Tag Archives: Albert Lea Tribune

Grief Doesn’t Have A Plot

Featured

Posted on by
Reply

Many of you might not know I was a columnist for many years with a column called Something About Nothing in the Albert Lea Tribune. I came across this today as I was looking for columns to include in a book for the future. Though it is not a holiday it seemed appropriate for my life today. I also used it for my TikTok post. I hope it moves you and helps if you are grieving.

SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING
by Julie Seedorf © November 2017

Grief doesn’t have a plot. It isn’t smooth. There is no beginning and middle and end. Ann Hood

Grief is strange. It pops up when you least expect it, blotting out the sunshine and carrying you back into a sea of sadness. It happened to me this week starting with an ache in my heart. I missed my mother. I wanted to walk out of my house and across town and visit her in her home and sit by the floor furnace and talk. I didn’t have any particular subject in mind. I was missing our mother-daughter time by that furnace grate. It has been fifteen or more years since we were able to spend time together. I am not one to remember death dates for anyone. I prefer to remember life dates such as birthdays. I can’t tell you what year she died.  Just when I think I am over her death, like a jack-in-the-box, the sharp twinge of grief pops up taking over my body. It is an ache in my heart which feels as if a part of it is missing.

Perhaps it is the time of the year, November when holiday cheer is rife but for many, sadness overtakes the joy and doesn’t let them savor the holidays.

We don’t only grieve for those we lost to death. We feel loss for many different reasons. For me, I feel the loss of a special family member who because of divorce is no longer a part of my life anymore. Love doesn’t stop because of a divorce. I feel loss for a special dog that is missing from my home because a former illness would no longer let me care for him. I feel loss for a way of life when jobs went away and nothing replaced them so we had to adjust to the simpler way of living. I felt loss when two of my best friends moved away and we could no longer get together at the spur of a moment. Loss came through a broken leg, a broken foot and an illness which laid me low, followed by depression and anxiety because of it. ‘

Loss can be felt deeply at holidays when families are split, or our childhood families are no longer living, or distance makes it hard for families to be together when togetherness is needed the most.

We all grieve for different reasons and our memories and emotions are unique to each of us. It doesn’t have to be a big event to make us feel those twinges of sadness. It can be an outside force such as losing a favorite restaurant that holds memories or a favorite pair of shoes which marked a special occasion. Feeling the emotions of grief is not relegated to certain rules or people or places.

Some people grieve in silence and others grieve loudly. Our feelings, that twinge in our hearts show up when we least expect it. It is what we choose to do with that ache that makes the difference.

Occasionally I will sit with it and feel all I need to feel. Other times I need to ask for help to find a solution so it doesn’t pull me under. Or I work on gratitude. There is so much to be thankful for in each and every part of the things that made my heart break.

I had a wonderful mother and accepting our relationship was occasionally oil and water doesn’t negate that thankfulness. She and my father taught me right from wrong. My family had a wonderful person in our lives and this person gave us beautiful grandchildren. I will be forever thankful for that person.  Sam, my pooch, gave me unconditional love when I was sick and he comforted me through it. Now he is happy with children who make him jump and play. We made it through job loss and we came out stronger. My friends are a phone call away. I am grateful they accepted me as I am. How lucky I was to have friendships like that in my lifetime. Through illness I learned to be thankful for every day and I found I had a strength I didn’t know I had.

The best advice when I was laid low six years ago was from my Pastor daughter. She pointed out I hadn’t taken time to grieve all the loss I felt in my life the former five years. I was the energizer bunny through it all. She told me to take the time to grieve, to rest and to get stronger. Feeling someone cared made all the difference in the world for me.

Holidays are coming and I am thankful I have the memories I do of family holidays and though families change we are still a family, only evolving.

You might ask why I am sharing these things with you. Grief is a sad subject. I can’t find anything funny to say about it. I decided to touch on this subject because in this chaotic world people are grieving about their lives and feeling guilty for having an ache in their hearts at what should be a joyous time. I want others to know they are not alone.

I don’t have answers. I know what works and doesn’t work for me. I know the grief I feel never goes away, but joy fills more places in my heart than sadness. I want to remember both because it is what made my life mine.

If the holidays are a sad time for you or if your emotions are more than you can handle please reach out to social services, your medical doctor, your church pastor or priest or a valued friend.  It is in sharing that caring hearts connect.

What If?

Featured

Posted on by
Reply

My life has had many changes over the last year. If you would ask me I would say dramatically, but then I do add drama to things that maybe because of my reactive personality get blown out of proportion.

As my journey again changes I contemplate the word purpose. The last few years my purpose, whether I chose it or not was somewhat of a caretaker. It consumed my life, at least in my mind, and now I find myself a little lost.

The world has told us we need to have a purpose. Once I was told it was my purpose in life to bring my mother-in-law out of the nursing home into my home to take care of her. That one I knew was not my calling, though I did believe I needed to help to do everything to make her life better. I was able to discern what to choose for her and me as a good choice.

