Peace.

Talking with small kids is an amazing way to really think about things. I don't mean talking TO kids, or AT them ... I'm referring to actually having a conversation. When an adult has a chance to look at a situation or a thing through a child's eyes they are often surprised at how different it looks.

During graduate school I had the chance to help a family cope with a complicated situation. A teenage girl was in a bad car accident. Thankfully she was going to be fine but she had extensive facial bruising, and an arm and a leg both in casts. The family's biggest concern was how her grandmother was going to take seeing her in that condition. I can't remember if she had anxiety or heart issues but my supervisor in the Child Life department had the idea that the grandmother bring in the teen patient's little sister for her first visit ... and before the young girl went into the room, I would prepare the child for what she would see. In front of her grandmother.

This gave the older woman a chance to be prepared for what SHE would experience in that room, but through the eyes of a six year old.

"Have you ever had a a really bad bump when you fell? How did it feel? What did it look like?"

"It hurt alot but after a while it got better. And it turned funny colors for a while."

"Well when your sister was hurt in the car, something bumped her in the face. Her face has some funny colors on it and its sore but just like your bump, it will get better."

And on, discussing casts, what they are for, what can we do to make her casts look pretty etc.

By the time we finished, the grandmother had visibly calmed down and was able to handle the visit  as well as the small girl. And I learned an amazing lesson.

Recently my fibromyalgia has been getting much much worse than its been in years. I've been trying to help my children understand the changes and support them but as the pain increased I started thinking about myself. Was I going to slip into grief again? Over-do things in my anger that I have limits?

Suddenly a new lens clicked into place. I remember being a senior (I think?) at Arlington Catholic High School and taking a theology course with Mrs. Lussier. Half the year we studied religions of the world and the other half we discussed death, dying and loss. I went on to study it in more depth during my college and graduate school years. Laying in bed last week, unable to sleep from the pain it wasn't college texts or hospice internships that came to mind ... I remembered reading "On Death and Dying" by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in Mrs. Lussier's class.

The Kubler-Ross model of grieving talks about five stages one might experience during a grief process. Rather than being a continuum of how one is going to feel, folks actually  go in no particular order. Some people may bounce around between them, skip a stage completely ... even come back and re-experience the stages again when reminded of their grief.

Denial. Bargaining. Depression. Anger. Acceptance.

Click.

Living with chronic illness, chronic pain or a disability is living the Kubler-Ross stages. Not occasionally ... it's living them for as long as "chronic" means. But hold on, that's not as bleak as it sounds.

Sure, it means that some event is going to blind-side you and bring on the loss, the grief, the depression again. You're going to be in denial and over do it and stupidly waste energy you desperately need, or worse, injure yourself. The key is to remember that it is all part of a cycle ... and that some day again you will find peace in acceptance. And while that acceptance won't be forever, neither will the rest of it.

Cycle.

So I found I could do this. I could be sick again and hurt again. Knowing that some day I would be at a peaceful place in my cycle of grief, knowing that some day my fibromyalgia would cycle back into a less painful, more energetic state ... those realizations brought peace to my heart. And I slept.