The stages of grief

So warning this is mostly for me to get what I'm feeling down on paper so it's probably of little interest to anyone else. My job is to help people through grief. I'm a CNA whose speciality is hospice that means I take care of the dying. My job has given me some wonderful heartwarming spirit filled experiences. I had learned about the stages of grief. I have taught it to others. I have helped family members and patients alike go through the process and the stages. It wasn't until almost a year ago that I had to go through them first hand myself. Everything I knew everything I had been taught could never have prepared me for what the last year of going through the stages of grief would be like. It's been hell. When I got the call that my mom had passed away just before Christmas Eve I was in my front room of my apartment. I remember wondering how I was going to get through this. My training kicked in and started to run on adrenaline. As I went through the stages of grief for the first time I could rationalize in my head oh I have hit anger or oh I have hot denial. But going through them was a whole different story emotionally. I hit denial the first time in the middle of my moms funeral. I frantically thought wait has anyone checked to see of she is really dead? What if she isn't what if they didn't do it thoroughly enough? It took everything I had to keep sitting on the bench and not going running up and check. Rationally I knew that I had hit denial. It didn't make it any less intense. I hit anger for the first time when I was cleaning up the kitchen in my parents house. My dad had gone to do some last minute shopping for Christmas and I had extra energy. I went to go get the broom and tripped over something stubbing my toe. It was such a little thing but I was suddenly screaming at my mom about how she could this to us and how could she leave for Christmas. This was her holiday the one she loved and we were constantly having to tell her that no she couldn't just skip thanksgiving and go on to Christmas. I'm surprised the neighbors didn't come over to see what the noise was about. I finally got in my car and drove to the temple as it was the only thing that could calm my anger. As I went through the year I hit every stage of grief. I would cycle back and forth. People would ask me if I was ok or if there was anything they could do. There wasn't I was just sad. I hid it pretty well after awhile no one wants to be around someone who is sad all the time. Now the holidays are here once again. I don't particularly like the holidays. A couple years ago my family and I had a pretty big falling out resulting in us not talking for a couple of years. I got used to spending my holidays at work so that other people could spend them with their families. But every year when Christmas would come around I would think of my mom it was her favorite holiday. I would think of the argument that my mom and dad would get into when my mom wanted to put up the tree in November and my dad insisted she wait until at least thanksgiving. Though my family and I have since reconciled holidays are still hard for me. I feel kind of like I'm a stranger in my own family. I went through so many different experiences when we were apart and they have a bond that comes from living with each other and being around each other. Where I seethem twice a year. It's gotten better but I wish I could figure out how to bridge that gap. I think I have finally hit depression pretty hard but even though I'm trained and have been taught and helped numerous people through it. I don't know how to help myself. Will I just snap out of it? Will it get better? All I know is I feel very alone and I can barely walk into a store without crying from seeing all of the Christmas stuff everywhere. I wish I could handle this but I'm tired of pretending I'm ok and I'm tired of being sad. I'm just tired.

My mothers passing.

