There is no end to grief when you lose a loved one.  Understanding this helps me to continue to live.  There is no end to the missing of a loved one along with the feelings of guilt and sadness, but I have a few things to say.

The first thing is that I lost my mom in a tragic and unexpected way (due to medical error in a hospital).  I wanted to help her, but was so gripped by fear all my skills (I'm a nurse) seemed to leave me, and I knew she was going to die and I couldn't help her because I knew that even if I tried I probably couldn't and I couldn't try.  I couldn't do anything I was so afraid, and the guilt and the sadness and the fear felt overwhelming.  It will always make me sad....but I began to learn and believe a few things after my mom died.  These things might sound crazy but they are not really crazy.

A neurosurgeon named Eban Alexander wrote a book called "Proof of Heaven".  My parents and myself were riding together to go out of state to a funeral.  My cousin had died in her late 40's due to a rare form of muscular dystrophy.  My younger sister has three kids and two of her kids had just been diagnosed with the same rare form of muscular dystrophy.  My mom being very close to her kids was just devastated, and the funeral was hard on all of us.  On the way home from the funeral I picked this random book to read aloud and was so moved in parts of the book that I had to stop to cry.  It is an account of this doctors experience with bacterial meningitis and his trip to heaven as he almost died as a result of the infection.  WELL...my mom being raised a devout "Mormon" and raising me as such acted like she wasn't sure how much of that book was real, but she also seemed touched.  I believe this book was preparing me for a loss much greater than my cousin.  This book was to prepare me for the loss of my mother....the one person in my life who I know loved me.

Rewind 3 and a half weeks before my mother's death.  I was in labor.  I was 41 years old and my labor was not progressing.  I was afraid my baby was in real distress.  I had been in labor for many hours 18??  The doctor finally decided the baby would have to be taken c-section if I did not progress.  Well, I was not progressing.  Long story short I felt that I needed my mom.  I needed everyone else to leave except my husband and my mom and when we were alone the baby came within 45 min and the cord was around his neck.  It had to be cut before he was even out but he was okay.  I looked out the window right after he was born and there was this huge FULL MOON.  I thought it was a strange looking moon.  Kind of beautiful, and my baby was healthy and here.  Three and a half weeks later I was in a hospital again, and I was told my mom was gone.  I was so filled with shock and grief.  I walked outside and there was that big FULL MOON again.  It looked so strange and terrible.  It seemed to mean something and I felt so frustrated and mad.  How could my baby just form in me and appear so suddenly, and how could my mom just disappear?!  How is that?!  Is it really just because.  I didn't want to hear about Jesus or Joseph Smith.  I just needed the comfort of my mother and things would be okay, but now she was gone and is it forever.  I didn't want to be told of faith and religion.  I wanted to know where my mom went.  WHERE IS SHE?!  Where is the part of her that makes her real?  Where is her spirit?  Did she have a spirit?  I fell asleep not knowing.  I quickly fell into some dream far away.  I was crying and searching for my mom.  I needed my mom.....like when I was in labor and there she was.  As quickly as she had disappeared there she was and I told her how terrible this was.  I told her how dismal my life would be without her there.  She looked at me in a way that was familiar.  It was the way she looked at me when I wanted something she knew I was already getting.  She looked at me in the way that she had the greatest secret EVER.  It was like that Christmas I told her I would just DIE if I didn't have a TV in my room.  She looked at me like she was trying not to laugh because she knew she had already bought me the TV.  When I told her I missed and needed her she looked at me like that.....like I already had what I wanted.  I was irritated and said, "NO, I don't have you.  You are GONE!"  She said, "Susan, where I am there is no time and I am not gone.  You are here with me.  We are together NOW."  I suddenly understood and could wake up and continue to live.  Somehow where my mom is there is no time and I am there even though I am here too.  I'm only here because we have time here.  How crazy is that?!  No time?  YES, that is right.  There is no time.  A few days later I fell asleep again, but this time there were moons everywhere.  I woke up and looked into the sky and it was filled with moons.  It was light so the moons looked like clouds.  You know how the moon is white and looks like a cloud before it gets dark?  I looked up and the sky was FULL of moons everywhere.  I was amazed and wondered what the moons were about.  I knew these moons must mean something, but I didn't know what.  It was annoying and I woke up feeling unbelieving and crazy.  I wanted my mom and the loss of her was so overwhelming I could hardly stand it.  I was so grief stricken and sad the only way I could take the anxiety of my sadness was to walk so I took my iphone and decided to take a walk so my family wouldn't see me cry.  I was so sad.  I walked fast and tried to be distracted by music so put my itunes on shuffle and just walked FAST.....I was walking fast and a song came on.  It was "Shoot the Moon" by Norah Jones.  I felt as though my mom were looking for a way to reach me to tell me that she was there.  It was a fall day and the words to the song say something like , "The summer days are gone too soon.  Shoot the moon and miss completely, and now you're left to face the gloom of the room that once smelled sweetly.  Of all the flowers you plucked if only you knew the reason you had to each be lonely.  Was it just the season?  Now the fall is here again.  You can't begin to give in.  It's all over. When the snows come rolling through you'll roll too with some new love. (MY NEW HUSBAND? We had only been married a few months). Will you think of times you've told me that you knew the reason. (I did feel I understood some of the reasons for my life.) Why we had to each be lonely.  It was just the season (was my mom sad for my lonliness too?)"  I played this song again and again and again.  I have heard it hundreds of times since her death.  Honestly....after I heard this song I expected regular communication from my mom.  I believed she was there and she could talk to me but the silence after that song was deafening.  It was hard and I didn't know what to think or believe about death and religion was of NO COMFORT.  NONE.  It was more irritating than comforting and I stopped going to church but started to believe even more in God.  It's a strange thing and I love church and may find the strength to go to church again one day but the memories of church and going every week with my mom there proves painful.  The church is a painful place that reminds me of how absent she is from my immediate life. 

Grief is forever and time does not make things better.  Time just provides clarity and you learn to accept and live with grief with your values and beliefs.  Some days since my mom has died have been unbearable.  I hate the days, but at night when I fall asleep I remember that first dream I had with her right after her death and I believe that somehow when I go to sleep I visit a place where I learn and am recharged to face the next day alone.  I can only face the 12 to 15 hours I am alone because of the 8-12 hours in my sleep when I am not, but when I am somewhere else where I came from learning from my mother in my dreams.