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Disenfranchised Grief and Me
Living through two pandemics in my lifetime with the same outcome: complicated and disenfranchised grief
Mother’s Day is fast approaching and I am mentally preparing for the onslaught of public ways people celebrate their mothers. Two years after her death, I am still unsure how to celebrate her life in ways that honor these types of holidays. I’ve written about my complicated relationship with grief around her death because when she was alive, Mother’s Day was an emotional trigger for her.
Would the gift arrive too early or too late, would she like what I sent and then put it in a closet for a lifetime, would she make plans to be away from home when she knew I was going to call her? Never knowing how to satisfy her was part of that emotional hold she had on me, even as an adult.
And yet I mourn her loss every day.
But the additionally complicated parts of my grief reveal themselves when I bring up her death to family, friends, and colleagues — because other people have an emotional reaction to the news and the cause of her death.
And some have some opinions they feel compelled to share. And it isn’t always a positive experience for me, either.
