Crossing A Threshold

Take a moment to help yourself reframe how you might try to comfort someone in the wake of a huge loss.

The things we say almost reflexively are not meant to cause more pain to those who are suffering, but the truth is that they often sound trite or hollow, and certainly don't help to comfort.

We can relearn new ways of speaking that let them know we care.

And remember: grief is a universal human emotion, but no two people experience it exactly the same. Sometimes, staying quiet and just being present is the greatest gift you can give.

Reading this book years ago was a catalyst for me deciding to pursue my dream of entering the funeral profession as a second career. It's a choice I do not regret one bit, in part because it is a catalyst for my further evolution as a human in understanding grief and loss.

“𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐚 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠.” ~Me, quite often

I’m more than a little picky about my soap and shampoo choices. Consistently, I have 4-6 different bars or bottles going in my shower because I never know which I want to use on any given day. So, most of my shower products last a long while, and I never keep track of that. (I’m trying to reduce the number of single-use plastics I buy, so as I empty various bottles I will not replace them, and I hope to be at 100% bars at some point, but that’s a topic for another day.)

I emptied this particular bottle today. I knew this day would come, and I had no idea when. Like I said, I don’t normally keep track. But I know for a fact that this bottle, purchased in the early months of 2019, has lasted me 3 years, 3 months, and 18 days. And it was less than half full when I started using it in my shower. It’s not a brand or scent that really appeals to me, so I was just trying to use it all up so as not to be wasteful.

This bottle represents the final drops of the only shower soap my mother loved. It’s the last vestige of personal grooming products she wanted me to use when I would bathe her during our weekly visits, a repository of memories that flood my senses and have seared themselves into my brain through my nostrils. Our intimate rituals—the baths, the pill sorting, the laundry, the doctor visits, the meals I would prepare, watching reruns of “Two and a Half Men” while eating popcorn, and giggling in the bed as we fell asleep—are all a part of my fabric forever, I suppose.

But they say that scent has power that sight, sound, and touch cannot match, when it comes to nostalgia. This is because the brain uses the same areas to process odors as it does to process emotions and memories.*

In the stressful days following her semi-unexpected** passing, cleaning and sorting and gathering what needed to be saved and what did not was of paramount importance. In addition to the clothing, furniture, and other possessions we wanted to keep or give away, we were under a serious time crunch and we had to bring home everything under the kitchen sink, food from the pantry and fridge, and of course toiletries.

I absentmindedly placed this bottle of soap in my shower, intending to finish it. But I soon realized that just the mere sight of it caused no small amount of pain; there was no way I was ready to open it and actually smell and feel the contents on my own skin—not yet.

It sat there for a year, untouched.

One day, I was feeling brave and I opened it and used a small amount, crying and nearly crumpling to the slick floor. I didn’t try again for several months, but gradually, as time wore on, I started integrating it into a shower here and there. One day, I could do so without bawling. And then it became very important to see how long I could make it last, while still using it every now and then. Now, the memories of bathing her make me smile wistfully instead of break down completely.

That’s my progress of this particular grief, in a nutshell. The memories fade enough around the edges to dull the pain, and since they are all I have left, I welcome them.

Now that the bottle is empty, I have no need to hold onto it. I’ll never again bathe with a soap my mother used, but she is still just about everywhere I look--and sniff.

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*If you are trying to memorize something or study for a test, specific scents in the air during your study can, if smelled when recall is needed, help you remember. Rosemary is one of these.

**We could all die at any time, of course. But certain stages and ages preclude our thoughts about expected vs. unexpected deaths. My mother was 81 and in marginal health, so in that way, it was “expected.” But she hid from her children the extent of her health issues, and the malady that sent her to the hospital where she would breathe her last just 15 hours after being admitted was not the sort of thing even elderly people die from. So we expected her to come home from that trip. Tempus fugit.

My first guffaw of the morning:

"I hope you slay while I decay!" LOL.

Would you want to make a video like this to be played at your funeral?

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ctb0cAcpqsn/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

make sure this gets played at the service thank you #funeralservice #funeral #funeralflowers #grandma