so I am starting this post with a warning. this is about the day my mom passed away. I am sure this isnt really interesting to anyone but me but It is more of a record of how I felt and what happened since apparently my grief counselor thinks this would be a good way to deal with my feelings. If this offends you or makes you uncomfortable please dont read =) December 23 2013 I woke up to my phone ringing. It was my day off and I didnt recognize the number so I just let it go to voicemail. I strectched and thought about what I needed to do for christmas and what I was going to do with my day. I got up to see if my roommate was home. she wasnt and as I was deciding if I wanted to eat something my voicemail notification beeped. I picked up my phone and walked to the front room. As I listened to the voicemail I slowly sank down to my knees. It was my dad telling my my mom had passed away and to call him back. I frantically called him back. My brother answered the phone and I asked him what was going on. He replied he didnt know and did I want to talk to dad. My dad got on the phone and I asked him what had happened he said he didnt know and that the coroner was there. I told him that I was calling my grandparents and I was on my way down. I hung up and in a panic realized I was scheduled to work a sixteen hour shift the next day. I called my boss and then i started crying. My boss was more than understanding telling me to take as long as I needed. I called my grandparents and told them my grandmother was obviously shocked and didnt know what to say I told her I was on my way to her house before heading down to st george. I still hadnt gotten off my knees. Once I had made all of these calls I realized that I now had to get up. I dont know where I got the strength to get up but I did and I got in the shower. My roommate came home and helped me pack my stuff. As I started to drive down to salt lake my phone was going off as word spread through family and friends. I got to my grandparents and walked up the driveway at this point I was still numb. My grandmother hugged me and told me to sit down. She asked me how I was feeling and I couldnt really answer. My grandfather took my car to change my oil and make sure my tires were ok. I called one of my best friends Ryan who knew immediatily something was wrong as we rarely if ever called each other. That brought on a round of crying. My phone continued to ring I decided to ignore it. It was just too much. My grandpa and grandma and I said a prayer before I left to go to st george. I looked at my grandpa and said I dont want to go. He hugged me and told me he loved me and that I could do this. I got in the car and started to drive. I was going to be alone for the next five hours and I didnt know what I was going to do. As I got on the free way the words to the hymn nearer my god to thee came into my mind. Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee! E'en though it be a cross That raiseth me. Still all my song shall be (Chorus) Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee! 2. Though like the wanderer, The sun gone down, Darkness be over me, My rest a stone, Yet in my dreams I'd be 3. There let the way appear, Steps unto heav'n; All that thou sendest me, In mercy giv'n; Angels to beckon me 4. Then with my waking thoughts Bright with thy praise, Out of my stony griefs Bethel I'll raise; So by my woes to be 5. Or if, on joyful wing Cleaving the sky, Sun, moon, and stars forgot, Upward I fly, Still all my song shall be As I started to pray I felt as if someone was sitting in the passenger seat beside me holding my hand as I cried. The entire five hour drive that feeling never went away. I was never left alone. I pulled into St George all I wanted to do was turn around and go back home. St George held too many bad memories and feelings for me anyway, now this just added to it. I pulled up to my parents house and sat in my car. I called my grandparents to let them know I had arrived safe. I once again told them I didnt want to do this. Walking up to that door was one of the hardest things I had ever done in my life. Some small part of me still had a hope that when that door opened my mom would be sitting there laughing and that it would all be a very bad awful joke. My parents and I had a rocky relationship and I hadnt spoken to my dad in about a year I had no idea what kind of reception I would get once I knocked on that door. As I stood there wondering how on earth I was going to face this I felt a warm comforting feeling that I would not be going through this alone. I knocked on the door and my moms step brother byron answered it. He invited me in and I saw my dad sitting on the couch. He stood up and I decided to go with what I felt was right and hugged him. He hugged me back and we sat down. I asked where my siblings were everyone was gone except stephen who wandered in said hello to me and wandered out. My dad then told me what had happened. As they are particularly painful and very private I wont go into what happened out of respect for both my parents. I sat there in shock wondering how I was going to deal with all of this. I looked at my dad and said that I knew we werent particularly happy with each other at the moment but that in light of the circumstances could we just let it go. he said of course and hugged me again. I felt relief and gratitude that we were able to forgive each other and move on. Then started the parade of visitors. I felt like a circus attraction. since I lived in salt lake and very rarely came down to st george no one knew who I was. I was asked a lot if I was a friend of the family. After about the tenth time of being asked this I started replying that I was the daughter they kept in the basement. I may have been a tad frusturated. My siblings were all with their own friends dealing with what had happened and my dad was busy with the bishop as I had no real connections to anyone in St George other than Ryan I was sort of at a lost with what to do with myself. I finally went to bed expecting to be awake all night instead I fell asleep almost as soon as I layed down. The next morning I woke up and it was christmas eve. We went to the morturary to make arrangements. My entire career I have dealt with death. I started out as a CNA went on to be a med tech and then became a CNA that specialized in hospice. I dealt with grieving families every day and saying goodbye to residents who I had come to love and care for.nothing could have prepared me for when it was my own family member. We sat around the table they bring families into to discuss arrangements we started to joke about how out mom would have loved the table. It felt good to laugh again. We went through everything and decided on a family only viewing and a funeral to be held on saturday after christmas was over. My sister and I picked out the flowers. after we were done My dad and Byron wanted to do some christmas shopping as it was my moms favorite holiday and we knew she would want us to still celebrate it. I went back to my parents house and wondered what to do with myself. I had a lot of pent up energy so I started to clean. I know the stages of grief. How often had I explained them to a family member? Not until that moment had I fully understood them and how they come on in waves. As I hit the angry stage rationally I knew what was going on but that didnt stop me from being angry. I finally lost it when I tripped over something in family room. I screamed and threw the cloth that I had in my hand against the wall. I cried and started yelling at my mom as if she was standing right in front of me. I screamed that it wasnt fair and how could she do this to me and to our family? As I calmed down I realize d I had probably terrified the neighbors and it was a really good thing I was in the house alone. I decided I needed to go find some peace and the only place I was going to be able to do that at the time was to go to the temple. I had forgotten my temple recommend but even being on the grounds I knew would be soothing. I wandered around as it was christmas eve there were not a lot of people there, I wandered into the visitors center and stared at a picture of christ. A sister missionary came up to me asking where I was from I told her salt lake and she asked why I had come. I told her my mom had just passed away and I had come for the funeral. She expressed her sorrow and asked if I was a member. I told her yes and how grateful I was for the plan of salvation. I was probably rude but I needed to be alone so I walked away from her . I sat on the bench that I used to go too when I was a teenager and needed the comfort the temple offered. I sat there thinking how amazing it was that although I was grieving because of my moms death that I also had comfort that this life is not the end that there is life after death and that my mother was finally home and at peace. My testimony of the plan of salvation and of the fact that my parents had gotten sealed in the temple to be a forever family was what was going to get me through the next couple of days. I finally felt the peace that I needed to be able to not be as angry as before. I decided to go back to the house before my dad got home and wondered where I had gone. I went back and finished cleaning with the help of my litte sister claire. My dad came home and started to wrap presents. I had never especially liked christmas but I knew that this christmas was going to be hard. that night before going to bed my dad asked us to share a funny story or a memorable moment about our mom. pretty soon we were all laughing at my mothers antics from her driving up the wrong side of the freeway ramp. to getting a cat and trying to hide it so my dad didnt find out she had rescued ANOTHER cat lol. We then had a family prayer and went to bed. we woke up and my siblings started opening presents I hadnt expected anything as no one had planned on me being there for christmas. I was extremely touched to find out that my dad had gotten me a few gifts including a quilt that matched my room perfectly. when I told him this he told me he had had help from above picking it out. We then spent the day quietly enjoying each others company and strange as it sounds having a good christmas. There was a peace and a love that we all felt that day. I felt my moms spirit with me as I went about that day and I knew that she was happy to have me home for christmas. I will have to write about the funeral another day this has taken too much out of me as it is. I ask that you be kind as you read this I am sure its not very interesting to you but it has been theraputic to me and I will be glad to have expressed it.

