Grief Shouldn’t Be On Your To-Do List
By: Lisa Kalkes
Tags: Grief And Loss, Cancer, Friendship, Grief, Breast Cancer

What I learned by trying to rush the process

Photo by Jonatán Becerra on Unsplash

Almost 2 years ago I lost one of my best friends to breast cancer. Keri was a single mom of two beautiful girls. I remember her telling me she had felt a lump and had an appointment with her doctor.

I remember the phone call when she told me she had breast cancer. I immediately shut down my emotions and shifted into high gear. I needed to learn everything I could about her diagnosis. We were going to fight this together.

I remember Keri celebrating her remission. She had done it! And she had done it with determination and grace.

I also remember Keri calling me and sharing that her oncologist’s office called and wanted to see her the next day. She knew what that meant. She knew it wasn’t good news. I went with her and held her hand while the doctor told her that her cancer was back, which also meant it was now terminal.

There were more treatments, more tests, more scans.

And then, eventually over time, and over countless ups and down, hopes and prayers, I lost Keri.

In truth, I lost her about 6 weeks before she was actually gone. The last few months were hard. There were seizures and she started losing mobility. Communication got a lot harder. When I visited, she seemed not to remember that I had stopped by just a few days earlier.

There was the last text message that I didn’t know would be the last. There was the last time I would hang out with her that I didn’t know would be my last.

Another girlfriend and I went over to visit. Keri was wheelchair bound by now and it was hit or miss regarding how awake and aware she’d be. But by the grace of God that night, it was like our old Keri was back as much as she could be. We laughed as we relived terrible dating stories and remembered hilarious nights out. She mostly listened because her speech and cognitive ability were affected but she definitely was there, she was remembering the good times with us. We could tell she was getting tired, so we wheeled her into the downstairs guest room since she had long ago abandoned her bedroom on the second floor.

My girlfriend and I maneuvered the chair as close as we could to the bed and then did the most awkward pick up to get Keri from the chair to the bed. We were on either side of her holding her up and all of us ended up falling onto the bed together laughing.

I know Keri was asleep before we even shut the bedroom door. But I also know that she felt our love that night and knew we were there for her. And that’s what mattered.

It didn’t matter that we weren’t at a cool new spot for happy hour. It didn’t matter that most of her hair was gone and what hair was left was completely gray. It didn’t matter that at certain times that night I had moments of such sadness and couldn’t believe this was where life had taken her.

It mattered that I was there for her. I showed up. And I kept showing up even when she went in the hospital and was in a coma. I still showed up and talked to her and held her hand and kept hoping for her, for her girls, for her family.

Then came the day when I showed up to say goodbye because I had a feeling that she would leave us pretty soon and I wanted to make sure I said all I needed to say. I held her hand and looked at my friend who no longer looked like herself and told her it was ok to let go. I told her I know how hard she fought and that I know she was so, so tired. I told her that I’d make sure her girls knew what kind of woman she was. I told her that I loved her and I would miss her and thanked her for being such an amazing friend to me.

And then I just stood next to her in silence holding her hand because sometimes all you can do is be there. After all the words are said… just being there is enough.

I think it was 2 days later that I was sitting at work and got the message from her mom that Keri had gone to be with God. And while it was so sad and hurt so much, I believed Keri was finally at peace. She didn’t have to worry that every headache was a new brain tumor. She didn’t need to worry about finding the energy to still go to work. She didn’t need to take an obscene amount of pills every day for her treatment and then more pills to combat side effects of those treatments. All the anxiety and stress and pain she felt were gone.

And that is when I learned I sucked at processing grief.

I put myself on a timeline. After the funeral service I had a ‘suck it up’ mentality. I literally asked my therapist how quickly I could get through the stages of grief and get it over with. She asked if I thought it was realistic to get over 8 years of a friendship with someone in only a few weeks. That made me pause.

Then she asked me if i could get over it quickly, how does that honor the friendship I had with Keri?

Another pause. A deep exhale.

It doesn’t honor our friendship… not at all.

I was looking for the fastest way through grief. I wanted to get it over with, to put it behind me and move on. I didn’t want to forget Keri. I just didn’t want to sit in the pain of losing her.

Because it hurt.

Because it was hard.

But that didn’t honor her or our friendship. So I chose to be brave, to ride the wave of grief and just hold on.

I learned to acknowledge it — acknowledge all the feelings — every memory, every tear. If I heard a song that made me cry, I didn’t fight it. I leaned into it. I gave myself permission to cry and to feel sad. Yes, giving in to the sadness sucks, but sometimes the only way out is through.

The grief eventually became less painful and over time it morphed into a form of gratitude. I’m grateful to have had Keri in my life for the time that I did. I’m grateful that she was the first person to hold my son. I’m grateful that I got to bear witness to the way she lived her life with determination, strength and courage. I’m grateful for the example she set of a mom. She defined unconditional love for her daughters.

And so I learned that grief is not something to rush through just because it hurts. The fastest way to get through it is to stop fighting it. Sit in it. Feel the sadness. There’s beauty in honoring your loved ones.

Keri taught me that.