"Like sandpaper grinding on sandpaper in my chest." It's the description my Mother used to express the sorrow following Nathan's death—and a very descriptive one.
"Sandpaper Heart"— I've written it down as a song title. I have no idea at this point what the song will be about but it's such a picturesque word, I feel I must write a song about it. Until then....
The story of Nathan's death (her 2 year old son) continues in my mother's words:
"That night, (after Nathan drowned), I tossed and turned, was up and down; I could not sleep. I had never felt hurt and pain like that, and it was beyond what I thought I could endure...like sand paper grinding on sand paper in my chest. Finally, toward morning, the vision or dream came back to me—I had not thought about it until then—seeing our two families assembled in the basement of the church ready to go upstairs for a funeral.
Not long before Nathan's death, I had a dream or a vision, was I sleeping or awake? I saw plainly our two families—the Sollenberger and Heisey families in the basement of Air Hill church, waiting to be ushered upstairs for the seating at a funeral as was the custom...and I said in the dream—"That means there is someone in our family—Orville's and mine, that has died".
Cousins as pallbearers with funeral directors - walking to the cemetery of Air Hill Brethren in Christ Church, carrying Nathan.
When the day of the funeral came, there we were; the two families brought together just as I had seen it. I realized then that the dream of vision had been from God, trying to prepare my heart.
God again had gone before me to tell me He was in control—a drop of oil was dropped onto the sandpaper in my chest. I can't describe the comfort it brought, ever so delicate and gentle but so soothing. As the days passed, more drops of oil were administered, bringing the comfort that God has promised to those who mourn. I said, "Thank you Lord..this is all part of your plan"...and my burden was somewhat lightened. Even though I was able to rest in God's will, we all took Nathan's death very hard. We had great sadness—it would take a long time to grieve. We couldn't help the question—why? why? why?—trying to make sense of what seemed senseless. Finally, with God's help we began to see that Nathan was a special gift to us for two years. His life was not snuffed out—it wasn't shortened. He lived his full allotted time and our home was the one blessed by his earthly visit. We would often reminisce at the table, remembering the little clown that he was, how much joy he had brought our family. Nathan seemed to have been "loaned" to us for two years, and we had to give him back."
I dropped my brother and his wife off at the BWI airport and started the two hour drive home. It was Monday. First day of the work week, first day after our mother's memorial service.
I hate goodbyes.
Personally, I think one of the hardest moments of grief is right after the funeral when all your friends and family leave to go home. You head back to your house and realize that life is not going to be the same anymore. The people who were with you throughout the death and funeral proceedings serve as a sort of cocoon and you feel safe and warm there, even in the midst of your grief. When they leave, it's as if you are birthed out into the cold world, naked. You are fragile and helpless. You need to be treated gently and given some time to adjust.
A melody and lyric presented themselves as I drove.
"let her down gently
everybody's gone
going home to lonely
so let her down gently"
I wrote it down and never finished it. (I don't think my producer wants me to write anymore songs about death.) "You have plenty already," I can hear him say, and I giggle.
Two Stones
My mother's name has been engraved on two tombstones ever since I can remember. Having had two husbands, both preceding her in death, I'm sure it was a decision of frugality and practicality to go ahead and have her name etched on both stones.
I always dreaded visiting the cemetery, partly for that reason. It was a very vivid reminder that someday she would die. It was eery because her name and birthdate appeared, along with a blank space for the date of her death, waiting for it to happen. It's a lot for a child to process.
February 6 was her birthday and we just passed the second one since she's been gone. I haven't been able to go back to the home where she died ever since September 2014. It's too painful. In fact, I've even avoided the roads around it. Secretly, I was afraid that they would force me to drive by and I just wasn't ready. Yet, I have felt guilty because there are people at this home that I would like to go visit but my selfish grief has kept me away.
I hate guilt. I used to hate grief even more.
Saturday, on her birthday, I had an event to do in the town where she died. Feeling a bit nostalgic, I took the long way so I could stop and visit her grave. "Yep - here I am, doing it - the very thing I despised when I was young," I smiled to myself.
As I was walking toward her spot, I had this unusually strong impression that she was no longer there. Now, I know that in my head, but my heart prefers to go visit her graveside anyway. It still brings comfort somehow, but this impression was so strong that it almost made me turn around and leave. I've never sensed that so strongly when visiting my family's graves.
