Recognizing Grief

photo courtesy of Stacy Bostrom Photography

Today I am aware of the growing impact of this COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting exhaustion. I have been up and down. One day I’ll feel the sadness and loss, and the next day feel peace and acceptance.

When my husband was a child, one of his favorite books was “There is NO Such Thing as a Dragon” by Jack Kent. The story is about a little boy who finds a small dragon in his bedroom, and shows it to his mom, who replies, “There is no such thing as a dragon.” With that, the dragon begins to grow and grow until he is larger than the house. When the mother finally acknowledges the dragon, the dragon immediately begins to shrink back down to a smaller pet size, which everyone finds more manageable. “I think it just wanted to be noticed” the little boy wisely comments at the end.

Grief is like the dragon in the story. When I try to pretend it’s not there or get busy in an attempt to avoid it, eventually it becomes overly obvious and begins to noticeably impact my life. I feel extra tired, worn out, distracted, and overwhelmed.

I’ve been down this road enough now to know that it is time to check in with myself and recognize this familiar feeling of grief, that needs to be noticed and felt.

Today I am grieving the lives that have been lost to COVID-19, and the reality that the impact of this will go on for much longer than any of us expected. This morning I also miss my friends, going for walks and chatting about life over a cup of coffee.

It helps me to know that it is grief I’m feeling. Instead of pushing it aside, I have decided to sit with it a bit and acknowledge its presence. I imagine myself sitting like the mom in the dragon book, taking a break from all her busy work to sit in a rocker and stroke the dragon’s head for a moment.

As I sit with the feeling of loss, it reminds me of grief that has popped up over the years because of my daughter’s Dyscalculia. It was there in moments when I realized that her difficulty would never go away completely. I felt grief over the amount of difficulty my child already faced: heart surgery as an infant and the ongoing cardiologist visits, life-threatening food allergies, asthma, and now this. I remember feeling the sadness rise up in tears several times as I met with her teachers and realized the magnitude of her difficulty in school.

I don’t easily make time for recognizing grief when it surfaces. Usually, much like the mom in the book, I am slow to acknowledge its presence.

As I sip my coffee and write down my thoughts this morning, I am reminded that it helps to see grief for what it is and recognize its presence with me. Even now, I feel lighter and more patient with myself when I can recognize that the tiredness and the stress are all signs that grief’s familiar head is popping in to remind me that it is real, it’s a part of life, and that it needs to be noticed and acknowledged.

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