He shouldn't have been driving

It was November. 

7 months after Art died.

The kids and I drove to my cousin’s ranch. 

It’s usually a 7-hour trip with one stop and two drivers.

It was now a 9-hour trip with one driver. And I kept reaching for my phone to call him to tell him where we were and how much farther we had to go.

The next day, after we arrived, I let my 7 ½-year-old drive one of the ranch's ATVs.

He looked tiny sitting on it.

His hands were barely big enough to squeeze the brakes.

But his thumb was strong enough to push the throttle.

30 mph in 5 seconds.

Oh, and he wasn’t wearing a helmet.

We couldn’t find it.

Looking back, that wasn’t a great choice.

But I wasn’t making good choices then.

After Art died, I was flummoxed at how much the “sadness” affected every part of my thinking. I thought there was something wrong with me. 

I would see people talking to me, but not grasp what they were saying.

I would forget to pick up a kid.

I would read the same paragraph in a book several times, forgetting that I had already read it. 

One time, the entire school my two of my kids attended went into lockdown.

We thought Ezra was missing.

He was on a play date.

I had forgotten that I'd arranged to have him picked up for a playdate.  

Then, 13 years later, in 2022, I found a book called The Grieving Brain by Mary Frances O’Connor that explained it all.

My brain was rewiring.

The exhaustion, the short temper, and the inability to focus were not just because I felt sad.

My brain was trying to make sense of a world where Art was gone.

Part of my brain kept searching for him.

Another part knew he wasn’t coming back.

That internal clash uses enormous energy.

Neurons were disconnecting. New ones were forming. My brain was physically changing as it adjusted to our new reality.

I was so relieved.

This is what grief does to the brain.

So yes, letting my 7 ½-year-old drive an ATV without a helmet was not a good mom decision. 

But it was a rewiring brain trying to function in a world that no longer made sense.

If you are managing a grieving employee, remember that.

Their brain is working overtime to reconcile two realities. Part of them still expects the person to walk through the door. Another part knows they won’t.

That internal mental and physical conflict uses enormous energy.

There is no speeding that up.

There is no forcing someone to get over it.

You cannot rush brain rewiring.

You can only lead in a way that does not add more cognitive load to a system that is already overloaded.