But I wanted to see the date listed on her memorial. I haven't seen it since they etched it in last summer. Just as I reached for my phone to take a picture to send to my siblings, I saw a text from my brother in New Mexico reminding us it was her birthday. Interesting timing!
As I walked away, I had the resounding sense of completion - and not just the date on her tombstones. Something in my soul felt free. Knowing she isn't there somehow lifted my step.
Bertha Mae Sollenberger Crider Heisey February 6, 1923 - September 24, 2014
As I drove toward the church where I was to speak, I came upon the little road to her home and decided to take it. And wouldn't you know, it took me right by the place where she died, and once again, I had the strong sense of freedom from grief.
Not only was she NOT in the cemetery, she was NOT at the home I so dreaded going to. I drove by - looked it square in the eye and smiled. She's not there anymore.
My heart finally agreed with my head.
I wanted to go home and blog about my experience but the words felt like peanut butter in my spirit. However, I had a strong sense if I would work on the song, I could now finish it and the song would express what I want to say. I guess I just needed more time to live through the grief and grow to the other side of it.
Of all the songwriting tools available to me, the piano is usually the most productive one of all. I sat down at the piano and it came - easily, quickly and clearly.
I have songs that I've started and slaved over and still can't finish. When one comes this easily, it's a treat. I doubt you will ever hear it on one of my CD projects (unless I do one on grieving) but in light of the subject of my recent blog posts, I thought it would be an appropriate way to show you what it's like to take a song idea, process, write and record it. A snapshot into my "day of delight."
(I say that because a fan-turned-friend recently asked if she could come and sit in my studio and watch me write a song. Oh my!!!! No way!!! It's such a personal process. Sorry - I said.)
So this is the best I can do to let her in on my process.
The pictures aren't professional for the most part - but they represent my life. Joy and tears. Life and loss. It's my family's story.
Know someone who has recently lost a loved one?
Give her/him space.
Don't carve out her grief journey for her. Let her find her way. Just be there for her, and please.....let her down gently.
Mother's memorial service display of flowers with our baby pictures.
The first Sunday without my mother was the day we celebrated her life with a memorial service. I was surrounded by family and friends. I was in a daze. I felt fine.
The second Sunday without her I was so tired and numb from the array of emotions leading up to her death that I didn't feel much. In fact, it was a rather normal day.
The third Sunday I was driving home from church and suddenly a wave of grief came over me as I realized that normally Tom and I would go and visit her in the evening.
We would not be visiting her anymore on Sundays. Not any day of the week. She is really gone.
It was a very rough day. I tried to nap but my puffy eyes wouldn't let me. I didn't want to ride the motorcycle because my last memory of the motorcycle was trying to get home from our long trip on bikes in time to see her before she lost consciousness.
I cried most of the day. My sister called from Canada but between my own tears and a bad satellite connection, we were unable to talk long. How can it be so awkward, even with family?
There were some Sundays in the past that I would have rather stayed home to sleep or ride my motorcycle than go and visit. Now I am free to do any of those and they aren't as appealing. I miss her, I admit as I sit here wearing her blue gingham pajamas.
I can feel a growing apprehension of facing Sundays without her. I don't want to start a new pattern of dread in my life so I tried to approach this Sunday differently. Knowing my husband had a meeting after church and I would go home to an empty house (which is very hard) I decided to see if a friend could have lunch with me.
I was nervous as I pulled into the restaurant parking lot. Maybe this wasn't a good idea. Grief can hit at the worst times and I prefer to be alone when it happens. I wondered if I did the wrong thing by suggesting we meet. But I am so glad I did. As she shared her own story of loss, we found similarities in our journeys. Both surprised that we shed very few tears at the funeral. The tears come before and after, but during....not so much.
I find this to be a tricky path. My heart is full of emotions. I have a certain sense of composure that I want to maintain around the public. What's strange is that I want this composure even around my closest friends and family. I don't want anyone to touch the faucet that controls the tears. It makes everyone feel awkward if I cry so I don't want to talk because talking makes me cry. It's not that I don't want to talk about her. Or about my feelings. I just don't want to cry in front of you.
There are still so many more rivers to be released and once they start, they are hard to stop. A few drops of rain are manageable. A flood? That's messy!
No one knows exactly how to handle their grief. It's different for everyone. There are days I want to be with people - it helps take my mind off of the loss. There are other days when I want to be alone. I don't have anything to say. I don't want to have to talk. I just want to be quiet.
This stage is hard for friends. It's awkward. I get that.
