Liminality. It comes from the Latin word limen, meaning threshold. That place you find yourself standing in when one chapter has closed and the next has not yet begun. I did not know there was a word for it. A researcher by nature, I went looking, and there it was.
In the context of death and dying it means something specific. The person you have lost is no longer here, and yet the goodbye has not been said. The rite that moves everyone across the threshold, has not yet come. And so you wait, caught between the life you knew and the one you have not yet learned to live.
It is the time between your person passing and the funeral. You are mired in grief and sadness and a list a mile long all at the same time, calls to make, arrangements to confirm, things that have to be done, and maybe things that are better done while capable people are still around you to help carry the weight. All the while you are slogging through your days as if the world, yours and your family’s, has come to a complete standstill. And yet it hasn’t. The world outside keeps going, indifferent and relentless, and the things that once seemed so urgent, so pressing, are suddenly ridiculous. Insignificant. A little absurd.
We are in that place right now, waiting for Gary’s funeral. We are waiting for family to return from their summer travels, for everyone to get where they need to be before we can gather and say our final goodbye. In some ways he has been gone forever. In others, it feels like it just happened. I am not sure which is harder.
How I Grieve
I won’t lie. I am not someone who processes grief gracefully, or at least not in a way that looks graceful from the outside. I am a turtle. That was my very first nickname, given to me because I was slow and deliberate about everything, a walk in the park, a board game, a decision. I still am. And when I am grieving, I pull every limb inside the shell. Head, arms, legs. Gone. I am protected from the outside world but I am also completely unavailable to it.
The worst of it, and I hate to say this out loud, is that when I am deep inside my shell I do not have the capacity to soothe and comfort other people. One of the hardest days of my life was standing at the casket of my cousin, who died suddenly in a car accident on her first business trip back after maternity leave. My father was sobbing beside me. And I was concrete. My entire body encased in it, immovable. It took everything I had to reach out and put my hand on his arm. Everything.
The Caregiver’s Grief Is Its Own Thing
My mother was Gary’s caregiver. And if you have ever been a caregiver, you already know that the grief that follows is not simple. It is complicated in ways nobody warns you about and nobody talks about enough. (I wrote about this in my post Dear Caretaker, I See You — but what happens after the caregiving ends is its own chapter entirely.)
When you are caregiving someone who is not going to get better, who is suffering, when there is no path forward that leads anywhere good, you pray they do not hurt anymore. You pray for it to end. There is a part of your brain that quietly, almost shamefully, convinces you that when the day comes you will not perhaps be so devastated, because they will no longer be hurting. Because the vigil will be over. Because you can breathe.
My mother said this. My sister-in-law said it too. Your mind tricks you. And then the day comes, and the relief, if that is even the right word, is not there. Or it is there for a moment and then it is gone, replaced immediately by something heavier. Guilt. Did I do enough. Was I kind enough. Was I patient enough. Could I have done more. One more visit. One more phone call. And then the longing, which catches you completely off guard, for one more conversation. One more demand. One more look.
Adrift
I keep coming back to an image I cannot shake. A piece of ice that has broken off a glacier. That is what this feels like. My family and I, adrift. Bereft. Clinging to one another while the rest of the world moves at its usual pace around us.
Some days we are telling stories and laughing about Gary. The next day I cannot get out of bed. There is no predicting it. There is no managing it. There is only going through it, one hour at a time, until the day comes when we can all gather and say goodbye and begin whatever comes after.
Thinking of my mother at home after this is over, after the final goodbye, when the siblings and cousins have gone back to their lives and the house gets quiet again, stops me cold. The saving grace is that my youngest sister is there with her. She will not be alone. .
This blog has always been my journal, the place I come when I need to set something down. Writing has steadied me since I was a girl, and right now it is the most I am capable of. I am writing this from inside the grief, not from the other side of it.
Have you ever found yourself in this in-between? That strange, suspended place where the world keeps moving and you simply cannot?
Liminality is where we all find ourselves after a loved one dies. Unmoored. Standing at the threshold. I have not had time to answer your kind comments from my last two posts but I have read every one of them, and they have meant more than I can say. Thank you for being here with me on this path.
I haven’t read the posts on your terrible time and loss yet. I’m sorry. I’m still reeling from our own family’s loss, our niece’s beautiful 9 year old daughter. Last Friday was her funeral. I’m fighting back tears just typing this. I will read your posts. Just not yet. Just know how sorry I am for you and those you love. These things are so hard to write about, thanks for being willing to do so and bring comfort to those who need it.
Pamela, I am so very sorry for the loss of your nieces daughter. If you feel like sharing the name of your neice and her daughter I will add them to my prayers.
These things are hard to write and to talk about, for me a little of the pressure I feel weighing me down lets up, if only for a moment. If you journal I cannot recommend enough just writing. Do not think, just write whatever comes to mind, no worries for sentence structure or puncuation. Let out your sorrow, fears, saddness, anger. It will not cure you but does offer a little relief.
Be gentle with yourself.
Sending you a hug as you navigate this path and I walk along side you.
With this post you have brought emotions rushing back. I was a caregiver for my Mother, and what you have expressed here is so true. I remember being “in between” with every thing that meant. You are amazing, thank you for your telling your story.
I am truly sorry for your loss.
Like Candis, I was the caregiver for my mother for 14 years. I went through everything with her right up to the last time that we were in the emergency room and the doctor told her she had been having a heart attack for 2 days. He asked her if she wanted him to still do surgery knowing that the damage had been done and there was little chance that he could do anything. She looked at me and said “help me make the decision” knowing that to do nothing was surely the end. I understand the pain of those decisions, the waiting, the finality of everything. Now 4 years later hardly a day goes by without thoughts of those last days that I had with her. I pray that you and and your family find peace during this time and also in the days, weeks and years to follow. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share our stories.
Elizabeth, you are in my prayers.
Beautifully said. I can’t say I’ve ever been there, even with all of our loss. Most of ours was sudden death.
You write about it beautifully. Thinking of you and yours.
So so sorry for your loss Elizabeth. I’m feeling your sadness this morning. In time is what they say will make us feel better…I’m not sure that helps you ..I’m praying for you and your family.
You write so beautifully about grief. I lost a son 10 years ago and I can feel every word you stated here. Deepest sympathy at this very sad time and for the days ahead as you take it one minute at a time, one hour at a time, one day at a time.
I am good in a crisis. I have always known that. I can make the arrangements, place the calls, make decisions, and comfort others during these times that hit us all, and I’ve done it several times, both parents, my prior husband. I don’t mind, I don’t resent it, I just do it and others are thankful, not irritated. But then. But then, really. After the finality, the funeral, the casseroles frozen and the flowers given away–THEN I step into my own home and quite literally collapse. I have twice actually passed out cold on the floor just inside my front door. We all have built-in protections for these times. Some are turtles, some are rocks, but we all take the hit in our own way and in our own time. My sincerest sympathy and empathy to you and your family.