Tiny Buddha

Tag: deceased

  • Honoring Lost Loved Ones: How I Carry My Son’s Memory into the Future

    Honoring Lost Loved Ones: How I Carry My Son’s Memory into the Future

    “Keep all special thoughts and memories for lifetimes to come. Share these keepsakes with others to inspire hope and build from the past, which can bridge to the future.” ~Mattie Stepanek

    I stood over a pile of my son’s t-shirts, scissors in hand, my breath ragged. I reached for a plain, dark blue one that I didn’t remember Brendan ever wearing. My fingers trembled. The first cut would be the hardest.

    I’d packed away his shirts eight years ago, within weeks after he’d died. He was only fifteen—an unbearable loss. I’d spent days washing and drying and folding his shirts into tiny perfect squares. My daughter Lizzie watched me put them inside my grandmother’s wooden hope chest.

    “When you go to college, I’ll make you a quilt out of Brendan’s shirts,” I said. “And one for Zack too.”

    I didn’t know how to make a quilt. I’d never sewn more than a straight line before. But I had time. Zack was thirteen, Lizzie ten. But the years passed. I walked by the chest every day and yet couldn’t seem to open it.  I was afraid of opening the lid and unleashing the pain hidden inside, like a Pandora’s box. I wasn’t sure if I could ever open it. When it was time for Zack to go to college, neither one of us mentioned it.

    But now, Lizzie was leaving for college in a week. I’d already bought her towels and dorm decorations and twinkling lights to chase away the shadows in her room. But she wanted the one thing I couldn’t buy. She wanted to take something of Brendan with her, something more than a collection of photos. There wasn’t time to make her a real quilt, but I could piece together blocks of his shirts for a blanket. That would be enough for her.

    I opened the chest and stared down at the shirts. So many blue ones. I couldn’t remember if that was my favorite color or his.

    He never cared about fashion, only comfort. I picked through the shirts and carried an armful down the stairs. A pajama top fell to the floor. It was gray and red fleece with a penguin applique near the bottom. At fifteen, he’d long outgrown animals on his clothes, but he still wore this one because it was so soft. I watched him once, falling asleep on the couch. As a toddler, he’d rub his fingers through his hair, but now his fingers rubbed across the penguin’s belly.

    I stared down at his shirts, seeing beyond the colors and patterns. I saw the stories of my son.

    I picked up his buttoned-down shirt with splotches of red on it. I only smelled the woodsy scent of the cedar-lined chest, but I closed my eyes and went back to the day when there was red sauce bubbling on the stove as I fried chicken cutlets in garlicky oil. Brendan snatched a piece of chicken and dipped it into the sauce, dancing away when I shooed at him with the wooden spoon. He never noticed the drops of red falling onto his shirt. I bent over the shirt now and took a deep breath, as if oregano and basil were still in the air.

    I unfolded a turquoise shirt, the one he wore on our last beach vacation. I could hear the ocean waves crashing against the sand and see the wind ruffling his hair as he held a giant crab dusted with Old Bay seasoning. He’s wearing it in one of our last pictures of him, the one we used for the funeral. I love that he’s holding this crab, with a smile of anticipation as he waited, savoring the moment.

    My hand shook as I cut through the penguin top, but the scissor moved through the fabric easily. I reached for another and then another as I cut the shirts apart until I had twelve squares. I saved every scrap, even the skinny ones that curled. I cupped them in my hands, and they spilled over like ribbons of memory.

    My daughter walked into the room, and I shrugged through my tears. “I’m not sure if I can do this.”

    She nodded. “It’s okay.”

    But it wasn’t. I desperately wanted to give her this gift. I imagined her sitting in her dorm room, wrapped in memories while making new ones.

    His stories lured me back to the table the next day. I arranged the squares on the kitchen counter, moving the blues and grays around. I was still overcome with emotion, but something shifted.

    Seeing the blocks of fabric shaped into something new filled me with hope. I played with the pieces, moving the penguin around, first next to the flag shirt and then next to the blue-striped one he wore for special occasions. I kept moving them around, playing with possibilities until I found the perfect combination.

    I sewed the pieces together, feeling a wave of excitement as the blanket grew. When I finished it, I smiled and held it up. This blanket was so much more than just a block of memories. I’d taken pieces of the past and transformed them into something new.

    I smiled, seeing Lizzie in her dorm room, snuggling beneath the quilt. I saw her moving into her first apartment, spreading it out on her couch. I pictured her years from now as she rocked her baby girl, the quilt wrapped around the two of them, their fingers tracing the outline of the penguin.

    I love looking through old pictures, but something special happens when we play with the memories of our lost loved ones. It doesn’t have to be a quilt. Perhaps a collage of photos arranged in different ways. Or a playlist of songs that spark a memory. Maybe a collection of recipes filled with their favorite foods. Or a tablecloth where everyone writes down a story of a loved one that makes them smile. When we create something new, we build a bridge of love that forever connects us to a loved one.

    Zack wants his own quilt now. He wants something different than Lizzie’s, one that has both his and Brendan’s shirts joined together. A quilt for brothers. I’m excited to start it. I’ll make one for me and my husband as well.

    Tomorrow, I will open the chest filled with memories. I will cut the t-shirts into pieces and pin them together.

    I will stitch my son into the present, so we can carry him into the future.

  • The Grief We Can’t Run from and Why We Should Embrace It

    The Grief We Can’t Run from and Why We Should Embrace It

    “I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

    Grief creeps up on you when you least expect it. It reminds you of the person you have lost when you’re out for coffee with friends, watching people hug their loved ones goodbye at the airport, and when you’re at home thinking about people you should call to check-in on.

