Nathalie Himmelrich

Inspiring Hope | Finding healthy ways of Grieving | Writer

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Gusts Of Grief

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Grief Quote by Nathalie Himmelrich
Handlettered Quote by Nathalie Himmelrich

My 4 ½-year-old just crawled into my bed, yawning and stretching.
“Good morning, sweetheart.”
“Good morning, mum.”
I had just woken up a minute before she turned up at my bedside and was still in the land between asleep and awake. The next thing caught me by surprise.
“Mum, if only my sister wasn’t dead,” followed by a moaning sound.
“Yes, dear, that would be nice,” I reply and gently pulled her closer.
“Mum, did Mimi love me?” (Mimi is the name of my mother – her grandmother – who died from suicide 4 ½ months after her sister’s death.)
“Yes, she loved you very much.”
“Why did she have to die? How did she die?” 

Silence. An internal sigh. What do I respond?
Weighing the different options in my head, she’s already repeating her question.
Still, I’m grappling for an answer and I can’t think when she talks.
Telling the truth would be my choice but only if it’s age and situation appropriate.
Finally, I answer by saying “I will explain this to you later” and try to distract her continuous questions along the lines of “but why…?”.

Even though the sea of my grief is calm, I had to learn to live with the gusts of wind that come from the outside. Through her perspective I learn about a delayed form of grief, a yearning for her sister, a consciousness which only started to dawn around her 4th birthday.

She’s just representing one kind of gust of wind. There are others, which still catch me by surprise.
Today I saw two pregnant women and noticed a tinge of sadness at the fact that I won’t be pregnant again. We won’t have a sibling for little miss bliss.
Our preschool is holding a parent’s evening with the topic of ‘siblings’ this week. I decided not to attend, even though the teacher assured me that the talk would include the topic of one-child families.

And yet, you might say: ‘But you’ve got one.’
Yes, I have one.
Still, sadness over the yearning to mother does not magically get cured because I have one.

~~~~

The day ended with my daughter stroking my stomach.
Pensively she drew her fingers over it and spoke softly:
“Are you sure there isn’t a baby in your tummy?”
I lovingly looked into her eyes as I replied: “Yes, we are sure.”
“Have you looked?” she continued hopefully.
Hugging her tight I felt her head leaning softly against my shoulder.
“I’m sorry, possum, there is no baby in here.”

~~~~

And even if there was a baby, I can only echo the words of a fellow loss-mum on Instagram: “Life isn’t magically better when a new baby comes. In some way grief resets due to all the things we do with S that we never got to do with R.”
There is no ‘Life is magically better when…’ or ‘Grief is magically over when…’.

Shifting to an understanding and acceptance that the emotional relationship will never cease when the physical body is gone makes it easier to accept the ebb and flow of the sea of emotions. I don’t want to call it just grief because truthfully, my life was full of emotions before my losses, grief included.

¸.•*¨`*•✿      ✿      ✿•*´¨*•.¸

And… most important:
Talking about the daughter and sister (or mother) that isn’t physically here does not have to mean ‘not moving on’ or ‘grieving’ – for me, it means
REMEMBERING.

¸.•*¨`*•✿      ✿      ✿•*´¨*•.¸

This article was first published April 6, 2016 in Still Standing Magazine.

You Have Got To Be Strong Now

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be strong
Photo by Heather Ford on Unsplash

“You’ve got to be strong now…” I heard my Dad’s voice as if through fog, my sister and her daughter standing behind him as they all looked at me through the computer screen, connected via FaceTime. Before he would say anymore, I knew exactly what had happened.

Just 4.5 month earlier I had given birth. Elation, amazement and deepest despair and sadness only laid days apart. Giving life to my child and having to accept their death in a matter of days, two events that should never be so close together in time. Unspoken rule of time in regards to live and death would expect the parent to die before their children. And even though it ‘shouldn’t’ happen, that children die before their parents, it does. Most likely as you’re reading this it has happened to you too.

I experienced first hand that life has no rule about spreading out challenges in neat 5 year brackets. Dealing with the death of my daughter left me raw. There was no choice of being strong or not – I was overwhelmed at the sheer intensity of early grief’s ups and downs. Dealing with my mother’s decision to end her life revealed just another layer of rawness that left no space to be anything else than ‘in the moment’, to be with any emotions present.

Any of those well-intended messages like ‘be strong’ or ‘you have to keep it together’ are useless. They might bear some resemblance of intellectual truth but on an emotional level they are hopeless, rigid and unattainable. The truth behind those messages is: ‘I can’t deal with the intensity of emotions, yours or mine, so please hide them.’ Yes, emotionality makes most of us feel uncomfortable.

