Getting on With Life—What Does It Mean?

Of all the statements and spiritual platitudes quoted to me since my son, Daniel’s, death the phrase that I hear most frequent makes me squirm the most. “You have got to get on with your life.” Recently, I quit squirming long enough to ponder the meaning behind this phrase that is usually said to the bereaved in the form of a command. Exactly what does this phrase mean? What are people implying when they say it?

I was pregnant when Daniel died and three months later, I gave birth to a baby girl. Wasn’t that getting on with my life? I nurtured my three children, took them to school, the park and birthday parties. Now wasn’t that going on with my life? I even cooked dinner four times a week!

At first after Daniel’s death, I would have liked to have had my life literally stopped and been buried next to my son, but I kept existing. Like the plastic bag tossed about by the wind, I was fluttering, being carried by the events of life. Seasons came and went. In the spring, I planted marigolds and tomato vines. In the autumn I jumped in fallen leaves with my children. I continued and I am still continuing to live.

Now, I may be bereaved but I am by no means a fool! As I ponder the meaning behind “getting on with life.” I am capable of knowing exactly what those who say this have in mind. “Forget about your dead child. Quit grieving. You make me uncomfortable.” Getting on with life means don’t acknowledge August 25th, Daniel’s birthday anymore. Forget how he slid down the snowy bank in the recycle bin, sand in the van and ate gummy bears. Forget he had cancer, suffered and died at only age four. Don’t see the empty chair at the dinner table, don’t cry, just live!!!

Some who are more religious would like to believe that a bereaved parent can claim, “My child is safe and happy in Heaven. Therefore, why should I yearn for him?” Perhaps, I pose a threat to certain types because I let it be known I question God. I weep, I have been angry. I miss Daniel. Many old friends feel if they hang around me too long I might convince them that a few of their illusions about life are just that, only illusions. As my cries of anguish are heard, there are those who can only think how to make me quiet. To stop my heartfelt they say quite sternly, “You must get on with life.”

I am living. I do move on with life with Daniel in my mind and in my heart. Although he is not physically here as I continue to live, I continue to love. To sever his memory totally from my life would be creating destruction and damage that would ruin me. To push Daniel out of my life and not be able to freely mention his name or write and speak about who he was on earth would only bring more pain to my life. I’d shrivel up. Comfort for me comes in remembering with smiles how he drew with a blue marker on his sister’s wall, ran outside naked and picked green tomatoes. For the reality is getting on with life means continuing to cherish Daniel.

~ By Alice Wisler

Copyright 1999

Visit Alice’s website at:  http://www.alicewisler.com

Not a Flower

There was a day when the sun ceased to shine. You may have missed it; it didn’t make the headlines of any national paper. February 2, 1997, to most, was only Groundhog Day. For me, it was nothing as trite as whether the furry creature did or did not see his shadow. Forget the promise of spring, what did it matter now? My life as I dreamed it stopped when my four-year-old laid lifeless in my arms.

How I remember those early months after his death. I wanted to be like my Victorian ancestors and wear black, even a veil. Then my clothes could shout to my neighbors, those in the grocery store lines, and the many at church — look at me, I am a parent doing the impossible: living without her child.

I remember those who helped us as we put one foot in front of the other on the rocky path. My husband, three children, and I couldn’t walk it alone. Friends, with embraces as strong and wide as eagle wings, circled us, cried with us. They brought meals, sent cards, provided listening ears, and took care of our young children.

Then there were those uncomfortable with our grief. During the first weeks they joined our tears, but as the months dragged on, their expressions and subtle hints were shouting, “Get back to normal. Look at the joyous side of life. Heal your broken heart!” For some reason, as you may know, people put a timeline on grief. I think the general consensus is that you’re only allowed two to three weeks of sorrow.

When you are new to grief, even simple tasks can be laborious. Your energy and patience levels are low. But hear a comment or two that is completely out of line for anyone to say, and suddenly, you are propelled by anger. How can I forget the older lady in our church that called me every day for two weeks? She’d start off by asking how I was doing. My guts felt like they were stripped out of my body and my heart, mangled. I’d say, “It’s hard.”

One afternoon this woman told me with all the sincerity she could muster, “God needed another flower in his garden in heaven and took Daniel.” I nearly dropped the phone. This was supposed to provide comfort? I eventually did hang up, but politely. My frustration flared. I got a lot of laundry done that afternoon — throwing clothes into the washing machine, banging the lid shut, flinging socks and shirts into the dryer.

I am bolder now. When people tell me certain lines, aimed to help me and they don’t work, I let them know. My new mantra is, “Cry with me. Don’t pretend you understand why my child died. Don’t try to rationalize why my son was diagnosed with cancer at the age of three and died at four.”

