Hello and welcome to Dear grief guide.
A podcast where each week I answer one anonymous letter from a listener feeling lost, stuck,
heartbroken or overwhelmed in the midst of grief.
My name is Shelby Fercitya.
I'm a grief coach and author and I'm here to help you create a life you love from the
life lost forced you to live.
Let's get to today's letter.
Dear grief guide, it's been a year and eight months since my mom passed away.
Since her death I have only cried two or three times.
I have a 20-year-old daughter and I'm 58.
I don't want her to see me depressed but she knows and she even tells me that she understands
and encourages me to express it.
I need to cry but I can't.
I feel so tired with no energy.
I know I need to take out all the pain I feel and I don't know how.
I miss my mom so much but I need to be strong for my daughter.
How can I handle this?
I hope you'll answer my letter soon.
Thank you so much.
Signed.
Brink of Tears.
Hi there, brink of tears and thank you for such a simple question.
How do I cry?
I need to cry but I can't.
I know.
You feel as if you need to be strong for your daughter.
Those words are very clear in what you wrote but I think sometimes children carry a different
kind of wisdom than their parents.
In her own way, your 20-year-old daughter is telling you that you do not need to be strong
for her, that she is with the gentlest of red pens crossing through that story that you
told yourself, putting a line right through it, I need to be strong for my daughter, mom
you don't.
She's telling you through her own words that she understands, that she encourages you
to express your grief, that instead of strength and stoicism what she needs from you is expression
and emotion and release.
So if that is the thing that's standing in your way, I do not want to have my daughter see
me break down, know that she is asking you too.
She is telling you that that is what she needs.
And there are so many studies of grieving people, of grieving people with children of all ages
that demonstrate children feel so much closer to us when we show them how we really feel.
After someone we love dies, then hide our true feelings away and try to be strong or pretend
that we've got it all together or that nothing's really wrong or that we're okay.
As I think of all ages can see through the mask that their parents put on, I don't know if
this has ever been true with your own parents, bring of tears.
When if ever did you see your parents hide their pain or their grief and you knew that something
else was deeper than that and you wish they would have just expressed their emotions about
what was going on.
If they'd have cried or had been angry or just said how they were really feeling disappointed,
fragile, powerless.
I know there are so many times in my own life when my mom lost her father and again when she
lost her best friend and when my dad's grandfather who was practically a father and a mentor to
him his whole childhood died and I saw so, so little of their pain and as a result I felt
I knew so little of their relationship with them or their care for them.
Yeah, I wish that was true.
So I wonder if in your daughter's language you can open yourself to seeing what she's actually
asking of you, what she's telling you she needs, she needs a mom, maybe not who cries if that's
not something you're comfortable with, but a mom who expresses her grief and that could
just be saying I miss my mom so much today or this reminds me so much of my mom or look
at that photo or look at your smile or look at this thing coming up on the calendar my
mom would have loved this.
How can she be woven into your life in ways that she's not right now so that your daughter
can see your care for her?
Because it's clear in her words that she understands your pain and her encouragement
of you to express it that she is craving more from you.
Also what I want to share with you, Brink of Tears, is that tears aren't the only way
to release grief. I think that society says or believes that the amount you cry is equal
to the amount you care, but as somebody who did not shed a single tear at my mother's
memorial, it did not mean I didn't give a shit.
There are other ways of measuring your love and your longing and your care for somebody
who's died.
And I think it goes beyond tears.
A lot of people say I need to cry, I haven't cried, I need to cry, I haven't cried,
I haven't shed a single tear.
I don't know what's wrong with me.
If you're not really a cryer before grief, sometimes grief doesn't change that.
Sometimes it can.
I have seen people where I've heard clients say things like, wow, grief made me a cryer.
I never really cried before, now I'm crying all the time.
But a lot of times who you are before grief, grief just amplifies that.
So if you are not a crying person before loss, you may not be one now.
There might be something else.
Your body, your brain, your heart, your mind, your spirit are longing to do that is not
tear required or tear adjacent.
For instance, instead of how much can you cry, you might ask yourself, how much can I
write?
How much can I sing or yell or scream or sigh?
I'm implying getting things out through the breath or through the lungs.
How much can I dance if I'm a dancer?
How much can I move my body if I'm a person who likes movement?
How much can I punch a pillow?
If I need to express rage, how many plates can I break?
If anger is my preferred expression, how many things can I shatter safely?
But how many things can I shatter?
Expression of grief takes so, so many forms and tears are not the only measure that you
give a crap.
So permission, if you need it, to release the expectation of tears and to invite in other
forms of expression that allow pain to come up and out without the expectation that you
must cry, because that can feel very rigid and very confining.
I will say, though, flip side of the coin, if you are looking to cry, if you are looking
to spark tears in yourself, I know that so many grieving people rely on music and movies
and TV shows that get them to emotional places.
I have favorite movies that I go when I get there.
My boss at my very first job in Chicago loved watching members of the military reunite with
their dogs after they came back from service because the unconditional love between these
two living creatures just absolutely brought her to tears and joyful tears turned into
sad tears, which then turned into joyful tears.
Again, she had a lot of experiences of the tears as she was having them.
My personal tear jerker right now, my flavor of preferred, how do I get tears out ASAP,
is watching girlfriends cheer each other on when they're running races, when they're running
marathons.