extremely long over due posting

SO I took a break from posting about my life as I went through some crazy ups and downs. Ive decided that it would be a good idea to get back into blogging and posting about my life as it helps me remember some of the fun memories =). So.... here it goes 1. I moved to ogden Utah I live in an apartment with my best friend megan as my roommate and this other girl who we have seen all of four times since we moved in. I know her name is mia and that's all I know about her except that's she never really ever in the apartment. I moved to Ogden because I got accepted to Weber University yay! I am currently in the middle of getting my pre requisites done to apply for their nursing program. So far I love this school and am looking forward to getting the rest of my education 2. work I currently work as a med tech at an assisted living called the wellington that is in salt lake so because it is such a long commute I work doubles on Wednesdays and Fridays so I get there at two thirty pm and am there until six thirty the next morning. I take the frontrunner down to salt lake since UTA gives weber students such a great deal for twenty dollars a semester I get a card that allows me access to the front runner trax and buses free of charge. As of Friday I will have been working there for a year and have loved it. I love my boss shes quirky but nice. 3. dating.... I swear that everyone always wants to know if your dating some one so for me I am casually dating a couple of people but nothing serious as of right now. and that's if I have the time between work and school. In the last couple of years I feel like I lost my way a little bit. I have a lot of issues to work on and I grew up a lot. Being an adult looked like a lot more fun from the other side of not being an adult. Insurance, rent, electric, bills in general are so annoyingly there all the time lol. anyway that's whats going on with me hopefully ill remember to update this blog more often Jennifer

A new baby (not mine) the jazz game general confrence and a talk in sacrament :)

Wow I have been very very busy. So far we are about half way through the semester now and things are actually going really well with school I'm doing my pre requesists for nursing school right now and it's intense my new job us going really well I miss working on the floor and seeing all of my residents but it's going to be such a help in nursing school I'm learning all of my meds and what goes into charts and all of the paperwork that goes with helping people it's intense right now I'm training with our medical records department and the audits we have to do are hard work and very time consuming. Things have to be just right or we get a tag from the state for it so it's interesting to learn the office part behind it and I think it will make me a better nurse in the long run my aunt is about four days away from having her baby little Joseph Troy Jentzsch I'm excited to meet him and to finally have him here after nine long months I won tickets to the jazz game this Wednesday at our payroll meeting and I decided to ask my grandpa if he would like to go with me I'm excited to get to spend some time with him I also was able to get three tickets to general confrence Sunday session it should be fun and a good experience I'm thinking about taking my two oldest cousins and spending some time with them I have been asked to speak in sacrament meeting in April and I'm super nervous it's been about a year since I spoke in sacrament so prayers are appreciated :) I think that's it for right now I'll try and update more I promise :)

