Stillness and Grieving (DUI Loss Entry No. 13)

Asking “What if the worst thing happens?” is a great way to up the stakes in a thriller. Or help a client plan and pursue legal strategy. But it is not a recipe for a peaceful life. The same mind that helps me take every possible plot line or legal question to nth degree also imagines or replays painful and tragic events and ideas. For months after my parents’ deaths due to a drunk driver, I imagined the scene, which I’d learned about through police reports and witness statements. My dad’s body flipping over the top of the SUV that hit them, my mom lying in the road alone. My dad survived about 6 weeks after the crash, and even now, 4 years later, I flash back to holding his hand and telling him my mom died, or sitting in the straight back chair by his hospital bed with my brother, sister-in-law, and niece through his last night with us.


Before my parents’ deaths, I mediated fairly regularly, not as a religious or spiritual practice, but to help clear my thoughts. My practice was to focus on one word as I breathed in and out, letting go of all other thoughts. Eventually I simply focused on the breath itself. It rested my mind during the fifteen minutes a day that I sat, and also helped me focus more on whatever I was doing at any particular moment, rather than letting my mind run off in all directions (unless I was actually plotting a story or writing a legal brief, in which case I let it run). After the crash, sitting still, or only handling one thing at a time, felt impossible. To not multi-task – such as by eating while listening to public radio while paying bills – seemed like a terrible waste of time. Every free moment lost was a moment with my dad I wouldn’t ever get back. I also couldn’t handle stillness emotionally. I played the TV whenever I was home, I paced when I talked on the phone, I read and ate and ruminated about what else I could be doing for my dad or how angry or sad I felt all at the same time. To stop, to sit, to simply breathe to me meant opening floodgates of emotion I might never contain. Yet as I raced away from my pain and anger, it rushed back to me, overwhelming me.

About 5 months after my dad’s death, I took all my vacation time in one block. After visiting with family and friends, I spent a few days in Hawaii alone. Often I just sat on the grass, listening to the ocean, breathing salty air, and crying. At night, I stared at the stars spread across a sky darker than I ever see in downtown Chicago, and I cried. It was such a relief. No place to run to, nothing to do. Just the chance to be, to feel sad, to miss my parents.

I won’t say I felt wonderful from then on. I still struggled with grief, loss, anger, all the feelings that go with a traumatic loss. I felt ungrounded with both my parents gone almost in an instant. After that break, I still felt sad, angry, and afraid. But I spent just a little more time each month being with people I loved, doing things I enjoyed, and planning my future.

Recently, I started meditating again. And focusing on doing one thing at a time. I’d forgotten the peace it can bring. There are moments when it’s hard, when it intensifies feelings of sadness or pain. But it also means I am truly present for good feelings and good times too, rather than letting them rush past me in the scramble to juggle my law firm, my writing, my friends and family. I still miss my parents and always will, and still grieve for them. But I let myself remember the wonderful things about them, and notice how much of who they were exists in all the people who knew and loved them. Something I would have missed had I just kept running.

Lisa M. Lilly
Author of The Awakening 
 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005CDXXY0

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-awakening-lisa-lilly/1104252756?ean=2940012849618

Taking Care of Yourself (DUI Loss Entry 12)

My dad was in the hospital, struggling to survive, for six and a half weeks before he died. We planned and attended my mom's funeral during the first week he was in the hosptial, during which he had two surgeries, both on an emergency basis. Even when I was home to sleep, which was rare, I often couldn't.

The months that followed my dad's death were no easier. I felt overwhelmed by anger and grief, and by everything that needed to be taken care of, from my parents' home to the will to the hospital and doctor bills and insurance issues. I tried to go back to work full time (which in the world of large law firms generally means far more than 40 hours a week) a little too soon and had trouble handling the stress.

With all of that going on, I assumed that feeling exhausted and sometimes faint had everything to do with grief and lack of sleep and nothing to do with anything physical going on. I'd read that in times of grief it was good to go to the doctor for a check up, but I didn't. Part of it was I felt all the doctor could do would be to prescribe sleeping pills or some type of anti-depressant, and I didn't want that. Then, in the summer, I went to the doctor because I thought I had an ear infection. I was flying the next day and couldn't imagine getting on a plane with my ear hurting so much. It turned out to relate to my allergies and was fixed by a strong decongestant. But I also learned, because my doctor did a blood test to look for infection, that I'd become somewhat anemic. At my physical the previous year, my iron count was so good the doctor had told me I could stop taking iron supplements if I'd been taking them. Now she recommended them, and I was amazed how much better I felt. I still had some trouble sleeping, still felt sad and angry and exhausted at times. But the feeling of being dragged out all the time, the faintness, and most of all the overwhelming sense of hopelessness improved significantly. I mark that as the time when I started moving toward feeling better, though it was a long journey.