Someone asked me today if I am attending a support group for grief. I guess it hasn't crossed my mind too much. I find support as I write out my thoughts. There are so many of you that have walked a similar path and you've told me how much you relate to what I write. There is a sense of healing that comes every time I read your story, hear your path. Hear what you wear that belonged to your mother.
Just today, someone told me that they used to take Sunday afternoon drives with their mother.
Another used to go have dinner with their mother on Sundays.
Others tell of how hard it is to go home to an empty house when their spouse passes. Especially Sunday after church.
Thanks to the friends who wait patiently for us until we figure out what it is we need. Sometimes we just don't know what we need or we are too afraid of uncontrollable emotions if we open our mouth to say what we need.
It's Sunday afternoon again.
I had lunch with a friend.
Tried to sleep.
Went for a long walk.
Remembered the friend who told me today that her mother died a year ago. Her husband passed away 8 months ago. She found a part time job to help her face the grief and the lonely house. It's helping. But of course, she said it with tears in her eyes.
I understood. It's that 'Sunday afternoon grief' that comes any day of the week.
These are the 5 roses we gave to our mother before we put her body in the ground.
This morning at 6:55 a.m., my mother, Bertha Mae Sollenberger Heisey went home to be with Jesus.
Tomorrow we will lay her body in the ground.
Tonight I sit on my bed, under my warm blanket with my kitty at my feet and a candle burning on my dresser. I haven't wanted to write anything, anywhere for the past six days. Until now.
I feel a huge sense of closure about to take place that I never saw coming until we came home from the funeral home this afternoon and realized a significant event is taking place tomorrow. It's suddenly not just about burying my mother but it's also about saying goodbye to the woman tied to decades of memories about two brothers who have been gone for over 40 years but are very much present in our memories and family stories. Nathan was only 2 when he drowned and Doug was 26 when he was killed in a tractor accident.
I was hit with a wall of tears tonight after returning from the funeral home this afternoon where we ordered five yellow roses for the private burial tomorrow. She loved yellow flowers.
You see, tomorrow at her graveside at 1:00 p.m., we will arrive and receive the five yellow roses. One for each child she bore. No large spread of flowers on a fancy casket, just a very plain wooden one made of pine and five long-stemmed roses. At first we ordered three. One for my brother, my sister and myself to place on this special box that holds my mother who once held us. Almost simultaneously we all realized that we needed five. Doug and Nathan are as much a part of us as they ever were, especially at this time. As soon as we lost our mother, they gained one back.
I have detached myself from everything since arriving home from a motorcycle trip that we cut short when she had an emergency surgery a week ago so that I could sit by her side until she departed and I am so glad I did. This morning when I got the text from my sister that she had passed, the tears ran freely but the peace I had deep inside far surpassed the tears. We have prayed for this day for so long that I felt a refreshing sense of peace and relief that she finally got her wish.
Day after day I have arrived in the morning (my siblings taking the night watch) and just sat with her most of the day. It was as if I was able to just 'be'. The next few days are going to be very busy and I knew they would be. Until she was actually gone, I wanted to spend these last few days just soaking in what it feels like to be present with her even when she seemed to lose consciousness.
I was not with her when she actually passed, but I was at peace with that, knowing it might happen that way. My sister got that special privilege and I was so glad.
I didn't know how significant the decision to get 5 yellow roses would impact me until we got home from the funeral home and I burst into tears. I was too young to remember any of the funerals and burials of my two brothers but their loss has had a huge impact on my soul over the years as I would listen to the stories of their deaths over and over and over....and over. It's as if I wasn't able to experience something that has had such an impact on my mother's life and mine, but from a distance.
I suddenly realized as I spoke it all out loud to my siblings that somehow I feel like this is a very significant passing. My mother, the one who told the stories is now gone. With her go the details and potent feelings. Though I have plenty of my own feelings about it all, they were always attached to her. It feels like such a closing of a chapter. A book. One that I now realize I have needed.
Tomorrow I will get to see five yellow roses offered to my mother who gave birth and life to five of us and had to let go of two of us much earlier than any mother ever should. It's one of the reasons she has wanted to die. She has walked through much pain here on earth and was ready to be released from it all. I don't blame her. She is now free. Doug's wife and one of his daughters will be present to place the rose in his memory. I don't know yet how we will release Nathan's rose but I'm so glad we decided on five, not three.
There are two boys that I know must be really glad to see you Mother and three children left who will really miss you. Thus, the five yellow roses.
