Flare-Ups

Have you ever have had an old injury or a chronic condition that you don’t think about often, you can maneuver through each day and have learned how to compensate for it so that it doesn’t take center stage in your life? Only to suddenly experience a flare-up, sometimes mild and other times so intense it takes your breath away? I have.

I have also experienced that with grief. This year will mark the ninth anniversary of my dad’s death and the second for my mom. I know I will always miss them, however it saddens me to realize there are days when thoughts of them are rare.

There are also those days when the grief flares up and catches me by surprise.

A physical flare-up can often occur when I’m not taking as good care of myself as I should, like not getting enough rest or exercise, not eating good foods or drinking enough water. When I look back and pay attention, I realize it is the same for a grief flare-up. Stress can also exacerbate both.

This week I had a few hectic days that left me feeling a little deflated, like a bike tire that isn’t entirely flat, it has some air in it, but not enough for a smooth ride.

At the end of one those days, I received an email, it was the last email I received right before shutting down my computer. Someone had come across a picture they had of my dad and I and sent it to me. It was the last picture ever taken of the two of us. When I opened it, I could feel my heart clench a bit. I tamped down those feelings. Not here, I told myself. Not now. This was a flare-up waiting to happen.

The good news for me is that I have now learned to not resist it. I learned that the hard way. A few years after my dad died, I started experiencing a near constant, low level anxiety which would sometimes become intense. I had never experienced anything like this before. I actually thought I was dying. I thought it was my body telling me I had cancer or maybe heart disease. At an appointment with my family physician, she encouraged me to address the anxiety and recommended an excellent psychologist in her practice. It was during my first appointment that we discovered it was the grief that I had not dealt with that was causing this anxiety. Once I began acknowledging it and let myself experience the grief, my anxiety greatly diminished.

I have also learned that if I don’t allow the flare-up to occur, if I resist by tamping it down or shoving it in a corner of my mind because I’m afraid of experiencing it, it will still show up. I may not know when or how, but it will happen.

So on that day after opening my email and seeing the last picture with my dad, I shut down my computer and walked out of the building to head home. I pulled out my cell phone and pressed the microphone button to leave a voice text for my daughter. This is what we often do. We share our days, our ups and downs, our funny stories.

I shared a little about my day and then I told her about the picture. I’m sure she knew which one I was talking about. I struggled to get the words out. I let myself feel it and I cried. I didn’t know exactly when she would listen to it, but I knew from past experience she would take my grief flare-up, and hold it tenderly in her heart.

If I don’t allow myself to feel the grief flare-up, it will get stuck inside of me somewhere. So now, when I have these moments, I think of them as my mom and dad, drifting into my mind, like a gentle breeze on a warm summer day. They come for a short visit, reminding me of how much love we shared.