So if you are grieving, I hope you will consider seeing your doctor for a check up. Grieving may be affecting you physically as well as emotionally. And while not everything can be fixed, if it helps you just a little with all you need to deal with, it is worth it. I wish I had done that sooner. I feel like it might have made that first six-eight months just a little less awful.

Does It Get Easier Part II (DUI Loss Entry No. 11)

One of the blessings in the past year is that when I think of my parents, the crash does not always come to mind. For years after it happened, my first thought about my parents was to imagine how my mom died in the street after she was hit, lying in the cold and snow. I'd imagine my dad flying over the SUV that hit them, landing in the road beyond. I'd remember how much pain he suffered during the six and a half weeks he was hospitalized, how hard he tried to communicate, how hard it was to make the decision to stop treatment and to say good-bye to him. In the first year, month after month, I went to the criminal court to watch the proceedings against the man who killed my parents. He was eventually sentenced to twelve years in prison. It was his third DUI.

Now those memories are still there, but other things come to mind. Fun things we did together, advice they gave me, what I valued about having been their daughter. Annoying things, too. (After all, they were my parents. We most definitely got on one another's nerves at times.) Perhaps that is the only real healing time offers. The ability to remember what is good and happy, even though the memories are tinged with the pain.

I know if my parents could have communicated with me during the years after the crash, they both would have told me not to dwell on the pain they suffered. My mom in particular was a very practical person. She didn't believe in focusing on hard times in the past, or dwelling on things you can't change that make you unhappy. I'm not sure I could have stopped doing that any sooner than I did. Now I feel like part of why I thought so much about that last moment of my mom's life, and those last 6 or so weeks of my dad's, was that it helped me feel connected to them in some way. If I could understand what they felt, what they went through, perhaps they wouldn't seem so far away. Or perhaps I could somehow slide back in time and magically change that night. There's no logic to that, but grief is not logical.

Now nurture my connection to them in other ways. I've framed photos from different times in their lives and hung them on one wall in my condo. I spend some time every week thinking about something about them that I'm grateful for and something I learned from them that has helped me in life. It does not bring them back, but it is a way I feel they'd be pleased to be remembered.

What Good People Do When Bad Things Happen (DUI Loss Entry No. 10)

Sunday I attended the annual benefit for the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists. Nearly everyone there had a loved one killed by an intoxicated driver, was injured by an intoxicated driver, or knows someone well who had one of those experiences. AAIM's deputy director spoke and said that we often hear the question "Why do bad things happen to good people?" She prefers, "What do good people do when bad things happen?" The people in the room included victims who speak on AAIM's victim impact panels, advocates who help families through the criminal proceedings against the intoxicated drivers, police officers and prosecutors who do their best to eradicate drunk driving. Our celebrity speaker, Gary Meier of WGN, generously donated his time for the benefit. Looking around me, I felt so moved. Everyone there took tragedy and turned it into something positive, tried to ensure that no one else would be harmed or would die due to intoxicated driving. I hope that all my life I can remember to find a away to create something good from difficult circumstances.

Coping (DUI Loss Entry 9)

I think back to the months and even the year after the crash. I wonder, if I could go back, what advice could I give myself about what might make that time less hard than it was. Maybe nothing. But I wish I had been able to let myself take a few minutes to try and rest. There was no rest in the sense of an undisturbed night’s sleep – so often I lay awake and cried, or ran through in my mind what I imagined had happened during the crash, or how my father struggled when he was in the hospital trying to recover. I don’t think I could have stopped feeling all of that, could have quieted my mind enough to really sleep. But perhaps I could have taken just five minutes an evening to have a cup of tea, or sit still and listen to music, or play my guitar. At the time, it seemed impossible. Any five minutes doing anything not absolutely necessary seemed like time I could not afford to lose from being at the hospital with my dad. And, after he died, it seemed like time I couldn’t afford away from catching up at work, and taking care of the hospital bills and my parents’ house, and getting the estate opened, all things that truly I didn’t need to do immediately, other than perhaps the work aspect. But it all felt so urgent, perhaps because I thought if I got those things done, I would finally have some peace.

