Grieving Into Giving For The Holidays

I have heard many times that grief can be selfish, but until I was in it myself, I never truly understood what that meant. The first support group meeting my husband and I attended, we heard another grieving parent offer the advice of replacing the word selfish with self-care. Armed with this new substitution of a term we began pushing away everyone in our lives that cared for us and quickly alienated ourselves from our loved ones. We declined all invitations to dinner parties, birthday parties, barbeques and even home cooked meals to be brought to our home. We were using self-care to protect ourselves from the hurtful things that would surely be said by these now *outsiders* who could not possibly identify with the sadness and sting of our grief. We became consumed with anger and constantly conversing about how none of our friends and family could comprehend how we felt, and how selfish they were being. The invites and offerings had ceased and the phone calls to us decreased. We felt alone, alienated, and nervously realizing we shut them out. They tried to come into our world of grief, but we did not allow them. Over the next two months I began to surmise we had replaced self-care with selfish. Slowly we began reopening the lines of communication and discovered that the loved ones we drove away were aching to get inside with us. They were pained for our loss, patiently and quietly grieving with us and over us. They were troubled by not knowing what to say and fearing their words of comfort would cause us additional anguish. I suspected that we had become selfish in our grief and maybe our grief did not have to be this way. The true confirmation of this would come several months after the passing of our baby girl, in the embrace of a friend. This friend I had known for 12 years, I had never seen cry, when her husband of 40 years died this past February, I did not see her weep. She was emotionally private. This friend took hold of me, and through tears told me how sorry she was that our baby died. In her tight embrace I felt her body tremble as her tears ran down my neck, this woman felt my suffering. While she privately and silently grieved the loss of her husband, she also grieved for my husband and me as well. She stepped out of her personal sorrow to share in ours; at that moment I knew grief did not have to be selfish. Empowered by this new knowledge, I began to take notice that around us people in our community were grieving everyday. A neighbor was grieving the loss of his job that he maintained for 30 years as his company closed down, an acquaintance the loss of their spouse and family life as their marriage crumbled, and an elderly parent the loss of their youth, vitality and independence. As the holiday season was fast approaching, filling us with anxiety, not knowing what to expect without our little girl in our arms, we were determined to get more involved in helping our community. We wanted to aid others the way Brief Encounters had assisted us, and to find a special way to honor the memory of our baby girl. We decided that we would help deliver hot holiday meals to the elderly in the Portland area. After reading about what this would entail and speaking with the volunteer coordinator, we chose that our help would not be limited to just the holiday season and we began delivering meals on Saturdays, with a new-found anticipation of the upcoming holidays. My husband and I each put an angel pin on our sweatshirts to represent our baby girl, bringing her with us as we head out to deliver the meals. By replacing selfish with selfless, our grieving with giving, we have found healing in helping. We wish you peace and comfort within the love of your family, friends and community during the holiday season.

Written By: Shannon Zelazek, mother of Dorothy Raine