We all have some of those messages internalized to the point that we believe them without any doubt:

  • I’ve got to stay strong
  • I’ve got keep it together
  • If at all, I should cry when I’m alone
  • I shouldn’t feel so bad, at least I have…
  • If I keep myself busy, I won’t feel it

We actually believe they (or at least some of those) are true. When have you last said to yourself something like: ‘I made it through the day without crying’ or ‘I stayed on top of my emotions’ or ‘I couldn’t keep myself together so I had to leave’? If those strong emotions are there, don’t you think they have their purpose? Why would a human eye have been constructed with a tear duct if the eyes can stay moist without actually crying?

Those messages, those beliefs that ‘we got to be strong in the face of loss’ are myths, they have been told so many times that we accidentally started believing them. We are pushing ourselves to live up to those standards. They make us swallow our true emotions. Did you actually know that the composition of tears of grief are different to other tears? Did you know that expressing your emotions is helping you heal? Did you know that unexpressed emotions can manifest in your physical body and lead to illnesses?

Upon my dad’s helpless plight not to cause any more pain to my already broken heart, a guttural sound escaped my chest, then I sobbed and sobbed – there was no choice but to feel and express. And when those emotions were given room to let go I was ready to organise our trip to attend my mother’s funeral 20.000 km away.

To be clear, those waves of grief came again and again. After some time the tides were less high and more time passed between them. Now, 4 years later, the waves come from time to time. 

¸.•´*¨`*•✿      ✿      ✿•*´¨*`•.¸

I’ve befriended them, embrace them, express them and let them go.

¸.•´*¨`*•✿      ✿      ✿•*´¨*`•.¸

This article was first published February 3, 2016 in Still Standing Magazine.

My Dear ‘Would –Be’ Child

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Handlettered quote by Nathalie Himmelrich
Handlettered quote by Nathalie Himmelrich

You are my ‘would-be’ child, you who would have turned five (four | three) last week. The children from Kindergarten would have celebrated with you in the morning. The rest of our family would have visited in the afternoon. We would be singing Happy Birthday to you and you would have impatiently ripped open your presents and whooped in joy.

Excitement would be here, given that you just started Kindergarten two weeks ago. You would say ‘I’m a big girl now’. I would walk with you and your sister to Kindergarten every day and I’d pick you up before lunch. Your sister would fight with you over the toys you both want to play with at the very same time. Your Kindergarten teacher would have two sets of identical twins in her class this year! You and your sister would each talk to one of the twin boys that live just a few doors down our street, and soon you would walk to Kindergarten with them, holding hands. There would not be one Kindergarten child missing this year.

Both of you would want my attention, often probably at the same time. It wouldn’t always be easy. Both of you talking at the same time would fry my brain. Your sister would have someone to play with and talk to, someone to stay awake with or wake up in the morning. You would share your toys and books and – of course – also fight over them and throw them around in anger.

You would love sweets, especially lollies and Gummibears. I would hear you scream for ice cream and say ‘mmmmh’ when eating homemade chocolate cake. Your favorite meal would be spaghetti. If you could, you would start the day eating an ice cream and drinking cordial. On special occasions you’d be equally happy if Daddy would make you banana pancakes. At any chance you would want to lick the bowl when I was preparing a cake. But then you would dislike brushing teeth not matter the time of the day.

Mostly I would hug and kiss you, my child, I would hold your hand and feel your soft skin. I would brush your curly locks and bear your screams for me to stop because the brush pulls on the knots. You would want me to braid your hair or make pony or piggy tails.

OH, MY DEAR ‘WOULD-BE’ CHILD…

I would do anything to have sleepless nights, difficult discussions or an angry face telling me to go away if I could…
Anything to have you kick me at night sleeping in the same bed when you’re sick or scared of the monsters under your bed…
Anything to see you learn to ride your bike, even if it meant you’d fall and many times I’d pick you up and I’d sooth your bruises…

Sadly you’re my would-be child, the one that lives in my heart.
The would-be five year old but forever three days old.
Even if you’re not seen by the world out there, you are with me every day, in my heart, in my thoughts, in my dreams, in my sleepless nights, in my quite moments.

You belong to me as I belong to you.
You are part of me and I am part of you.

Your Mama, always.

