Grief

"Greif does not change you, it reveals you."  

John Green

The past 2 ½ years I’ve come to more fully understand the meaning of the word grief. Through my personal experiences, along with class research and conversations with others, I’m just starting to understand grief. I think John Green put it quite well when he wrote – ‘grief does not change you, it reveals you’. There have been times where I did not like the girl who it revealed, and other moments when I was in complete awe of the strength I found.

When it comes to experiencing pain, or any type of feeling, I am not a fan of the phrase and idea: “I know how you feel”. Even if you had been in the exact same accident with the exact same injuries and time in the hospital, that does not mean you know how an individual feels. We each feel pain differently, based on our personal experiences. This contributes to the fact that no one can know exactly how you are feeling. Well, that is, no one except our Savior Jesus Christ. He is the ONLY person who can say ‘I know how you feel’ to each and every one of us and know how to help us, because He truly understands. In cases of abuse, He knows. In cases of infidelity, He knows. In cases of death and loss, He knows. When it comes to divorce and broken hearts, He knows. The list could go on and on, He has experienced it all. There is no pain he did not suffer, no sorrow he did not feel. Although I do not understand how that is possible, I know that He truly ‘knows how you feel’.

One of my favorite hymns is Be still, My Soul mentions this concept of grief. I'll  put in all three verses because there is something in each verse that spoke to my heart these past two years. It's always been a favorite but the lyrics took on a new meaning during this new stage of life. 

Be still, my soul: The Lord is on thy side

With patience bear thy cross of grief or pain

Leave to thy God to order and provide;

In ev'ry change he faithful will remain.

Be still my sou: Thy best, thy heav'nly friend

Thru thorny ways leads to a joyful end

Be still, my soul: Thy God doth undertake

To guide the future as he has the past

Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;

All now mysterious shall be bright at last.

Be still, my soul: The waves and winds still know.

His voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: The hour is hast'ning on

When we shall be forever with the Lord,

When disappointment, grief and fear are gone

Sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored.

Be still my soul: When change and tears are past,

All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

          
Just as you may grieve the death of a family member or friend, you can also grieve other losses in your life. For me, that loss was running and my fully-functioning body. Now, please don’t think I’m shallow or pathetic, and if you do, oh well. Honestly, grieving for the loss of my mobility and running was more painful to me than any other loss I've experienced in this life so far. As I thought about that, it sounded pathetic, but as I thought about it more I came to realize that I had spent more time with ‘running’ than I did with anyone else during the last 7 years of my life. I spent more collective hours awake ‘running’ than I did with any single person or activity, so of course the loss and grief would be more extreme. The past 7 years running was apart of my day 313 days of the year, because I always took Sunday’s off. Now yes there was the occasional stress fractures, that seemed to nearly kill me with the anticipation of running again. But even during those weeks I would run in the water treadmill or bike the equivalent miles. 

Of course early on only the "best" pictures were posted but this is what life really looked like post ICU days. Definitely not looking my best. 

Between moving away from family for college, along with the change of roommates, classmates, and friends, running was the only true constant amidst a life of constant change. When I lost that ability, and that bond I had forged, it was then that I began to realize just how strong that bond was.

For a long time I didn’t allow myself to feel the pain too deeply, or at least not for others to see. I related perfectly to the words of Stephanie Nielson, in her book Heaven is Here, when she said:

“Considering the reality of my own – had left me reeling, devastated to my core. The emotional weight of it was crushing, but I chose not to share it with anyone. I didn’t even know where I’d even begin, but more than that I didn’t want to share how vulnerable I felt. I had already been stripped of any physical independence; I wanted to prove that I could handle the emotional challenges on my own. It was a lonely choice, and the beginning of a lonely road.”