My very best friend who died in 2022 ran to marathons here in Chicago and cheering her
honest was one of the highlights of my life.
And so to watch other women in their 20s and 30s cheering on their friends who are doing
these really hard things that that always gets to me.
And I wonder if you have something similar like that that sparks tears in you or hits that
very soft emotional place in your heart.
It could be animals.
It could be people supporting each other.
It could be random acts of kindness.
It could be seeing flowers grow in a place that has been burned or survived an earthquake.
It really could be anything.
But I encourage you if that's something that resonates with you to go seek that out.
Or in another vein, if you're feeling brave, you might ask your daughter because she seems
to be such a big part of your life, which she would like to know about your mom.
And she used storytelling for her, for her benefit as a window into pulling up emotions
in you.
For instance, talking about your mom's favorite meal or time when your mom was really proud
of you or away maybe if you're feeling super vulnerable or interested in sharing a
way that you fear, maybe you've disappointed your mom and what you wish you could say to
her now.
Or maybe the things of your mom that you see in your daughter, whether or not you're biologically
related to her or things that you're proud of your daughter for that you wish your mom
could see.
There are so many conversations you could have that tie your mom in that fold her in to
what is already happening in your relationship with your daughter and just organically could
spark some sort of tears or some sort of emotion and/or helping your daughter feel like she is
connected to you and your mother and your grief.
When your daughter says I understand that you're sad, I get the depression and it's okay
that you express it.
I want that for you.
Maybe even to ask your daughter what do you mean?
What would you like to see from me as I grieve more than anything?
What do you wish I would do or could do with my grief or you unsaid another way?
If you could wave a magic wand and I could express my grief in any way what would that look
like for you?
And maybe experiment with ways you could do that together.
Maybe it's going for a grief walk together pointing out things that remind you of your
mom.
Maybe it's creating a piece of art together or watching a griefy movie together or a
movie that your mother loved.
Like how many ways can you tie your mom into your relationship so you don't feel this pressure
to be strong for her and in a sense close her off from access to you or your grief or your
relationship to your mom because I sense to your daughter that feels like a deprivation
of sorts of knowing her grandmother, of knowing you as a mother and as a grieving person, and
of knowing so much about the relationship and the significance of the three of you as women
and a shared family.
I also want to encourage you and this is the last thing I'll share to pick up a copy of
my book, Your Grief Your Way.
It's a daily devotional, non-religious that gives you 366 exercises for moving through
life after loss and remembering somebody you love who's died.
Again, if you're feeling brave, pick up two copies and you and your daughter can read through
it together.
There's an entry from July 18th.
That's one of my favorites and it's an exercise for people who live in the same household.
So if you still live with your daughter or she comes to visit often or you visit her,
maybe this is something you can do together.
This is from July 18th in my book, Your Grief Your Way.
It reads, "Make your home a safe place for grief."
Using a large piece of construction paper or a legal pad create a list of house rules for
grief.
These can be as simple as we are allowed to cry about anything without explanation and
no judging or advice giving allowed.
You can also make your house rules silly or personal, such as whoever uses the last tissue
has to go out and buy some more or no one sits at Daddy's place at the table.
When you're done making your list of house rules, tack it to the refrigerator or bulletin
board for all to see, then abide by them with empathy and love.
So bring of tears.
There are so many ways to move through and express your grief.
I think your daughter is smart and wise in asking you to express your grief to her.
I think she's telling you that she can handle or is looking forward to handling.
Whatever your grief comes out, she encourages you to express it.
She's telling you in her own way, "I am strong enough to handle this.
To see this, I want to know this version of my mother who is grieving her mother.
Your challenge then is to let her see that."
However that resonates with you to watch movies TV, listen to music, that brings out and
brings on tears for you.
To find alternatives to tears, if that if tears don't resonate with you, if tears are
not your thing, they're not for a lot of grieving people, to find other ways to express your
grief and maybe even to kind of fervor, for lack of a better phrase, grief book club, together
with your daughter to turn grief into a shared experience, whether you actually read my
book here grief your way or you do some sort of other shared activity on a regular basis.
Once a week, once a month, three times a year, I don't care what it is that encourages both
of you that opens the door to these conversations on loss and grief because it sounds like in
this time where you and your heart have just been shredded to bits, she wants nothing more,
your daughter wants nothing more than to be close to you, then to see you set yourself
free from this expectation to be strong.
May you know that you can and may you know that she is right beside you the whole way.
Both your daughter and your mom.
So many blessings to all of you.
That's all for this episode of Dear Grave Guide.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
If you're feeling lost, stuck, heartbroken or overwhelmed in the midst of your own grief,
check out my free workshop Grow Through Grave.
Three ways to stop feeling stuck and start moving forward.
I'll give you three easy, actionable tools for navigating life after loss and show you
how you can create peace, stability and compassion right there in the middle of grief's confusion
and uncertainty.
You can find the workshop link in the show notes.
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And be sure to share Dear Grave Guide with a friend because you never know what someone
you love is going through.
You can submit your anonymous letter for the show and find additional grief support at
shallbeforcithia.com.
Music for Dear Grave Guide is performed by Eddie Goldstein, editing by Ruth Spence of
Celebio.
Until next time, I see you.
I am so proud of you and the work that you're doing in the world.
And I love you because even through grief, we are growing.
Music for Dear Grave Guide is performed by Eddie Goldstein, editing by Eddie Goldstein.