New year, new job, (kind of) new perspective

So it's been awhile since I posted I honestly just haven't felt like writing I've been so busy with work it just wasn't a priority so we will back up to Christmas or more specifically about a week before Christmas my grandpa had a minor heart attack I got home from church and was told and about an hour later my uncle and I were headed to the hospital my grandpa didn't have to have open heart surgery which we were extremely grateful for he was awake and in good spirits as he sat and talked to us I realized how very short of a time I have with him here on earth that there will come a time when I will miss him telling me random facts about the moon or just about any other topic he can think of I realized how much I will miss him when he is gone and how very grateful I am for the knowledge and the comfort that the church brings to me knowing that life doesn't just end that there is so much more after this life. Christmas was a quiet day we opened presents at nine in the morning my aunt and uncle decided to theme our presents around each of our different talents that we are currently working on Amanda got a violin which she has been asking for for the last year so that she could learn Alexa got an electric piano that she can hook up to the computer and compose her own songs Andria since she is only two got a bunch of fairy stuff which she loves as for me I got a bunch of scrubs and some money to help pay for nursing school. New years eve was spent with the tradition of watching all of the star wars films which takes a really long time lol I got a promotion at my Job I went from being a CNA to being a unit manager assistant I will be working on our rehab unit and I don't have to work Sundays I got a pay raise and they worked my hours around nursing school. School started today I am only going part time since I'm working full time and I refuse to get student loans so I'm paying out of pocket right now school is expensive lol but I went and got a parking pass and went to an institute class my Monday thru Thursday classes are all institute my Friday morning class is a dance class and my Saturday morning class is health and development class that's three and a half hours long so that should be interesting I'm keeping busy and trying to keep on trucking. Bryce and I are still together we hit our six month mark about a month and a half go long distance relationships suck but he is more than worth it to go through the suffering lol I hope you all had a good holiday and go luck to everybody going back to school :) I'll do my everything that happened this year post a little later it's getting late :)

update

so its been a really long time since i have posted anything my job has kept me extremely busy. i work full time as a CNA and I love it every year my company throws our residents a huge thanksgiving dinner that they can invite their family too. they hold it the week before thanksgiving so we dont interrupt other thanksgiving plans that their family might have. so last wednesday was the big dinner we were running our butts off to make sure that everyone looked presentably and that they got to the dining room on time. all of our managment was there and some people from corporate. the dinner went on for about three hours and afterwards everyone went to their rooms with their families. now as you can imagine everyone wants you too take care of their family member first. in a normal shift where everyone shows up on time or shows up at all i take care of about ten people. thats still a lot of people for just one of me and i swear all of their call lights went off at the same time. getting these residents ready for bed is no easy task you have to toilet them make sure their bed is clean make sure they are clean get them undressed get them dressed in pjs get them into bed and make sure the nurse has given them their nightly pills because if the nurse has to wake them up to give them pills there is a pretty good chance they will be up the rest of the night. so needless to say we were all exhausted by the time that shift was done but it was nice to see all of our residents happy. they just published our holiday schedule and i am working thanksgiving and christmas eve so ill be spending the holidays at work but i am actually ok with that cos most of my coworkers and my nurses have become like a second family to me. so i love going to work and working with people who make me laugh and who make my work enjoyable. on a different note a couple of weeks ago bryce came up north to meet my aunt and uncle you would think he would be the one that was a nervous wreck? no i was he was totally calm and my aunt and uncle loved him and he is coming back up north and planning to apply for a job at my uncles company so that will be good and thats the update on my life =)

Lagoon and a new job

So lots to blog about and I have basically no time so it will Probably be pretty short and fast. We shall start with lagoon. Lagoon was awesome Since Bryce and I didnt want to see each other for the first time with his entire extended family watching I actually went and picked him up about an hour before we were supposed to go to lagoon so we could talk and spend some time together with just us two and that was a lot of fun to be able to talk to each other face to face instead of on the phone. I was super nervous to see Bryces family again but his mom walked right over and gave me a hug and told me that they were excited I was there which put me at ease. I then got to meet what seemed like his entire extended family. There must have been 80 people in all with all of the kids running around it was a lot of fun. He got a lot of teasing about me and we had to explain how we met and how we got to together a whole bunch of times but it was kind of fun seeing their reaction to the fact that we had dated in high school lol. We had a lot of fun riding on rides and just being with each other. and since I have gotten this question so many times yes He did kiss me at lagoon so its our "first kiss" since we got back together lol.

Next thing I got a full time job as a CNA at a rehab and long term care center so far I am loving it. It is super hard and super busy and I am constantly running and then suddenly its the end of my shift and I am like wow where did the time go? I all ready love all of the residents there and since it is also a rehab center I have all ready had to say goodbye to some of my favorite residents but its a really rewarding and amazing job to have. since I am not a full CNA yet I am considered an NA I am the first NA that they have ever hired they usually insist that you be certified first but I did my clinicals there and got such a high recommendation from my teacher they decided to take the chance. I just got my results for my written test and I have my skills test tomorrow so prayers would be appreciated so that hopefully I will pass it but I am pretty confident that I will since I use most of the skills everyday at my job. so my life just got super busy and I am glad id rather be busy than bored =)