The functional loss of my legs, and that lifestyle, was absolutely crushing. I was much more devastated than anyone knew at the time. I didn't even fully comprehend the devastating effects of my accident. There was this pressure that since I had already been so positive, and such a ‘fighter’, that I had an image to keep up. Part of that was my own denial stage, refusing to neither admit nor accept that I was actually paralyzed. But you can only deny and suppress the grief for so long. And my grief continued into depression. 

“That’s the thing about pain, it demands to be felt” 

–John Green

Once again John Greene nailed it. I kept suppressing the grief and emotional pain deeper and deeper as months passed. I thought if I could push it deep enough I could burry and forget about it all. But once again, as John put it, pain demands to be felt. The pain of grief demanded to be felt. I thought I was ‘strong’ enough to go through this experience without grieving and becoming angry or upset, but the pain and grief demanded to be felt.

Grieving the loss of running was not the only experience I had to grieve. As I looked toward the future, I grieved opportunities never taken, trails never ran, children of my own I’d never carry around the kitchen on my hip, the feeling of a cup of hot cocoa on my hands as I walked around town window shopping.  I grieved events that hadn’t even happened in my life yet. I grieved a lifestyle that I was not ready to let go of, loss of friendships and relationships along with just changes in those relationships. I grieved the year and a half of college I felt I’d missed, as well as all the simplicities of going out with friends, climbing and adventuring in nature, and traveling with the team. I know that college life, and collegiate running would eventually have come to an end, but those things were taken so abruptly that I didn’t have time to cope and truly think about it all.

There were many honest times though, when I was proud of the girl that was revealed by the grief and pain I experienced. From those early moments in ICU, to the daily morning scripture study, I know of the strength and peace that came. That grief and pain revealed my dependence on the Lord and the scriptures. My first day awake in ICU, with the ventilator shoved down my throat, was the first sight of the girl revealed by this accident. I was in extreme discomfort and very uneasy with the ventilator, and in the dark room I pointed over to the chair by the wall. These were my first moments I remember being awake after my 10-hour surgery. My mother walked over and brought back my scriptures to my bedside and began reading to me. Peace and comfort came over me, and the anxiety of being tied down with a ventilator in my throat, along with the pain of -- just about everything -- was soothed by the scriptures. It was second nature to rely upon the scriptures and the Lord, in moments of need I didn’t really have to think.

I more fully begin to understand the grief that others experience. But once again I can never say ‘I know how you feel’. I can try to relate and understand how they may feel, but I cannot truly know. The Savior knows because he chose to feel and experience it all.  No matter how alone in grief you may feel, no matter how deep the pain -- whether it be physical or spiritual – there is one who can sit by your side and comfort you, no matter where you are. I do not believe the Lord is saying 'okay, now get over it' - I believe during those times of grief, He grieves with us, He cries with us, He mourns with us as we cry out. 

Now I’m not one of those people who says, 'I’m so grateful for this trial and I would go through it again to learn what I have learned'. But I can say I am so grateful for the insight and experience I’ve had with grief, that allows me to feel the depth of sorrow. I’m grateful because it makes me feel alive and allows me to feel more deeply the sadness as well as the joys of life. Would I love to be able to stand up and just run on my own two feet? Absolutely, I still miss it -- everyday. But it’s a little bit easier, a little more manageable to feel - now that I’ve allowed the pain of grief to be felt. 

There are still hard days, actually, many difficult days.  Especially those autumn days where the air is crisp, but the sun is beating down on the ever-changing leaves and gravel. Those days my legs, and soul, yearn to run free. But I’m learning how to step out in the sunshine and still breath that cool autumn air and still experience it’s beauty in a new way. In a way that is what life is like after loss, the loss of a loved one or health etc. You learn how to live life without them and still see the beauty. It doesn’t mean you don’t miss them because you are breathing in the cool autumn air without them -- you are just learning to live again. I’m learning to live again without full-functioning legs -- just like some of you may be learning to live again without a particular loved one in your life.  The crisp autumn air is still there for us both to enjoy, so let us rejoice.

5 days post-injury and surgery & just moved out of ICU.