Finding Resilience in the Ebb and Flow of Life

🌻 Finding Resilience in the Ebb and Flow of Life

Preparing for 30 Days Without My Mom

There’s a beautiful red maple tree in our backyard. It stands vibrantly and serenely about 30 feet high – now. But it wasn’t always that way. My mom and dad gifted the maple to us, as a small young tree, about 25 years ago. Nobody would have predicted that this modest, crimson sapling would survive the challenges it has faced in its many years, for it was planted in its burlap bag so that its roots grew tightly wrapped around its trunk. Yet it has survived. Not only has it survived, but it has flourished, bringing resilience, beauty, shade, wisdom, and love into the lives of my family. Like my mom, who survived numerous challenges in her life, the tree has survived the many odds stacked against it.

While the remarkable tree still stands, after her long life, my mom has transitioned to meet her creator. This week marks 30 days since our mom, grandma, great-grandma, and aunt transitioned out of this lifetime. Thirty days since we can no longer visit her in the quiet space in which she lived. In Jewish tradition, these 30 days of mourning are called Sheloshim.

🍁 Yet even in her final days, like the maple tree my mom shared profound lessons in resilience, beauty, wisdom, and love. 🌳

Mom was still getting up and walking until just a few weeks before she died, when for the first time, she fell down and just couldn’t get back up. Until those moments, I believe my mom lived the definition of resilience, the ability to respond well to life’s adversities (American Psychological Association, 2014). Throughout her long and meaningful life, she found a way to get back up each time life pushed her down.

I need to say that it’s been very hard to say goodbye. Grief and emotional responses to loss are not easy. It feels like a connection has been broken and a barrier of protection has fallen. Each time I look at that red maple tree, I think of my mom. The stately tree with its roots wrapped around its trunk threatening its very existence, reminds me that nothing lives forever. That life is so darned impermanent. And here nearing the 30-day mark since her passing, that maple tree is also a poignant reminder that after so many years of my mom helping us, it has now become our turn to leave her sheltering presence to walk her home for the final time.

These past few years, as my mom’s wellbeing has declined, have offered frequent reminders of life’s impermanence and also the resilience that we can bring to the vicissitudes of our lives – sorrows and joys, happiness and tears, tragedies and transcendent gifts. As the thirty-day marker approaches, I call on myself, and those who loved her to remember, amidst our own suffering, that in almost every situation, we have choices about our attitude toward whatever life throws at us (Frankl, 1959).

😞 Although I am trying to find meaning in the experience of love and loss, I did not request to be attacked by life’s fickle impermanence.

I do not like loss and impermanence at all. I wish life were different and I could have things the way I want them. But alas, that is not how life happens. There are so many choices I didn’t get to make before and I don’t get to make now. Yet I am reminded that even in the face of impermanence and loss, I do have choices about how I respond. Yes, I know I must grieve – for the good times and the not so good times. Grieving is a normal response to the loss of someone or something important to us (Kessler, 2019). On the importance of grieving, David Kessler and Elizabeth Kubler-Ross write, “grief is an emotional, spiritual, and psychological journey to healing” (Kessler & Kubler-Ross, 2005).

At times my grief feels quite prominent and sad. At other times, it is quiet, sneaking up on me by surprise. In the laboratory of my own experience, I have begun to think of myself as a spiritual warrior, noticing that my responses can and do shift quickly and frequently. These self-observations seem to require of me what has been termed emotional agility, paying attention to my inner experience and perceiving greater flexibility to choose a response (David, 2016). Experiencing a striking mixture of emotions, I dance awkwardly and humbly among my many feelings and responses. Sometimes with resistance to this reality and at other times recognizing I probably have little control over much of anything besides noticing the flow of life and loss and how I experience them. Then, sailing the wild seas of my response, and looking for meaning where I can.

Amidst the ebb and flow of my grief, I recall that many spiritual traditions teach the core concept of love, to regard all other humans with lovingkindness and compassion. Perhaps the greatest continuity is love – love and self-compassion for ourselves and our own suffering, love for those in our personal spheres and communities, and the possibility to extend lovingkindness to those throughout this beautiful and broken world. And then in the realm of my belief system, I recall the great love that interconnects us in our common humanity.

As time passes, I hope I’ll move toward greater and deeper gratitude for the time I shared with my mom; toward coming to terms with loving, losing, surviving, and continuing to heal. I know I’ll continue to learn many things from my mom and share them with her beloved grandchildren and great grandchildren. I believe the most important lessons will be about resilience and love, about how we choose to show up in our lives in good times and bad.

In this season of my life, I am quietly learning that the troubling memories pale in comparison to the blessings. That opening our hearts is always an option, even during the most difficult times. My mom and my dad, who passed away some years ago, were always there for us, clocking many hours of parenting to the best of their ability, energetic, devoted grandparenting, and as they got older, as much great-grandparenting as they could rally. Through it all, in each season, even the difficult ones, there was always love.

As I continue to experience the rhythms of grief in the facets of my life, common wisdom reminds me that grief comes in waves, and in my experience this is true. Yet there are also many moments of gratitude and joy for what is. Sometimes I look up at the sky and see that it is still oh so blue. I find myself thankful for this profound gift, hoping that the earth and sky that have nurtured the brilliance of the red maple that my mom and dad shared with us, will continue to offer beauty, light, wisdom, and love in the days and generations to come – for those my mom loved, for those I love, and for the common humanity that connects us all.

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References:

• American Psychological Association (2014). The road to resilience.  Washington DC.
• David, S. (2016). Emotional agility: Get unstuck to embrace challenges and thrive in work and life. New York, NY: Avery.
• Frankl, V. (1959). Man’s search for meaning. New York, NY: Washington Square Press.
• Kessler, D. (2019). Finding meaning: The sixth stage of grief. New York, NY: Scribner.
• Kessler, D. & Kubler-Ross, E. (2005). On grief and grieving: Finding the meaning of grief through the five stages of loss. New York, NY: Scribner.

Ilene is a Featured Author on PsychologyToday!
Read her blog series Flourish and Thrive: Navigating transitions with mindfulness and resilience.

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