Grief Has No Time Limits

 I received a digitized thumb drive of my old 8 mm films and watched them yesterday.  They were fun to watch. Most of these were of Shelley’s baby, toddler, and childhood days.

Yes, they made me smile and shed a tear or two. In these films, she displayed kindness and a willingness to help someone. I found myself saying, “Shelley, look how cute you were.” And then I remembered she would never see these films.

I dreamed of her last night. I suppose the films caused the dream. 

In my nighttime vision, I drove through cities and towns as I searched for her. When I finally found Shelley, she appeared as an adult. Now, get this. She was looking for a man to date! This frustrated me in my dream, and I have no idea why. She was a widow when she died. If she had lived, perhaps she would have been looking for a companion.

Shelley met her husband online. He was a good man, and they had ten years of a happy marriage before he passed.

 They both became sick at about the same time. Don, her husband, was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, and Shelley was diagnosed with early onset dementia.

Don took treatments at M.D. Anderson in Houston, but he reached the point where the physicians couldn’t do more. He knew he was dying and asked us to take charge of Shelley. Of course, we did. We spent over ten years caring for our adult child.

I do not regret it.

God took her to heaven on October 26, 2024. That’s been enough time for grief to lessen for me. Right? However, grief doesn’t work on a schedule. There are times when I swallow tears so others cannot see them.

Her earthly birthday is coming up. Her dad’s birthday is March 4, and hers was March 6. We celebrated them together in the past. Perhaps the anniversary of her birth is another reason the grief grows stronger, as well as my dream about her.

I know it is normal to dream of Shelley. I understand I may become sad when I see pictures of her.  And when special anniversaries or birthdays come around, I know it is natural for sadness to creep into my being.

She is entombed in Austin, Texas, next to her husband. I live in Houston. I took flowers last year on her birthday. I went again and took more bouquets on the anniversary date she left this earth. I won’t go to her burial site this year on her birthday, but I’ll be thinking of her.

And I’ll be grieving.

Tips for Caregivers

1.    Don’t punish yourself because you grieve. Remember this. Grief has no time limits.

2.    Never beat yourself up. Everyone is different. Other family members are on their own timetable of sorrow.

3.    Remove pictures that make you sad and replace them with happier photos of your loved one. I recently removed a photo from my fridge. It is a sweet picture of the two of us, but it makes me feek forlorn. Other pictures of her on my fridge don’t.  Isn’t that weird? The one I removed was a selfie I took of us while we waited for a doctor. We laughed so much that day. We went to lunch after the appointment and thoroughly enjoyed the time together.

4.    It’s okay to cry. "Tears are words the heart can't express" ~ Gerard Way

5.    Think of tears this way. "Tears are God's gift to us.  Our holy water.  They heal us as they flow." ~ Rita Schiano