How to Hold It All (Grief Edition)

On tote bags and ball dropping

I’m grateful for everyone’s kind comments and messages after last week’s newsletter about my dad entering hospice. He passed peacefully last Thursday, March 27th. This moment with my daughter shows where my mind and heart have been since.

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On Monday morning at 7:57, I sat in my car waiting for my daughter to make her way out of the house.

School starts at 8:00; we were definitely going to be late. But I’ve parented long enough to learn that standing by the door impatiently grumbling “Hurry up!” gets me nothing but more frustration and less speed. So, instead, I’ve recently opted to go “warm up the car,” allowing her the space to finish gathering her things without having to endure my nagging or sighs.

A minute or two later, she emerged, visibly frustrated by her load: an overfull backpack, a water bottle whose awkward design means it can only be carried by its handle, her volleyball, and an empty donut box for math. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to her, I’d also brought a small handle bag of books to the car in hopes she’d return them to her teacher.

A few minutes later, when we pulled up to the school, she tried scooting out of the backseat while juggling the backpack, the volleyball, and the water bottle. Her donut box dropped to the ground.

With her hands already full and the backpack throwing off her balance, reaching down to pick it up wasn’t possible, so a kind administrator working the drop-off line retrieved it for her.

Then I held out the small handle bag of books. My daughter shot daggers at me as the kind administrator took it from me, then looped the bag over two of her fingers, also gripping the volleyball.

“Thanks a lot,” my daughter snapped before stomping up the path towards her classroom.

I pulled away from the curb, thinking:

· I should have helped her.

· I shouldn’t have insisted she take the books, too.

· I should have suggested she grab an extra tote bag before we left to make it easy to carry everything.

Photo by billow926 on Unsplash

I thought about debriefing with her later. Maybe apologizing.

But something deeper nagged at me as I steered through the parking lot and out to the street. Echoes of an all-too-familiar experience. Memories of the hundreds of times I’ve left a house, a conversation, a hard experience, a relationship, with arms–or heart–too full to carry everything. Times I pushed myself past my breaking point, collapsing under the weight of trying to “carry it all.”

I thought about this past week, spent keeping vigil with my mom and siblings as my dad passed. The thickness of grief filling my chest. The flood of complicated memories I’ve navigated hourly. The twin strains of resisting feelings, then muddling through them when they flood in anyway. The numbness. The guilt.

Someday, my daughter will be me. Grieving a father or a mother. Holding more than it feels possible to hold.

And I suddenly realize that there is something more urgent I want to say to her than, “Grab a tote bag.” I long to take her firmly by the shoulders, to look deeply into her eyes and tell her:

Sweetheart, we come from a long line of extremely tough women. Women who, time after time, have shown they know how to suck it up and just get the thing done. I love all of this genetically-gifted resilience for you.

And… I also hope you’ll recognize, much earlier than I did, the shadow side of toughness. You never need to feel like a failure when you can’t hold it all. Whether you drop a ball, or three, you’re still, always, incredibly worthy. Tough is good. But stubborn can be lonely.

When you’re struggling, when things feel hard, when you’re on the verge of completely throwing your hands in the air—before you ever turn on yourself or disparage your potential—I want you to look down at those strong, capable arms of yours, straining to hold so much, and think: “What in the hell am I doing?”

You don’t have to ask so much of yourself, my love. It took me forty-nine years to learn that just because I can do something hard, or do something on my own, doesn’t mean I should.

Today I’m holding a lot. Grief, uncertainty, hopes, fears, tasks and obligations. I know I could handle it all; I’m pretty strong.

But for once, I’m looking down at my load and instead of tightening my grip, I’m asking, “How can I make this easier?”

I’m giving myself permission to put a lot of things down. I’m grabbing a tote bag.

I might even ask someone else to help me carry it.