As I sit with my coffee and think about purpose and the future, I wonder what if … the way the world challenges people to have a purpose in life, perhaps makes finding our purpose more important than it should be. We tend to worry if we don’t see or feel we have one, which then causes us anxiety. The quest to find meaning, to make a difference, often causes anguish in someone’s life because we define the word as doing a great service that others recognize. It makes us feel less than because we don’t feel we measure up to the definition of others, and what the world expects. We see high profile people shouting out what their purpose is, and telling us we need to find ours. If we’re not doing that than we are failing.

What if…we defined our purpose as just being. Not doing anything earth shattering or great in the world’s and society’s eyes, but just breathing and living?

Immediately when a baby is born we put our hopes and dreams of their future upon them. Babies and children revel in just being. They are spontaneous with their laughter, their tears and their innocence until they get out into the world. They feel our stress. We pass that down to them. They grow and they learn from us. But at the beginning their purpose is just to be. To eat and sleep and laugh and cry, to be loved and to accept that love. Wouldn’t it be nice to feel that again?

We strive so hard to matter and to be remembered yet…if I think about those in my life that left their influence on me, it’s not the Robert Redford’s or the John F. Kennedy’s or anyone in the news. It’s the quiet ones. The people I am close to. Someone who has entered my life as a friend. It’s family members or those I’ve had contact with that live their lives being real and reaching out as a friend. They don’t hold high offices. They aren’t great speakers or writers. They haven’t won tons of awards or are famous. They are regular everyday people living their lives the best they know how, at work or at home and in the community.

Purpose. As I find my life changing again I am going to change what I believe about my purpose in life. I think I want to just be…a mom, a grandmother, a friend first and foremost, and see where that leads.

Sitting here floundering in the quietness of wondering what is next, I am going to hold on to this quote by Charles M Schulz

My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. What am I doing right?

Charles M. Schulz

And this Bible verse:

Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.

Proverbs 19:21

In the Waiting Room

Featured

Posted on by
Reply

I have always been a writer. The hobby started as a child and was something my mom encouraged. She was big on documentation. I certainly believed that after she died, and I inherited all the paperwork detailing things in her long life. The paper paraphernalia weren’t always appreciated, but after she left us, those writings became more precious.

My documentation started as a diary in my early youth, in my middle years journaling, and finally as an older adult, a column called Something About Nothing in the Albert Lea Tribune. That was I think, a twelve year gig. Technology changed from writing a column to this blog.

Recently I began looking back through my journals and they were helpful in reviewing my life, bringing back memories and seeing where I have grown, and where I have been stuck. Writing and journaling has always been a way to get my feelings out and to process them, many times letting of what I was upset about because I released it in word on paper without exploding at anyone. The times I didn’t journal are the moments I wrongly exploded at people including my husband and children.

Since our life with Alzheimer’s has begun I have shared with you the ups and downs. I’ve laid bare my feelings and emotions risking the backlash and disapproval of some. It was my way of coping and as I have received wisdom from others writings I wanted to share my experiences to let readers know they are not alone. I have heard from so many of you the life path we share. We have a choice to stay private or to put our hearts out there for all to see.

Thinking back to the times I’ve sat by bedsides of my family, and those acquaintances in the nursing home where it was at one time my job to comfort people in their last hours, I believe it never gets easier no matter how frequent you’ve been in that last waiting room with someone.

Each person’s last journey is different, which makes your own experience unique. It impacts wives, children and friends in separate ways, though they are with the same person. If each person at a bedside sat down and wrote their feelings each perspective would not be the same.

The waiting room. Minutes and seconds tick off on the clock. The first person whose death I witnessed was my cousin Ervin. He was in the hospital and we came to visit. My aunt, his mother, and also his wife were there. He took a quick turn for the worse and we knew he would go to a better place soon. My aunt asked if my husband and I would stay with them. I wanted to run out of the room and go home but felt we had to stay. I had never seen anyone die before and I was scared of my reaction, and instead of being a comfort, I would be a problem. I need not have worried. I held it together and kept my aunt close and my cousins death was peaceful.

A few years later my mom called me to be with my uncle, my dad’s brother. My mom left and he got worse. I was left with the choice of life support. I knew he didn’t want that and he had lived his life. I was there when he too left this earth.

There have been other occasions to sit with my loved ones on a final journey. It is never easy. It is never the same. It is never where I want to be. Yet, I have felt the presence of God. I have felt the presence of angels or messengers or whatever you want to call them and have seen the faces of my loved ones smile in welcome. Sometimes the waiting room lasts for weeks, or it might be hours or days. It is never easy but it is what you do for someone you love

That isn’t always the experience of everyone but that has been mine. My mother had a glowing smile on her face while she was in the waiting room. I asked her what she was smiling about and she answered, “Because I’m going to see your dad, my mom and dad and my brothers soon.”

Those words gave me peace. I don’t pretend to understand what happens while our loved ones are in the waiting room. And I have no explanation why some leave this earth easy and why some have to struggle so much.

Life is full of puzzles. When serious things are happening our emotions can get jumbled. We don’t see things clearly. All we can do is wait for the outcome no matter the situation. We can’t see the forest for the trees. We begin our life in the waiting room waiting to be born. And we occasionally end our life in the waiting room too.

For me sharing the journey through journaling and writing helps me sort out all those confusing moments preparing us for the next journey, or the waiting room where we can be silent and find our next path.