    Even when you think that enough time has passed for you to be over it, grief pulls at your heartstrings. You think about all the ways that life has changed, and your heart longs to have one last conversation with the person you have lost, one last hug, and one last shared memory.

    A wise person once told me that when you love someone the hurt never really goes away. It grows as we do and changes over time becoming a little bit easier to live with each year.

    Grief is not something we can run from. I know this now from trying to run, hoping I would never have to feel the pain I was carrying deep within my heart.

    In November of 2020 I lost my godfather, a person I loved and cared for deeply. I also learned about my estranged father’s death when I googled his name. The reality that my estranged family had not had to decency to tell me of his death stung. I also lost people I had known and were connected to in my community.

    The news of these deaths hit me with an initial shock—they did not seem real. For a day after discovering the news of each loss I found myself walking around in a blur, unable to eat or sleep. The next day I was able to force myself to function again. It was as if the people I had lost were not really gone.

    When friends and family learned of the losses I had faced they reached out to me and offered support. I assured them that although I was sad, I was fine. Growing up in an unsupportive family I did not know how to accept their support, as it felt foreign to me. So, to avoid talking about my feelings and facing my pain, I turned the conversation back to them and asked about their work and/or their children. Slowly, people stopped asking how I was doing or how I was feeling because on the surface I seemed more than fine.

    I was functional in my professional roles, writing articles, engaging in research, mentoring students, collaborating with colleagues, and making progress in my PhD program. I appeared like myself during online work and social events. I continued to support my friends and neighbors as if nothing had changed. Silently, I was fighting a battle that even I knew nothing about.

    Each day I would force myself out of bed and tackle a lengthy to-do list comprised of personal and professional work and obligations. In the evenings I would force myself to work or engage in physical activity so that I did not have time to feel. In the initial darkest moments, I convinced myself that if I kept going, kept moving forward, I would not have to feel the pain I carried in my heart. 

    I became more productive than normal. I wrote more academic and non-academic articles, I volunteered and provided support to online communities, and I readily volunteered to edit colleagues’ work. In the few moments of downtime I gave myself each day I would either sit blankly staring at my computer or find myself crying. I couldn’t feel sad, I did not have time to feel sad, I needed to keep going I told myself.

    The pandemic made it easier to live in denial about my losses and pain because normal rituals associated with death, like funeral services, had either been postponed or restricted to a select number of individuals. Perhaps if these rituals had been in place, I would have been forced to address my grief in a healthier manner.

    I continued to run from my pain by adding accolades to my resume and taking on as many projects as I could find. Spring blurred into summer, and I found myself becoming irritated by the slightest annoyance. Sleepless nights and reoccurring nightmares became normal. I had less patience for my students, and I struggled to be there for the people who needed me.

    I found my mind becoming slower, and by the end of June I was struggling to function. Yet, because I knew what was expected of me and did not want my friends or family to worry, I hid it.

    As pandemic restrictions began to ease, and other people’s lives began to return to normal, I became painfully aware that my life could not. I saw my friends hugging their fathers in pictures on social media. Friends recounted seeing family for the first time in over a year and shared pictures of them hugging their loved ones. People in my life began to look forward to the future with a sense of hopeful anticipation. Work began to talk of resuming in-person activities.

    I could no longer use the pandemic to hide from my grief, and I became paralyzed by it. I had to feel the pain. I had no choice. I couldn’t function, I couldn’t sleep, and I could barely feel anything except for the lump in my throat and the ominous weight in my chest.

    My godfather, my biggest cheerleader and the person who made me feel safe, was gone. It felt as though anything I did or accomplished didn’t matter the same way anymore. I longed for conversations with him I would never be able to have. The passing of time made me aware of the changes that had taken place in my life and how much I had changed without him.

    Throughout July I found myself crying constantly, but I was compassionate with myself. I no longer felt I had to propel myself forward with a sense of rigid productivity. Instead, I focused on slowing down and feeling everything. I asked work for extensions on projects, which I had previously felt ashamed to do. Other obligations I either postponed or cancelled.

    I found myself questioning my own life’s purpose. Had I truly been focusing on the things that mattered? What mattered to me now that the people I cared about most were gone? How could I create a fulfilling life for myself?

    There were days I didn’t get out of bed from the weight of my grief. Yet there were also days when I began to feel again—feelings of sadness, peace, joy, and even happiness that I had been repressing for months.

    I allowed myself to cry when I needed to or excuse myself from a social event when I was feeling triggered. When feelings of longing washed over me, I accepted them and acknowledged that a part of me would always miss the people I had lost. Within the intense moments of pain and loss I found comfort in the happy memories, the conversations, and the life we had shared.

    Slowly, the nightmares disappeared, and I began to sleep better again. Although I was sad, I also began to experience moments of happiness and feel hopeful again.

    The grief I had tried so desperately to run from became a strange source of comfort. Grief reminded me that the people I had lost had loved me, and the fabric of their lives had intertwined with mine in order to allow me to be the person I am today.

    The questions that plagued me, about what mattered to me, gradually evolved into answers that became action plans toward a more fulfilling life. In running toward grief and embracing it I made myself whole again and discovered a life I never would have otherwise known.

    We instinctively want to avoid our grief because the pain can feel unbearable, but our grief is a sign we’ve loved and been loved, and a reminder to use the limited time we have to become all that we can be.