Dark Times, Death, and Parenting

This time of year, as many of you will know from following me over the years, is never a good time for me. I am very often inundated by recurring waves of depression and have come to refer to these early months of the year as my ‘dark times.’ I can’t predict when it’s going to hit, nor can I predict the severity of the occurrence. All I can do from year to year is try my best to keep my head and heart straight, and when it hits, do my best to keep my head above water. This year… I just don’t know what’s going to happen this year.

My Grandma and I 2 weeks before her death...

After watching my grandmother fight and rally and fight for her life some more, and lose little by little every day and week over the last months, it was quite honestly a relief and a blessing when she passed away a couple weeks ago. We knew that her end was coming and what’s more, she knew it too and was ready for it. She was ready to go and we could only let her. We’re all happy that she’s no longer suffering – though she never really let on that she was, she was, and if for no other reason we can be happy for her release from that.  Knowing that however, and knowing that she led a long and full life, doesn’t take away or diminish our pain at her loss. It doesn’t diminish the hurt we feel for no longer having her in our lives. But maybe it will help as we grieve and as we heal.

And yet, for my small family losing grandma was just one of the losses we suffered this month. Merely hours before receiving the news that grandma had passed away, Heli Dad and I received the news that his aunt had suffered a sudden and completely unexpected heart attack and had passed away as well. The two of us were blindsided by the news. Suddenly (we learned the news about his aunt after the kids were all in bed and about grandma before they were up) we found ourselves in the unenviable position of needing to explain to the children that two family members had passed away within hours of each other.

Death isn’t entirely new to us. Over the past several years there have been a few distant relations on one side of the family or the other that have passed. We haven’t gone to the funerals or taken the children to them in any case, but we’ve told them in passing conversation that those people have died. And last spring one of my own aunts died as well, also from a sudden heart attack. We did go to that funeral as a family and after we had a few very frank talks with the kids about life, death, the after-life, grieving, and more.

So telling them about Heli Dad’s aunt and my grandma was hard. Not because they didn’t understand what we were telling them but because they did. They understood the words we said and what they meant and, I think, they understood at least some of the words we weren’t able to say. About how much it hurt us, about how much we didn’t know and would never be able to explain. About how these losses will affect us and impact our lives for years to come.

So maybe, even under threat of impending dark times, Heli Dad and I aren’t doing too bad a job at this parenting gig. After all, our kids are doing pretty good with the whole caring and empathy thing.