What has helped me in times of grief?

I have had a lot of loss in my life. I try to take the pressure off of myself with any expectations of how I “should” deal with it, and it is not always the same. But I have found a couple of things that help that others might find useful.

When my sister died, I didn’t know her very well because she was much older than me, but we had lived in the same place. I was a teenager, and I went into the back of her closet, behind the clothes, to find her things. She had a library of books and I started reading them and this is how I was introduced to Agatha Christie. She also had a shoebox full of stamps she had collected over years. Wads of them just sitting in a box. I had never paid any attention to stamps, but they were pretty, and after I found the shoebox, I bought an album and spent months cataloguing them. This gave me a closeness to her and understanding.

For my parents, now that the initial grief and shock has passed, on the anniversary of their birthdays, I always do something that reminds me of them, something they liked to do. For my mom it could be as simple as baking a loaf of bread, or planting something for spring, or making her chili that everyone who’d had it, loved. For my dad I like to go to a museum or the beach to look at rocks washed up on shore, or sometimes I make art.

The good memories and love that people give to us, we can repeat and give to others. Finding and connecting with the continuum helps ease the heart. They are gone, but they are here, because they are within me, and I am able to share their touch on my life, with others.