My beloved mom, Marlene Marks Kornick z”l has been gone for 3 months now & today my grief hit me hard. Today on the first day of this new year, my tears flowed like a waterfall.
Perhaps it was being on break – which meant that the busyness of my life settled down and the grief I had obviously delayed, could seep in.
Why today? Maybe it was because I was going through papers (something she was always doing…) – I found scraps of paper scribbled with hospital rooms and doctor’s visits (there were so many in the last 10 years)…
Today – I found these delicate leaves and butterflies she purchased at a craft store so many years before. She had saved them pressed between tissue paper.
The last time we were together, as we were “going through papers,” she gave them to me. Now I, too, will carry them with me.
It was so like her to save precious beautiful things.
The rawness of my grief struck me today in a new way.
I am grateful to Jewish tradition which recognizes that the loss of a beloved parent takes a full year to inhabit and process.
The permutations of grief unfold. Mourning takes its sweet time and will come upon you unbidden.
A scent, a song, cooking. Folding the laundry.
Surely the ache lessens over time, but for me, missing her has become more prominent as the months go on.
I reach for the phone to tell her something funny. I refuse to remove the “appointment” of our weekly video chat from my calendar even though it evokes tears. I long to hear her cheerfully answer “Hi Honey” when she heard my voice.
Not yet.
For All Of Us Who Grieve
Collectively, we are living in an ocean of loss right now. I feel connected to so many people right now.
At any time, loss and grief is difficult.
But this past year when like me, so many of you were not able to fly to be with your loved ones as they declined, or hold their hands, or bring food because of COVID-19 —
I feel you. I weep with you. It was my mom who taught me to “not keep the tears in, because they will fester”
Our traditions of grief have been shattered this past year. For me, it was especially painful to not be able to shovel dirt on my mom’s grave as her casket was dropped into the ground. In Jewish tradition, we do so after we said Kaddish, the final memorial prayer.
In Jewish tradition, placing dirt on the grave of a loved one is considered the most important mitzvah – connection – because it is an act that one does that can never be repaid. It is both heart-wrenching in its finality but also healing.
I watched, with my boys and husband on Zoom – as my Chicago family performed these last acts of kavod/honor for my mom.
There was no shiva where people came to our home and brought food and shared memories. We did them on Zoom, which was wonderful, but not exactly the same as spending days reminiscing and telling stories.
For all those who grieve – please have patience with yourselves.
I promise I will, too.
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
I am in the midst of the 2nd anniversary of the 2 & 1/2 month period between my wife’s cancer diagnosis and her eventual passing. I brought her to the ER on the Saturday after Thanksgiving in 2018. She never made it back home. Her 3rd major surgery was on December 17th. It was right around this time when she was either preparing to go to Rehab or already in Rehab. Her initial prognosis was favorable, but there were hidden medical issues that nobody could have foreseen. It turned out she never had a chance.
The hospital and rehab staffs all agreed that they had never seen a patient that was stronger. She fought through incredible pain and suffering in order to complete rehab, because she was coming home. I made some changes at home and was ready to bring her home, but on the morning of February 11, I learned that the cancer had spread to her liver. That was the end. Two days later she was in hospice and two days after that, she was gone.
Several sessions with a grief counselor were invaluable, as were a number of support group meetings. I learned that my grief is my own. There is no schedule. It will never end, because I will always love her. It will just get a little easier to live with. I keep discovering new triggers for me. By triggers, I mean the things that will bring me to tears, sometimes without warning. Some of them are songs, while some of them are material things.
There have been two times when I have thought something that I never thought I would think, that I was lucky. No, not lucky to have been married to a wonderful girl for 40+ years, but lucky in my loss. After hearing some of the horror stories in the support group, I realized that I was lucky. And thinking about all of those loved ones lost to the pandemic, with families unable to be with their loved ones during their illness and passing, and to have a “proper” funeral and shiva, I was lucky. I was at the hospital every day to support my wife. I don’t know what I would have done if the whole thing had happened this year. I was able to get hugs from loved ones and friends. I was able to lean on the strength of those around me, to help me get through that initial time.
I’m sorry for jabbering on. I hope somebody is able to draw a little comfort from it.