goat pen was knee-high, and Louisa’s pool needed to be scrubbed, but I couldn’t move. I just couldn’t make my limbs function.
The anger and weariness that grief brought were beyond any I’d known before. I was so angry I’d stomp through my chores. I was too tired to cook—my body couldn’t stand long enough to wash, cut, or dice. By November, I could barely walk. I felt my body was betraying me, like the universe had betrayed my grandchild. Only my work of teaching fitness classes kept me moving.
Grief manifests differently for everyone, and this is how it has looked in my life—how the unexpected death of a loved one shook up my sense of reality. Anything could happen at any time.
Alongside the heartbreak of never seeing my granddaughter grow into the caring and compassionate adult she was becoming was my crushing concern for my daughter.
Are you up? I’d text Jessica each morning. One-word answers came back: Yes. Up. The same held true for nighttime. With my child in so much pain, my heart slogged instead of beating. Our morning and nightly messages were the new normal, a way for me to keep the pulse of her health, her grief.
My worry about my family, wondering what next? and who next? continued through fall, winter, and back into spring, because the ever-present fact is that everyone will die, and there is no magic age. Children die from cancer, teens like my high school friend DJ die suddenly from bad hearts, and young people get killed in car accidents.
It’s June again. I meet Jessica in Madison to select a statue for a memorial she’s creating for Helena. As we search for the perfect statue, Jessica spies a green blanket with daisies and says, “I think of Helena...” as she touches the blanket.
“Yes, you always picked out a blanket for her when we went out together.”
We keep walking, each of us knowing the other is crying.
Over lunch at an Indian restaurant, I ask Jessica if she’s made plans for Helena’s death day. We discuss grief, guilt, and life after death. As we sit, tears filling our eyes, the waitress comes by and asks, “Food too hot?” Jessica shakes her head while dabbing her eyes with her napkin.
When the concerned waitress comes a few minutes later and asks again, Jessica manages to look at her and murmur, “Emotional,” and then excuses herself to go to the restroom.
After lunch, we say goodbye. Later, I find her message: I’m home, are you?
Yes, I am now.
This is how a year of grieving looks in my life; the anger, depression, and overwhelming fatigue are real. The sadness of knowing Helena isn’t coming back is real. And the fear every time I hear the phone ring is real, because who really knows? Anything can happen at any time, and life will never be the same.
