Nico’s birthday was this week. It was the first birthday where he actually told me what he wanted to do for it. I have asked him how he wished to celebrate his birthday in years past, but he never...
Nico’s birthday was this week. It was the first birthday where he actually told me what he wanted to do for it. I have asked him how he wished to celebrate his birthday in years past, but he never quite made the connection to what I was asking. This year he finally did.
He told me as clear as day:
“I want a cake. I want to blow out the candles. I want to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ and go to the jumpy place.”
My heart nearly exploded.
I looked at him and I no longer saw a little boy. He’s so grown now. He’s gotten taller and has filled out—not sure how he has a tummy when he eats one thing, but that tummy is a bit more prominent now—and I see him in such a new light. He’s my little man!
We did everything he asked for and he had the best day.
But one thing hit differently this year and I’m still not sure if both of us felt it or just me.
Grandpa was not sitting at the table marveling at his grandson. He wasn’t rapidly taking picture after picture on his phone trying to capture every moment of Nico’s special day. It made the day feel so empty for me. Despite having family to celebrate with us, which I am beyond grateful for, I felt so alone.
It took everything in me not to dash to the bathroom and fall into a puddle of tears. As we sang to him and watched him flap his hands with utter elation while blowing out his candles, I had to forcefully push back tears and suppress the lump that was forming in my throat.
It was the worst day coupled with the best day for me as we celebrated Nico’s birthday.
My grief is really trying to take me down. It’s doing a bang up job too as it tries to tackle me to the ground. Its making me feel like I’m on an island all alone and no one is coming to save me. I can’t get through a day without welling up or feeling like I can’t move one foot in front of the other.
Grieving while parenting is such a beast though. I have to do it in such a sequestered manner so as to not upset the boys or make them overly concerned. That means a lot of crying in the shower, in the car, and in bed once they’ve fallen asleep.
And what I’m realizing is I can’t talk about my dad as much as I want to. As much as I want to for the boys. It’s just too painful. But at the same time, I feel so compelled to because I need them to know that they were loved beyond measure. Their grandpa worshipped the ground they walked on and lived to love them.
What I’ve been consumed with lately though is how Nico is handling this loss. I know kids are resilient, but because Nico is not naturally conversational and does not connect with me in ways that would explicitly reveal that he misses his grandpa, I am left constantly wondering and worrying about his grief. I keep asking myself:
Does he understand what has happened to his grandpa?
Is he feeling his loss at all?
Will he ever demonstrate his grief in a way that I’ll recognize?
Or, is he simply of the mindset that grandpa’s time came to an end?
That is literally what he said as soon as he saw the cemetery staff begin to shovel the dirt over my dad’s lowered coffin. He looked around and then said, “Well, that’s the end.”
Maybe he understands death to be as simple as one day you are here and then a day comes when you aren’t, and that makes sense to him.
I’ve been listening to Anderson Cooper’s second season of his podcast, and he is exploring his own grief over losing his father, brother and, most recently, his mother. Grief that he has avoided facing for years.
Listening to him share his own journey through grief is bubbling up so many emotions in me, and making me reflect on all the losses I have experienced in my life. Most notably, my mother’s untimely death right before I headed off to college and now my father’s.
As I listen, I am finding myself comparing the grief I felt when my mom died to how I am coping with the loss of my dad, and I am realizing that my father’s death is feeling infinitely more intense and heartbreaking.
I think it’s truly because I am experiencing it two-fold. As a daughter and as a mother whose sons have suffered the tremendous loss of their grandfather. This loss is extremely impactful even if my boys don’t recognize it yet. They lost so much when they lost my dad.
When I lost my mom, I was seventeen and about to start college. The pain of her loss hit me like a ton of bricks and there were times where I didn’t want to go on without her. She was my rock.
I would catch myself talking directly to her, praying to her as if she was the conduit between God and me. But now that I’ve lost my father, I feel like my grief and focus has turned only to him. I almost feel guilty because my attention has turned towards my father, and all I want to do is talk to him.
It’s so weird too because I miss my mother dearly, but I almost feel like I am at peace now with her absence knowing that she and my father are now together. I literally pictured her waiting to welcome him in through those Heavenly gates, and jumping into his arms with the biggest smile on her face…the very one my father fell in love with a lifetime ago.
When I catch myself wanting to fully surrender to my grief and let the flood gates to my tears burst open, I picture them together and I hear them telling me, “It’s ok, Kate. Don’t be sad because we are still with you. We promise.”
And with that, I feel relief. I’m still grieving their loss, but it doesn’t feel as desperate. It feels more manageable. I guess that’s the power of grief; it brings forth both the darkness and the light. At least, that’s how grief is manifesting itself for me.
But my hope is that my boys will follow suit and picture their grandpa up in the sky, looking down on them; watching over them forever. That’s how I talk about it with them and it seems to give them peace. My little guy, Max even looks up to the sky every time he mentions my dad now. I want them to embrace grief in this way so that it isn’t something they try to avoid.
I know the thought of my father watching over me, as he sits alongside my mom, will eventually bring me peace. It’s definitely redefining my grief as it pertains to my mom. But until that day comes, I foresee a lot more crying, sleepless nights, aimless thoughts, blurred days, and an aching loneliness.
It’s my way of embracing my grief right now. Facing it head on. Sitting down with it and laying it all out on the table.
And if one day soon, Nico connects to his grief in a way that I can recognize, I will be ready to share in it with him. I hope we can do that together because I need him to know just how much his life was impacted by his grandpa and how he saved his grandpa’s life in so many ways.
I cannot wait to share that with Nico and see his eyes light up and his hands flap. Because it will be at that moment that he hopefully feels my father deep in his heart, and a sense of relief and release from his grief will wash over him.
Time will tell for both of us.