NOTE:

* I’ve previously heard that some psychologists recommend bereaved parents ‘do not grow up your child in your imagination’. My personal experience and that as a grief counsellor is that it is absolutely normal and common to do so. As painful as those ‘would-be’ thoughts can be, they are also a normal way for parents to live out their dreams and hopes of a life that was cut short, the would-be life of their child.
“It is normal for parents to report that they having an ongoing relationship with their child through their memories and mental life.” (Worden J.W. 2002)

This article was first published September 7, 2016 in Still Standing Magazine.

Stop That Grieving!

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NICU
Image from Nathalie Himmelrich’s personal archives (Photo by Cassandra Deep)

Many times during the dark periods of my grieving I wished for it to stop. “I can’t take any more!”; “I hate my life,” and “I don’t want to be like that.”

In one specifically dark moment I remember telling my husband: “You have the luxury to decide whether you want to stay with me or not, I don’t have that option.”

There were so many times I wanted the whole thing to just be a story or a film that would end, preferably with a happy ending. And neither did I want to become friends with my New Normal self, nor with my New Normal life. Why was it called ‘normal’ at all?

In a conversation I had with my mother after her first suicide attempt I urged her to think about and consider what it would mean to me, being pregnant with HER twin granddaughters and having to deal with the grief of losing MY mother. She said: “I know it would be hard, but with time, you’ll see, it will get easier.”

I shook my head in disbelief.

This conversation occurred eight months before she died and four months before Amya died.

This January, it will be three years since my mother left and I finally know what she meant. I feel that it is due to my extensive personal grief work and my process of writing my book Grieving Parents: Surviving Loss as a Couple that I have come to find myself in a good place with what concerns grief.

“With time, you’ll see, it will get easier…” applies to grief. It does however not apply to loss. Since my latest article ‘Being a Better Parent After Loss?’ and some interesting experiences I have had with certain people’s apparent discomfort with my outspokenness about ‘grief matters’, I realised that there is a huge lack of understanding of the difference between grief and loss.

Loss is a permanent, non-changing reality for a parent who has lost their child.

Grief is a process that is different for any parent and changing and evolving over time.

Loss will never ‘stop’.

Loss can not be ‘let go of’ or ‘moved on’ from.

The fact that I have a daughter who died is part of my history.

And even though it’s in the past, it’s also here with me.
It is not something I will or can forget about.

Grief, on the other hand, is a process.

It changed me and my outlook on life.

Grief will ebb and flow, it comes and goes.
With time, it comes less frequently and is less intense.

I won’t get lost in grief.

I resolve to let go and process grief, every day.
But I will grieve the loss

when needed and as long as needed.

And I resolve to remember Amya.
One thing I cannot lose is her memory.

“With time, you’ll see, it will get easier…”

~~~

THE GRIEF GETS EASIER.

THE LOSS JUST IS.

~~~

This article was first published January 7, 2015 in Still Standing Magazine

Understanding Self-Overwhelm Pattern

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chaos
Photo by Ricardo Viana on Unsplash

Who does not feel overwhelmed at times? I certainly do, more often than I would like to. Today, I have achieved a higher level of insight on the recipe that leads to a number of my overwhelming moments, which I would like to share with you. Have a think about what aspects of this recipe might also apply to you and you might shift it for tomorrow!

I am feeling so overwhelmed!

In many cases, or from experiencing feelings that you do not like. It also keeps you from achieving things that you really would like to but entail some uncomfortable steps or to get things done that are clogging up your energy because they remain on the ‘to do’ list.

What creates overwhelm?

If you are like me, then too many visual or auditory (or other senses) stimuli will overwhelm you. My 2 year old daughter talking like a chatter box and repeating the same questions like “Mum, scissors, mum, want to cut, mum, mum, mummy, scissors… ” or imagining a task like creating a photo album from the last 2 years of her life with literally thousands of photos stored somewhere on my computer. It can also be a task, which has too many unknown components or steps, or one that needs to be finished in too short a time frame. In your case you might find some loosely related topics that create your overwhelm.

Response and result

A not analyzed or automatic response to overwhelm is something like stress, impatience or thinking ‘this is too much for me’ or ‘I cannot handle this anymore. This may lead to avoiding the task, becoming emotional (angry, annoyed, impatient), suddenly feeling sleepy or finding yourself doing other things (like watching a movie) or turning to food.

Thinking pattern creating havoc

Often, our thinking patterns or ‘cognitive distortions’ are forming a big part of the problem. If you are an ‘all-or-nothing’ thinker you will already have one ingredient for the overwhelm recipe. Another one is being overly ‘other-reverenced’.