Those who have helped are the ones who continue to remember his birthday and think of how hard it is to live the holidays without him. I appreciate the friends who join me at the cemetery, named by my children “Daniel’s Place”, and lift a helium balloon into the sky with me. Watch it soar.

I believe my son is vibrant and alive in Heaven now. I hope the balloon reaches him. Don’t tell me it pops when it gets out of sight. Let me be like a child and not know the laws of the stratosphere. Let me wish he knows how much I love and miss him. Let me believe he is alive and touching the face of God.

The sun does shine again in my world. Although the hole in my mother’s heart is always present, I’m grateful for the times I can tell Daniel’s story. Remembering him, writing about him, even sharing his jokes with those I meet, brings healing.

I place flowers at his grave. But Daniel is not another flower.

By Alice J. Wisler

Copyright 2005

Visit Alice’s website at: http://www.alicewisler.com

I Am Not Cheese

Recently I heard from one of my high school classmates.  He now lives with his family in Nepal.  Going to an international school in Japan–where I grew up—-many of my now forty-something-years-old schoolmates lead exotic lives.  You can find them scattered over the world doing really interesting things.  And then there I am, settled comfortably after a season of traveling, safe now in North Carolina.

My friend commented (which was quite nice) on reading in the high school alumni newsletter that my son had died. He was so sorry and went on to say he had just returned from his mother’s funeral. “So,” he wrote, “I am going through the grieving process.”

It was good to hear from this high school friend, and nothing against him, but the phrase “the grieving process” which has become a cliche in itself, got to me.

So I pursued it further, trying to hit the nail on the head, so to speak, as to why this phrase has caused my skin to grow clammy ever since I joined this griever’s path.

Cheese is processed.  Sausage, too.  These are molded and made into products.  In grief we are not processed as though a food item and then delivered as a final product to the shelves of the grocery store.  We aren’t put on an assembly line or a conveyor belt and pieced together.

Instead, I like to think that we are a growing creation, changing, due to the trauma and tragedy of losing a child or loved one.  We were thrown into this rocky journey of darkness and pain against our will.  We made the choice to survive. And we learn how to be bolder and more compassionate.  We have new ideals.  Old phrases and expressions may bother us.  Daniel was brain dead when we made the excruciating decision to take him off of the respirator.  So for me to hear a person joke about being “brain dead” due to their slip-up or mistake, doesn’t ever make me smile.  I don’t even like to use the word  “deadline.”

Sure, we’ve been told about the steps or stages of grief—shock and denial and finally, acceptance.  With all due respect to Elisabeth Kubler- Ross, I will never have acceptance of the awful truth of his death.  I do acknowledge his death.  He is, after all, obviously, no longer here.  But I won’t accept it as I would a birthday gift or an invitation to dinner.

It is a grieving life I’ve entered.  It’s a path of rocky trails, heavy with anguish. It’s agonizing music that penetrates every fiber and the loud noise can take years to fade.  It is not a path with “closure,” another word that bristles my skin because it implies we will finish being affected by our loved one’s death and move off the grieving path, never to feel sorrow again for the impact their death has made in our daily lives.

Grief is a zigzag of the soul.  You never know when tears will be triggered or when a word or memory will take you back, way back, and you are lost in thought for moments.  Parents who have buried their children decades ago still feel this zigzag in the depths of their beings.

I am not where I was when Daniel first died.  Time, pounding out my anger and sorrow to God and constant support from close friends has helped.  I have seen the sun shine again.  I have used the tool of writing to bring healing.  I have done, what they call “reinvesting in life”(a phrase I do like), and found my niche in volunteering, speaking, publishing and reaching out to those also on this journey.

Author John Alego says, “Like the growth rings of a tree, our vocabulary bears witness to our past.”  Therefore, because I became a griever over six years ago, I cannot sit well with the phrase “the grieving process.”

We are becoming as we adapt to and deal with the many facets of grieving.  And I think, becoming will take a lifetime.

So move over cheese.  Although I enjoy your many varieties, I am not one of them.

The Pinecone Wreath: after a child dies

Instructed to collect pinecones
We carried baskets
Deep into the forest where
Becoming begins
Through mud puddles
I picked up Sorrow and Despair
Easing over an embankment
I added Fear, Doubt
Soaking feet in a stream
Watching a pair of orange butterflies
I found Awe, Forgiveness and Hope
Under the shadow of the mightiest oak
I struggled with Acceptance of A New Life
The pinecone wreath I strung together
Is lopsided, a mixture of dark and light
But it hangs
It is as real
As I am becoming.

By Alice J. Wisler

Copyright 2002

Visit Alice’s website at: http://www.alicewisler.com