Grief: Moments in Time

Sherry Hayes-Peirce continues her series documenting her journey through grief, including taking on the household budget and looking ahead to milestones.

Growing up I remember time seemed to move so slowly during the school year and summer went way too fast. On this grief journey, in the early days time seemed to just stop altogether! It felt like moving in slow motion, losing all sense of time markers like the days of the week: the only markers were day and night. My husband died on a Wednesday at 10:10 AM, and just like couples mark the age of a child’s birth from week to week I have marked Brad’s death from week to week.

As you read this in June it’s been 14 weeks since he died. I am a lector at my parish and we stream an 8:10 AM and 12:10 PM Mass Monday through Friday. I had been assigned to lector every other Monday at 8:10 AM, but after my “Dude” died I also started attending Wednesday 12:10 PM Mass to pray for the repose of his soul. The regularly scheduled lector for the 12:10 PM Wednesday was moving and they asked me if I would be available to lector on Wednesday too. It’s the Holy Spirit, I thought, and I said “Yes.” 

When the funeral is over and the calls, cards, flowers and food stop coming, you really start to “sit” in your grief. One of my sisters in Christ shared an amazing episode of Jeff Cavins' podcast that focused on widows. In it, the host said that Catholics should take a page from the Jewish faith tradtion of sitting Shiva. The tradition of sitting Shiva prescribes the widow is not left alone for the first seven days following the death of her spouse. Thankfully, my family didn’t set a timeline and for sixteen days one of my siblings spent the night with me and someone from my parish is still reaching out to me every day.

My monthly meetings with my spiritual advisor had increased to every other week and for hours instead of the prescribed one hour. These meetings continue to be one of the most helpful experiences in guiding me through this journey. Again another gift of belonging to my incredible parish that has a spiritual direction ministry.

Each month there were things that we did routinely that I resumed doing to help my sense of time normalize. My husband and I always tracked our spending by categorizing and calculating our expenditures over the month -- well, actually, he did it. He had created an old-school spreadsheet on a yellow sheet of lined legal pad paper with the months placed horizontally at the top and listed the categories of spending vertically to the left side of the sheet. We kept the receipts for every purchase over the month in a basket and then reviewed the checkbook for bills to plug in the amounts for categories like the rent, utilities, groceries, gifts, church, and so on. Once the sheet was completed I would input the numbers into a Excel spreadsheet, because “Dude” was technologically challenged.

I neglected to do the budget in March, and as May was nearing I couldn’t remember where he kept the paper spreadsheet: an excuse not to have to do something I really didn’t want to do. My sister reminded me that now that he was gone I could skip the paper, but it made me cry to think about not doing it the way “we” always did. I was going to create a new one, and then the original sheet just appeared on the kitchen table on top of the pile of receipts. It was “Dude.”

Sundays we watched golf together. I would stretch out on the loveseat like it was a hammock and he would sit on the couch and yell at the TV. One of his favorite players was Phil Mickelson. He had been hoping and possibly praying that he would win another major -- to prove old guys could still win! Last month I was on a text string with his friends for that historic Sunday and with every birdie I would look over at the empty couch waiting for him to yell, “Chick, what a shot!” When it was over I was thrilled for Phil, but devastated that my “Dude” wasn’t there to celebrate it with me. His friends' texts helped me get through that day and I was grateful for the call from one of my parish sisters. They agreed with me that maybe my husband helped a little bit.

On another day one of my sisters in Christ and co-worker also suggested when I voiced that his scent had finally faded from his pillow, she suggested using one of his t-shirts that still had the scent as a pillow case -- brillant! She then suggested taking another one and spraying his cologne and deodorant on it going forward. 

On the 12-week marker of his death, the Catholic hospital where he died hosted a Zoom memorial service for the people who had died in the last three months and they said their name and lit a candle -- it was beautiful. Even though I saw him dead, embraced his ashes, planned and attended the funeral and handled the necessary processes to live my life without him, there was still the expectation that he might be sitting on the couch one day when I walked in the door or I would feel him slide into bed in the middle of the night just one more time. 

I received three books to read from those wanting to provide me with comfort and consolation through reading about grief journeys: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, Healing After Loss by Martha W. Hickman, a daily devotional, and I Wasn’t Ready To Say Goodbye; Surviving, Coping and Healing After the Sudden Death of a Loved One by Brook Noel and Pamela D. Blair, PhD. This one, a guide to grief, has really helped, because it provided me with answers and confirmation of what I was feeling and experiencing as being perfectly normal.

One of the best tips that applies to monthly moments in time was how to handle holidays, special anniversaries and traditions. My husband’s daughter really struggles with Sundays, because that’s when she would talk to her Dad, her dad also missed her not living close enough to come to Sunday dinner when they moved out of state and since I am working at the parish when she would usually call I created a new tradition. They send me a link to a restaurant they want dinner from and once a month I order dinner and have Door Dash deliver it. When the meal arrives they WhatsApp me to virtually share a meal together. 

I am also beginning to resume work as a contributor across Catholic Mom social media platforms and speaking at Catholic conferences starting this August. 

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My resolve remains the same: “Jesus I trust in Thee” in all aspects of my life’s journey.  #catholicmom

The next nine months ahead of me, when I will experience first this and that, will be hard. I continue to lean on my faith to help me get through these painful parts of the journey ahead. When I attended my sixth First Friday Mass of the Litany of the Eucharist and Rosary for my annual novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus I’m discerning if my intention might need to change, but my resolve remains the same: “Jesus I trust in Thee” in all aspects of my life’s journey. 

Please continue to pray for me.

Copyright 2021 Sherry Hayes-Peirce
Images: all from Canva Pro except as noted here: author as lector in church copyright 2021 Sherry Hayes-Peirce; final image copyright 2021 Sherry Hayes-Peirce, all rights reserved.