The Necessity of Goodbye

As is expected for a counselor, the topic of grief surfaces regularly, and over the last several months, it has felt even more prevalent. Quite a few of my clients are experiencing losses, whether that is the loss of a marriage, a pet, their picture of what life would be, or a loved one. But there are times when, as counselors, church leaders, and friends, we have to walk through the painful parts of life for ourselves and I have always struggled to walk through my own painful seasons well.

Over the years, I have experienced loss in many forms, but most of them occurred at times in my life when emotions were avoided, the pain was minimized, and I chose the path of being stoic and strong for those around me rather than experiencing grief and loss. However, the more recent losses of my dogs, Viking and Verna, activated the pain from the unprocessed grief of losing three of my five grandparents over the last decade. Then, in September, one of my two remaining grandparents, Lee, passed away. Only a few weeks later, the topic of grief came up in my supervision group, and my supervisor made the statement, “The work of grieving is to release our attachment to what is lost, and the value of saying goodbye is that it opens up space to receive what is happening now.” The need to practice what I walk through with my clients and say goodbye to the woman who had a significant impact on my life, likely more than she knew, hit me like a ton of bricks.  Lee didn’t want a funeral, so in some ways, because we all live spread out and don’t see each other often, it feels like nothing’s changed, but the reality is that there is loss and pain. So I want to share with you what is lost with Lee’s passing.

I want to help you see Lee through my eyes and share what is lost for me. One of my first memories of Lee is doing aerobics in the hallway outside the bathrooms while we waited for a table at Red Lobster because it was freezing. I don’t know exactly how old I was, but probably only four or five. Then, when I was seven, my family started visiting Grandpa and Lee in Colorado every year. We would ski, play games, and dance in the living room, creating beautiful memories with her and my grandpa. As I got older, we would have little chats whenever we’d be together about life, how I was doing, and what I hoped for in the future, and she would often push me to think beyond my limiting mindset.

During one of our chats just before Covid, I had been telling her all about the things I was discovering about myself in counseling and this desire I had to help others discover how they could live more fully alive, and she just looked at me and said, have you ever considered being a counselor. I quickly said no, I’d have to go back to school for that, and dismissed it, but her words kept coming to mind, and I knew that as a psychologist herself, she knew what it took to work in that field and she wouldn’t have suggested it if she didn’t believe in my ability. Her belief in me and the encouragement she gave me through getting my masters changed the direction of my life and helped me dream bigger than I ever had. Beyond losing a grandmother, I’ve lost an encourager and advocate for my professional life, but I will always be grateful for the words of wisdom that she spoke to me and the sometimes gentle, sometimes not-so-gentle way she encouraged me to live with more intention and purpose.

I’m not sure I realized it then, but looking back on my memories of Lee, I see how she lived her life in a way that embraced more than achievement, productivity, and knowledge but also rest, fun, creativity, and generosity. Lee was a talented artist and always encouraged her grandchildren to embrace creativity, taking time to teach us sketching techniques as kids and sketching our portraits as we grew up. She used her painting skills to help my grandpa turn a room in their house into the most incredible train set I’ve ever seen that told the story of their lives through representations of places and people that were special to them. She made time for fun by playing bridge with her friends and games after dinner when we were all together. She lived generously toward her family and with others, baking goodies for employees on the mountain each year and partnering with my grandpa to provide great experiences for their family. But I think the thing I will miss most is seeing how much she loved and cared for my grandpa. I loved watching her and my grandpa dance in the living room, hold hands on the beach, and marvel over a fantastic sunset together. I saw how much she loved my grandpa and how patient she was with his eccentricities and worries; I saw the way they supported each other’s hobbies and worked together as a team, all while navigating life and loving their family, and I saw even though it was from a distance how she bravely grieved my grandpa when he died and am so deeply grateful for the many ways she passed on her wisdom to her whole family.