Your Brain on Grief

Laser Provision: February 19, 2012. Last week I shared with you that we were waiting with my mother in a hospital in Cleveland. At the time I wrote my short Provision we were only beginning to glimpse the severity of her condition. With blood clots in both lungs, damaging her heart and other internal organs, she was lucky to stay alive for one day, let alone for five. But stay alive she did, so that all of her children and grandchildren could make it to Cleveland in time to say goodbye.

The past ten days have been a blur with frequent sighs and tears as I and my family have come to grips with our loss. We were heartened by the outpouring of support we have received from people here at home and around the globe, including many of you with your replies to last week's Provision. I thank you for that. We were also heartened by the emerging recognition that my mother was staying alive to die on Valentine's Day. That day had special meaning for her.

My mother was one of 3 girls, separated in age by 7 years each. My mother was the youngest, her middle sister, Norma, was 7 years older, and her oldest sister, Geraldine, was 14 years older. When Norma turned 21, in 1938, she died of ulcerative colitis on her own birthday. My mother was very close to Norma, and Norma’s death was very formative in my mother’s life; it contributed to a lifetime of anxious concern for all her loved ones. To love someone, for my mother, meant that you worried about them. Indeed, my mother never ended a conversation with any of us without saying, “Be careful.”

Well, as it turns out, Norma’s birthday and dying day was Valentine’s Day, the same day my mother died. And that was no coincidence. At the hospital, all the doctors and at least one of her pastors were telling us that my mother might linger to the end of the week. But they didn’t know my mother. If anyone in her condition could will themselves to die on a particularly significant day, it would be my mother. When she went to the hospital, my mother told my sister, “Today is not my day.” That’s because Valentine’s Day, 5 days later, was her day. And she made it to that day, against all odds, just the way she wanted.

One of my mother's requests, for the at least the past ten years, was that I would officiate at her funeral. Today's Provision, then, is in her honor -- the only person I could count on, along with my father, to read my musings each and every week. Stacks of past issues are still printed out in their home. What follows are the reflections I shared at yesterday's funeral service. I hope you will find them to be a worthy description of what it's like to find your brain on grief. Click here to read the rest of this Provision.