By Lisa Lorraine
The sun was kind enough to hide behind the clouds today. I’ve managed to leave the comfort of my bed and settle under a blanket in the living room recliner. It’s December 19, 2022. Twenty years ago today, my daughter, Ellie, died. Her white memorial Christmas tree shimmers from the corner of the dining room; reflections of its sparkling angel ornaments dance across the wall.
Like many bereaved parents, I prefer to call this Ellie’s “angel day.” The alternative—anniversary—implies celebration, and there is nothing to celebrate. This calls to mind another word I’ve developed an aversion to during the last twenty grieving years—journey.
As an English major, I am no stranger to the teachings of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, or “hero’s journey.” I taught this narrative cycle to undergraduates and asked students to reflect on their own “hero’s journey” to college. It wasn’t long into reviewing these essays before the word journey began grating on my nerves. I blamed the annoyance on the repetitive use in their stories. Until days later, when I came across another article referencing grief as a journey. That’s when I realized it wasn’t how students used the word in their stories, but rather how it has been used in my own.
Grief is frequently compared to a journey, but I cannot align with that metaphor. I know this may be controversial. But a journey, by definition, has a beginning and an end. In Campbell’s monomyth, “heroes” answer a calling then face a series of obstacles that lead to a pivotal moment of change and understanding. They return home victorious, a “master of both worlds,” as Campbell put it.
But I am no hero. There was no call to action; the universe didn’t offer a choice in my daughter’s death. And while the aftermath of her loss led me to trials that sometimes made me stronger, there will never be a triumphant return home. So, when people ask me about the memoir I’m writing, and I catch myself answering, “It’s about a journey through grief,” I think—Lisa, you know better.
Today feels as hollow as all the other birthdays, holidays, and angel days since Ellie died. This twenty-year milestone hasn’t led me to any illuminating conclusion or deeper understanding of my loss as I’d once hoped. But I have learned a lot about what grief is and what it’s like to live with it. I offer up a different mythos—grief as a shapeshifter.
Grief is pain. I imagine it is akin to being hanged, drawn, and quartered. But those tortured souls have the deliverance of death. This pain—both physical and emotional—must be endured. I can attempt to escape my body with some vice or meditation, but I must always return to the reality that my child is gone. No pill or prayer makes it otherwise. When I am forced to sit with this realization, my body aches.
Grief is anger. I expected to be angry at God and disappointed in faith; I did not expect to feel resentment toward parents who still got to hold their child or those who had never experienced a great loss. I expected to be angry at the circumstances surrounding Ellie’s death; I did not expect to take it out on those I loved or for them to be the target of blame.
Grief is irrational. Turbulence on a plane, a tumble off a swing, a bit of food down the wrong pipe—all are cause for panic in this new reality where death hovers as a constant reminder that life can be ripped from me at any moment, from any cause. Grief holds my senses hostage. The slightest sound of chaos—kids wrestling upstairs or a loud voice in the next room jolts my conscience back to the moment when heavy footsteps followed by the words, “Come quick—the baby’s not breathing!”
Grief is unpredictable. There are no signposts for danger ahead. The shock waves of loss can surface at any moment—listening to another bereaved parent share her story or when violence against children flashes across the television. It can sneak up on the happiest of moments, like a sunny beach day, when the sight of a platinum-blonde toddler resting on her mother’s shoulder takes my breath away.
Grief is imperceptible. Days when I fumble my speech, drop or spill whatever’s in my hands, I wonder if something is wrong with me. Then I remember—Ellie’s birthday is in a few days, or Mother’s Day is a week away.
Grief is doubt. I read books about loss by “grief professionals” and parents who’ve walked in my shoes. Some helped, but others made me feel like a failure. Why didn’t my grief align with the prescribed “stages?” How were other bereaved parents able to find a lesson in their loss? That wasn’t part of my grief narrative. Neither was a stronger marriage. How had others managed to avoid the collateral damage strewn throughout an entire family? Had I gotten grief all wrong?
Grief is guilt. And the guilt I carry is heavy. “What ifs” are the heaviest burdens. Could I have done anything to change the trajectory of that horrible day?
AND YET….
Grief is survival. People tell me I’m strong, but I’m not sure what that really means. They tell me they could never endure losing a child if it happened to them. What, then, does that say about me if I did? I had two other daughters to raise and no choice but to hold it together for them. I did my best to hide my pain, but still they heard me sobbing on the other side of the bedroom door, bravely asking if Mommy was okay. Thankfully, they never saw what was sometimes on the other side—me, staring down at a bottle of pills, imagining my palm full of its contents. Their voices brought me back to reality. How selfish of me to add to their losses and cause more pain.
Grief is resilience. I had to rebuild trust in life and in others. I had to find new ways of being. It has forced me to take the chaos of life and put it into perspective. It has made me stronger and more compassionate.
“Grief is love,” a bereaved mother recently reminded me. “It is the place where the love for our children exists.” How right she is. My grief is a sign that Ellie lived. I am the keeper of her memories. The sharp lump in my throat when I see a mother cuddling her daughter, the pulse of sadness when I glance up at her big blue eyes in the portrait on my wall, and the glittering light from her memorial tree—these are ways grief brings Ellie to life for me.
My grief is not a journey, it’s metastatic. It is a presence shifting and morphing throughout my body. I will carry it inside me until I see Ellie again. Perhaps that’s the realization I’ve come to twenty years after Ellie’s death—accepting that grief is part of who I am now.