It is normal, I suspect, when grieving or trying to care for a love one after a tragedy to feel that any time for yourself can -- and should -- be put off until later. But if I could tell my former self anything, it would be to at least try now and then to stop and breathe, to stop and sit. No terrible thing will happen because of those five minutes, and it might have helped me just a little.

Does It Get Easier (DUI Loss Entry No. 8)

People ask if it gets easier as time passes from when your loved one died. It's been over two years now since the crash in January, 2007. My mom died at the scene, my dad in March, 2007, just short of his 89th birthday. I feel like I miss them more as time passes, maybe because the time since I actually was with them is longer. Also, the first year there was so much going on, and it was so overwhelming, that I was more stressed and angry and depressed. Now I feel less angry, less stressed, and happier overall, but I miss them more. I feel the loss more.

So does it get easier? For me, yes and no. Day to day life has gotten easier. The criminal part of the case is over, so I no longer go to criminal court every 3-4 weeks and see the man who did this and listen to the details of the crash and my parents' deaths. The hospital bills are taken care of, the house is sold, for about a year now life has been more "normal" in the sense that most of the hours of the day are not consumed any longer with things connected to my parents' death. So, in that sense, my life is more focused on the here and now, on the good things in it, and there are many, for which I am grateful.

But no in that I don't feel I'll ever get over the loss or the way they died. I still think about the pain they must have felt, and still tear up at odd times, even at happy memories. And I still struggle with what to say to people. Sometimes people joke about drinking too much or drinking and driving, and I can't laugh at that. Sometimes people who don't know what happened talk about their parents and ask about mine. And I am stuck on how to answer. Part of me wants to tell everyone my parents died because of an intoxicated driver, because I hope that will make more and more people be more careful. Yet, it seems inappropriate at times during a casual conversation to introduce something so painful. And sometimes it is too hard for me. I don't want to talk about it at that moment.

The Holidays Part 2 (DUI Loss Entry No. 7)

I found the holidays harder this year than I thought I would. It is the second year without my parents. The first is a bit of a blur. I know it was hard and I also remember my friends all making sure I had enough to do for the holidays. So much that I felt a little exhausted and overstressed, and I feel it was better to err on that side than to not have enough to do.

This year I was busy, too, but took more time to reflect. My mom really loved Christmas. She used to make Christmas trees out of pinecones. Everyone in our family has them, sometimes more than one. She put her largest one up every year around Thanksgiving on a tray table in front of the picture window. From outside, it looked like regular tree with the lights and garland. She had other trees in almost every room of the house. A couple weeks before Christmas she and my dad put the big tree up. I loved all the ornaments. Mom liked to buy an ornament everywhere they traveled, so there were ornaments from a couple World's Fairs, from Disneyworld, from their trip to Europe. Then there were the ones the nuns made for her every year when she volunteered at the Bethlehem Infirmary. And ones we'd made over the years. I was so upset when I was little that Mom always hung my gingerbread ornament (which actually looks more like King Kong -- I was about 4 when I made it) inside the tree where it couldn't be seen very well. Mom was a little more concerned with aesthetics than sentiment when it came to the tree. It was beautiful, and was like looking at a history of our family.

We split the ornaments, so I have about a third of them. Last year it was hard to put them on my tree, but this year I really enjoyed it, despite feeling sad. King Kong is in the front -- so goofy he is cute. And there are the theater mask ornaments from New Orleans when my mom and dad went there on an Elder Hostel trip. And some Pluto ornaments and a whole lot of others I remember from when I was growing up.

This year I thought a lot, too, about Mr. Postulka, the man in prison now for killing my parents. It must be a terrible way to spend a holiday. A life. The only thing bleaker seems to me to be death. I believe there must be consequences for his actions. Yet I only feel more sad when I think of him. I am glad he is somewhere where he can't drive, but he's also somewhere where he can do nothing to even try to make up for what happened. Nothing can bring my parents back. But I wish there were some sort of release program where he could go out and work for groups either to help families who've lost loved ones or do other community service to try to make some positive change. Or even pay back the government what it contributed through Medicare to my dad's hospital bills.