What does this mean?

Let me show you how I have done it in the past (until today): information (visual, verbal stimuli) comes into my system. My ‘all-or-nothing’ thinking says: “I always have to respond” and my ‘other-reference’ adds: “… to my daughter” (for example). If I would add another distortion of time, I might add “now” and/or “immediately”. Given my daughter is only 2 year old this might seem very reasonable but thinking about her latest pleasure of cutting anything into small pieces it is not really an emergency to get the scissors now and always.

What and how to change?

First of all, make a list of the stimuli that lead to your overwhelm. Find your personal response and result pattern. Then ask yourself: What would I prefer to have instead? What would I like to feel instead?

In my case, the new desired response was to feel relaxed. I also needed to get clear on HOW to get relaxed because it seemed too impossible to even imagine.

I inserted a ‘self’ check: ‘Do I have enough to give right now?’ If not, and it wasn’t an emergency, I would be allowed to set boundaries and take time to look after myself. This is the antidote to being overly ‘other-referenced’ and it is called being ‘self-referenced with an outside check’. ‘Do I have enough energy?’ is the ‘self’ check and ‘is it an emergency?’ is the ‘outside’ check.

The second step was to ask myself whether I had to or needed to respond to everything she wanted at any given moment.

Often, with an ‘all-or-nothing’ frame we also look at the whole picture, which might become overwhelming, rather than looking for incremental steps to the end result.

It is important to always try on the changes that you envisage and see whether it fits for you. If not, or not yet, you might have to include another step or make some adjustments to the process. Then, when you think it fits, it is time to practice it in real life and get feedback from there.

Give it a try and let me know in the comments how you are going.

The Lie of Strength

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fist
Photo by visuals on Unsplash

Have you ever thought about NOT having to be strong?

I found this on a blog and I think it’s well worth considering:

I don’t think it’s a virtue or an accomplishment to hide or deny your pain so that you can take care of others. We tell people they are “strong” when we are uncomfortable with their pain and would prefer that they shut up and not bother us with it. To say “but you are strong” is telling someone “I don’t think you should feel that way,” and it’s not a compliment. I don’t think that strength means being invulnerable, or pretending that you are. The belief that silence and stoicism are inherently good qualities is how you end up dressed up like a bat punching criminals in an alley – it’s not a good road to emotional health.

You don’t owe it to your friends to be the “strong” one. Just because you have always been the good listener and the shoulder to cry on, doesn’t mean you have to maintain that role now when you need a good listener and a shoulder to cry on.

Be sad. Be angry. Let your heartbreak – in the diner, on someone’s futon, in the park, on the way to the zoo, at brunch, over drinks,  in the therapist’s office, on the bus – Wherever it breaks, let it break all the way open, let it run out and down and spread out in a soggy puddle at your feet. Say, “I’m sorry, I can’t listen to you today, my heart is broken. Will you sit with me a while and I’ll tell you about it?“

Say, “I can’t take care of you today, but you can take care of me, and maybe tomorrow I will take care of you, and we can trade off like that for a while, okay?”

Say, “I love you, and I love that you think I’m strong, but I don’t feel like being strong today. I feel like being angry and crazy and sad. Can we go to the movies or just sit here quietly or take a walk or talk about it or not talk about it?“

Your friends may get scared when you do this. If you, the “strong” one can break, what does that say about them? That’s why they push back at you and try to remind you of your strength when what you need is for them to stand by you in your pain and weakness. They don’t have to solve that pain, they just have to bear witness to it. Maybe they don’t know how – a lot of people don’t know what to do in the face of other people’s pain. They want to fix everything, and if they can’t fix it they feel inadequate. As the “strong” one you can help them out with this by saying “You don’t have to fix it. You don’t have to do anything. Just be with me, and listen, and love me, and I’ll love you back. That’s all I need – to know that you love me, even when I’m sad and scared and don’t know what to do next.”

To ask for help is strength.

To admit you don’t know is strength.

To tell the truth about what’s happening is strength.

To be imperfect and to trust that imperfect people will love you despite those imperfections (albeit imperfectly) is strength.

To let the people you love see how you really feel – without trying to hide or stage-manage their perception of you – is strength.

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    Nathalie Himmelrich

    I accompany people therapeutically as a holistic counsellor and coach.

    I walk alongside people dealing with the challenges presented by life and death.

    I’m also a writer and published author of multiple grief resource books and the founder of the Grieving Parents Support Network.

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