#30: Grief Doesn't Build, It Exhales

Breathing Lessons From the Trenches of Grief

I read Anne Tyler’s 1989 novel Breathing Lessons in high school. I think I’m going to read it again … sometime.

Here’s a quick synopsis of this Pulitzer Prize winning novel from Amazon:

Unfolding over the course of a single emotionally fraught day, this stunning novel encompasses a lifetime of dreams, regrets and reckonings—and is often regarded as Tyler's seminal work. Maggie and Ira Moran are on a road trip from Baltimore, Maryland to Deer Lick, Pennsylvania to attend the funeral of a friend. Along the way, they reflect on the state of their marriage, its trials and its triumphs—through their quarrels, their routines, and their ability to tolerate each other’s faults with patience and affection. Where Maggie is quirky, lovable and mischievous, Ira is practical, methodical and mired in reason. What begins as a day trip becomes a revelatory and unexpected journey, as Ira and Maggie rediscover the strength of their bond and the joy of having somebody with whom to share the ride, bumps and all.

The Journey Home

On February 4, 2025, Chris and I hit the road in Orlando, Florida after burying my mom five days earlier. It was a Monday.

Chris drove the U-Haul full of family furniture, artwork, and other sundries mom left for me. It was a lot of stuff, but to me, it wasn’t random stuff, it was mom’s stuff - and she had lovely taste.

I drove my mom’s boujee car, another bequest and one I really appreciated.

Although Chris and I weren’t in the same vehicle, we were on the same journey, literally and figuratively.

We buried Chris’ mom several months earlier, on July 10, 2024, which meant we’d each joined the ranks of the “parentless people” just 6 months and 21 days apart. Strangely, we’re the “parents” now, the oldest living generation in our respective nuclear families.

It’s all very weird, unfamiliar, uncomfortable. And, it’s unforeseen and unplanned, even though we foresaw and planned for our mothers’ passings for many months.

—

Just like the Moran’s journey in Tyler’s novel, our journey was and continues to be both revelatory and unexpected. Like Maggie and Ira, we’ve certainly put the strength of our bond to the test, and we’ve done so with gratitude for the joy of doing life together … which also means doing death together.

We’re unschooled, unpracticed, and unprepared for doing death together. Navigating the complexities of loss is not for the faint of heart. Would we make it through? Will we make it through?

Duty in Death

I’m one of four kids, and we’re not close. Some of the distance is situational (we live in different places, with one overseas), some is by choice.

While we don’t share our adult lives, we do share our childhood memories and stand witness to our parents’ lives. Mom and dad were husband and wife to each other, brother and sister to others, and aunt and uncle to six, but, to us, they were simply mom and dad. As the sole witnesses to their roles as parents, it is our responsibility to remember, to never let them disappear.

Remembering is the last thing the four of us will ever have in common; memories are all that remain of our family of six. Honoring our parents was our duty in life, perhaps remembering them is our duty in death?

Chris, on the other hand, is an only child.

The burden is on him, and him alone, to remember his mom and dad as just that, a mom and a dad. Cousins will remember their aunt and uncle, siblings will remember their sister and brother, but only Chris stands witness to their lives as parents. He bears his “duty in death” alone.

On Remembering

Remembering isn’t a neutral activity. It’s an emotional roller coaster of highs and lows, tears and laughter, heartbreak and hope.

It triggers without warning:

• A sniff of mom’s perfume, the tune from her music box, and the scent of her preferred laundry soap on the clothes in her closet.

• Drinking her favorite brand of coffee, from her favorite cup.

• Recalling the secret ingredient in her chicken salad, and the simple wedding rings in the small box.

• Her expired charge cards, pool membership, and driver’s license.

• Coming across her “well-loved” pots and pans from her wedding registry in the 1960s and deciding that today is not the day to declutter.

The remembering, it seems, never really ends, or begins. It just is …

And it often takes your breath away, leaving you gasping for just one more gulp of air. Not always, but sometimes.

Remembering is pain and pleasure, responsibility and privilege, heartache and hope. As kids, it is our duty, it is non-negotiable.

Grieving Well

Chris and I have both had excellent experiences with hospice - he with Hospice of Pennsylvania and me with AdventHealth Hospice of Central Florida. It’s the bereavement support that’s impressed us of late.

When my mom passed, I hadn’t prepared for the family drama that would surround the “event.” Everyone processes death differently, and necessarily grieves differently, but few of us are capable of recognizing this reality or giving others the grace they need to manage their emotions as best as they can, imperfect as it may be. This was certainly the case in our family when my dad died in 2006, and it was no different this time, when it was mom’s turn.

I could get my head around that fact that mom was sick and that she would eventually die from cancer. But I didn’t expect to fall out with any of my siblings in the process. Grieving my mom is one thing, grieving an unexpected break with a sibling is another.

This fissure is yet another loss, one I wasn’t prepared to process or handle, much less grieve. Overnight, it was as if I went from being the baby of four to being an only child, at least in the grieving process.

SIDEBAR » Two of my siblings don’t do the “emotional stuff” - they’re purely transactional, so I didn’t expect to co-grieve alongside them. But my oldest brother was a different story. We understood each other and gave mutual support through some tough stuff over the years. Losing him, albeit temporarily I hope, wasn’t part of the deal and I wasn’t equipped to deal with it. Yes, I’m resilient, but I have my limits.

My grief ballooned and I lost it - epic meltdown “lost it” … it was all too much.

Grief Doesn’t Build, It Exhales

When hospice checked in with me a couple of weeks after mom died, I explained the contours of the hot emotional mess I was in. For the bereavement counselor, this was nothing unusual. I certainly wasn’t alone. She gave me great guidance on managing my “new normal” without my mom in my life. She also gave me support for handling my newfound status as an “only child,” at least as I perceived it.

I’m not one for empty cliches or catchy slogans, but I think the bereavement counselor nailed it when she explained that once grief arrives, it is complete. It is the size it will always be, until it’s reduced by actions only the griever can undertake.

She simply said to me: Kelley, grief doesn’t build, it exhales.

** whoa **

She continued …

Every time you process a part of your grief, you reduce its size, burden, and impact. Confronting grief with words, tears, emotions, silence, contemplation, prayer, or action is an opportunity to breathe out, to exhale, to expel some of the pain. It’s also an opportunity to breathe in, to inhale, to welcome the freshness of healing. Each day you will breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, and breathe in. Eventually, at some unknown point in the future, the pain you exhale will be surpassed by the hope you inhale.

The Long Road Home

Chris and I drove nose-to-butt for 950 miles on I-95 north. He hauled his mother-in-law’s belongings; I hauled my hurting heart.

As any road warrior knows, the road itself is a teacher—a true taskmaster—and perhaps I’ll share its lessons once I’ve actually learned them. The metaphorical road along which we take our metaphysical journey is a teacher as well. The literal road brings you and your belongings home, the metaphorical road brings your heart home.

For us, the journey “home,” literally and figuratively, has revealed the strength of our commitment to “doing life together,” which we now understand also means “doing death together,” and has reminded us of the joy we have traveling through it all … together.

We’re both only children (literally for him, figuratively for me), but we’re not alone in our grief. Each day, we breathe in, we breathe out, we inhale, we exhale. It’s not a tidy process and we don’t “cry pretty,” but we do it anyway.

Just like Maggie and Ira Moran remembered, we remember, and we journey on … bumps and all.

—

To all who have loved and lost … never forget that grief doesn’t build, it exhales. And, you’re okay. You will catch your breath and you will heal, and you will remember.

xo,

Kelley

March 19, 2025