Dealing with grief can be tricky, you either don't grieve enough or you let it control your life. I am in the first group, and I can say with certainty when you don't grieve properly it takes you longer to move on.

My mother died three months ago, and it took some serious thinking on my part, and encouragement from my husband to grieve. I had a difficult time admitting that I needed to grieve, so I put my "I am woman hear me roar" mask, and fooled no one but myself.

My brother and I knew mom was getting to the place where she didn't have many days left, but a bad surgery took those days and she was gone. Both of us live out of town, and we had to deal with the funeral and services quickly, and in some ways this prevented true grieving.

My brother was able to talk with mom before she died, and I didn't, and so being in charge of the funeral services was part of the closure I needed, but I didn't know it at the time.

My husband and I stayed at my mother's home during and after the funeral, and began the task of removing her things. We donated all her clothing and it was amazing all things we found stuffed in boxes and envelopes. We found Christmas and birthday gifts and boxes of greeting cards for all occasions, and small amounts of money hidden here and there.

We only stayed one day after the funeral and we had to return home, but I knew had to return to finish clearing out non personal things. When I arrived home the symptoms of not grieving began to wake me up at night, and my husband was concerned.

He reminded me on a daily basis that I needed to grieve in whatever way I could. I really hated crying about something I could not do anything about, so I kept my mask on day after day.

Eventually I got sick and tired of being "sick and tired", and anger got a hold of me, and cried a few tears, and if it hadn't been sad it would have been funny.

I had been dealing with the stress of my mother in a nursing home, and her failing health, but now the stress of her death was peaking, and I didn't know what to do.

A couple of months later we returned to her home and finished clearing out and donating more stuff, and that helped in another way. It gave me great satisfaction to make sure every cabinet and closet was checked throughly, and family could use this place in peace.

Everyone grieves in different ways, and some of mine came from taking care of a funeral, cleaning out a home. Another part of my healing has come from writing about my experiences and talking about it with family, and the rest is coming from God as I allow Him to help me do what is a natural part of life, which is grieving and moving on.

Learn more about this author, K L Humphreys.
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