As I've wrestled with how to bring this website back to the here and how, I've also wrestled with another component I felt needed to be added - one that can stand alone on its own. One that fits well within the parameters of Caring with Marsha.
This website will always include information to help us understand and better support the widows, and widowers, in our lives. It will also include information for anyone suffering profound grief, a grief none of us knew existed until we found ourselves in the absolute thick of it.
As a caregiver to my husband, my mom, and for four years my dad as they each had been hospitalized any number of times before coming home on hospice, as well as becoming my sister with special needs full-time caregiver, I know what it is like to get lost in caregiving others. To not be able to find ways to take care of me beyond survival modes.
During those times I searched for ways to better care for myself. All I could find were variations of "Top Ten Ways of Self-Care" sort of posts. They contained things like: have a quiet cup of coffee to start your day; take a long, hot candlelit bath, etc. These are lovely ideas for someone who needs a break after putting a little one down for the night. They don't even begin to touch what someone in the deepest trenches needs!
As I'm catching up from a three-and-a-half-year hip injury that wouldn't allow me to sit for long without it screaming in pain, I'll be continuing to gather and organize information on all facets that will fit here, so it may be a bit before regular posts become, well, regular!
A friend challenged me to get away for a night or two at a cabin taking my junk journal supplies with me. I think I will instead take my laptop, some notebooks, my phone full of notes, and anything else that will help me get everything under control and organized, then get to writing!
Please be patient as I work my way back, and know I AM COMING BACK with loads of genuinely helpful info for widows/widowers/grievers and for "advanced" self-care tips!
As we move further into this blog, and the coming resources, it's abundantly important to let you know where I stand on grief. After all, it's the foundation of why we are here.
* All grief is valid.
* All grief should be acknowledged.
* All grief should be respected.
* Grief, in all of its forms, should not be scaled or compared against someone else's - by any measure.
* All grief should be faced and worked through.
All of that said, this blog isn't here to say, "Your grief doesn't count compared to mine." Not in any way.
This blog is here to say some grief is beyond any perception, or expectation, or experience we may have. It's here to share what I've learned so you might better understand the people you care about who are grieving in an exceptional manner, a manner you may not understand.
Or, maybe it's you who are grieving, and you don't understand!
I've been there! I am there, though in a more settled way that I once was.
Grief is survivable. We can even thrive again with our old friend, Grief.
Let's link arms in true support of those we care about!
Marsha
Christmas is a week away. A friend shared a post on Facebook this morning. I loved the message that was shared. In a nutshell, Jesus’ stepping down from Heaven wasn’t at all about giving us a reason to celebrate. “Jesus stepped down to pursue the broken and the hurting and the lost.”
That’s us, widowed friends and friends of widows. It’s a lot of other people, too, for sure. But, we can sure dig into what this young lady, Cassie, is sharing from her heart and her hurt.
It is perfectly okay if our grief overwhelms our attempts to, or even our desire to, celebrate in the usual holiday ways. It’s even okay if our grief leaks out, or roars out, of nowhere in the middle of a celebration. Hopefully we are with the ones we love and who love us if and when that happens. Either way, people need to understand our reality, one they may well live themselves someday. If we don’t let them see the reality, if we don’t teach them, they’ll be as lost as we were - and maybe still are.
Psalm 34:18 tells us the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. How much more tangible could He be than to take on human form and walk among us?
We need to meet widows and others who are grieving where they are. It’s not incumbent upon us to “fix” them or to make them celebrate with us at our parties, at parades, at the ballet, or anywhere else, even at church. We cannot fix them. We cannot take their hurt away.
We CAN meet them where they are. We can invite and gently encourage them to join us. Just know, without a sliver of doubt, their grief will be coming with them. Please know that it is impossible to escape the grip of profound and traumatic grief. It has to loosen its grip on us in its own time, even at Christmas.
We can sit with them if they need to not celebrate. We can listen to them. We can demonstrate our care in bringing them cookies or a meal if they don’t want to celebrate. We can see if there are any little “honey do’s” that need to be taken care of.
Think of ways you show, or have been shown, care while you were sick or recovering from surgery. Translate that to your grieving friend who may or may not feel like celebrating the season now or in the weeks to come as we move through Christmas and New Year’s.
If you'd like to read Cassie's post, you can find it here over on Facebook.
Marsha
