Grief at low tide
In case you’re joining me for the first time at LeilaViss.com, I usually blog about teaching and playing the piano. I like to integrate music apps to reinforce learning, develop innovative ideas for creative teachers and adore arranging and composing.
On Thanksgiving 2019, our 25-year-old son named Carter was struck by a boat in Florida. Three of his limbs were severely injured and he lost his right arm. The shock of this trauma has jolted me into a sphere of grief. Right now, writing serves as my therapy as our family faces this brutal new reality.
[To keep up with Carter’s healing status, please follow his Caring Bridge site found here.]
So, my blogging has shifted to what I and my family from Denver, Colorado are experiencing as we grieve. I’ll unravel what this new reality looks like for me as a wife, mom of three grown sons, piano prep coordinator at the University of Denver, church organist and pianist, blogger, composer and piano teacher.
My hope is that my posts will connect with anyone who grieves.
Read my past posts about grief by clicking on the titles below.
Serendipity in the Midst of Mourning
PS…please don’t give up on me, I have some posts lined up that are NOT about grief. Stay tuned.
It’s been over six weeks since Carter’s Thanksgiving day accident and my husband, Chuck, has been here in Florida ever since. I flew home to Colorado for two weeks to get my affairs in order, play for some key holiday services and then returned. So I’ve been away from home for a little over a month. We’re living in Carter’s one-bedroom condo and right now, both of us have stopped working.
Every day has been a blur of hospital visits with Carter, talks with doctors, trips with realtors, meetings with bankers, calls with lawyers, issues with insurance companies…
In the midst of it all, I recently fell to my lowest point (low tide) since the red-eye flight to West Palm Beach Thanksgiving eve. That night, I remember Chuck and I cried together all flight long because we didn’t know if Carter would live and if they could save his legs. This return of low tide began again when a flu bug caught me and kept me down and out with a fever for three days. It kicked me out of my emotional numbness into an emotional low where I’ve been scraping the bottom.
Our family minus one, taking a boat ride past the site of Carter’s accident.
Just when the flu was coming on, I decided it would be best to return to my studio teaching in February and so I let my students know. Hearing that a favorite student had found another teacher and that another decided to quit triggered the onset of this returning low point. I’ve discovered that this grief monster train does indeed take return trips back to its first stop: shock and sobbing.
During this “low tide” I noticed that I couldn’t push myself over to a better place. I clung to the slump. Case workers pointed out how well Carter was doing, showed me photos of others who have come through horrendous accidents and have healed and gone on to live happy lives. Their positivity was lost on me.
Whenever I let myself look in to the future, I suppressed hope and crawled back to what could have been, what should have been.
This force (this monster) that held me tight, told me things like…
Carter sustained injuries on every limb, it’s going to take four times the energy and time to recover and move forward.
Carter’s pain and fear are too hard to overcome.
Carter aches to be back at his job, it will be a long time before he’s there again. And, what will he do when he gets there?
You just let go of your job at DU and handed it to a marvelous person. He’s going to do so much better than you.
Someone else took your place at church. Everyone will adore her piano playing and it won’t matter if you don’t come back.
You just lost piano students, your count is lower than normal because of the DU gig. Your financial situation sucks and marketing for new piano students sounds painful right now.
Your ability to come up with clever teaching ideas is over.
Ideas for creativity at the keyboard have dried up and may never return.
You’re out of the piano teaching loop…who will care what you have to say or write here at LeilaViss.com.
Your career is washed up—you should apply at Starbucks.
So, there’s the picture of what scraping bottom looks like—no faith, no security, no positivity and no hope.
I share this not for you to feel sorry for me but, to document this journey of grief whole-heartedly. It’s not pleasurable. It’s a roller coaster. Some day when things are on the upslope it will be interesting to read this post again and remember the heavy cloud of these dark days.
I also share them because I bet some of you have been trapped by the shady mindset that pervasively seeps in when toppled down by trauma. I’m guessing this onset of “low tide” will happen again and again over a lifetime.
Dr. A examining Carter’s left hand which sustained a broken wrist and a severe laceration.
Right now, I’ve noticed that this gloomy force is slowly loosening it’s grip. I’m coming up out of the dark and can begin to imagine a glimmer of light when looking ahead.
And, I also share these thoughts because good friends and family members, those who have been rocked by grief themselves, continue to share their expertise and their words of support. The one word that they all seem to agree on is “different.”
There’s no option to push a “reset to default” button. Instead, there’s only an option to update the software.
There’s not the OLD Carter or the NEW Carter, it’s a DIFFERENT Carter.
There’s not the OLD life with our family, or the NEW life with our family, it’s a DIFFERENT life.
There’s not the OLD me or the NEW me, it’s a DIFFERENT me.
Now the question is, what will DIFFERENT look like in 2020?
