Thank You Grieving Mellie

I am a huge “Scandal” fan. As soon as I saw that a new series about politics and life in Washington, D.C. – featuring a strong, smart, beautiful woman none-the-less – would be airing, I was hooked. Thankfully, it was as good as the previews led me to believe.

While the story lines may be a little far fetched and out there, it sure is fun to watch. And sadly, there’s probably a lot of truth to many of the story lines – at least about the people Ms. Olivia Pope sets out to save.

It’s easy to fall in love with Olivia and her team. After all – they are the White Hats. Mellie, on the other hand, is tougher to love. But she has always been one of my favorite characters. Because I get her. A smart, driven woman, forced to put her own dreams aside in the best interest of her family.

Her character has certainly done some despicable things that make her easy to dislike, especially if you’re on Team Olivia,  but when her son was killed, and we all got to see this new version of Mellie – Grieving Mellie – I became a true fan of Mellie.

Bellamy Young, the real person behind Mellie, did an amazing job portraying a grieving mother. And big props to the writers of the show. THANK YOU. THANK YOU for showing the raw, don’t give a crap about pretenses anymore, intense and ugly transition that happens to a mother when her baby (no matter how old that child is) dies.

Thank you Grieving Mellie for marching around in your bathrobe, sweat pants, and Uggs – which, no kidding, is still my uniform when I’m having a bad day (ironically, the day I watched the DVR’d episode that first showed Mellie in this outfit, I was, indeed, in a tshirt, sweatpants, and brown uggs!)

Thank you for showing that mothers sometimes do really freaking crazy things – at least what may seem crazy to the outside world – as we try to make sense of the senseless tragedy that has just been bestowed upon us.

Thank you for eating fried chicken and not brushing your hair, and having absolutely no filter as you let everyone around you hear whatever you had on your mind.

Because that is truth. That is reality. Perhaps not for every grieving mother. But it was for me.

Courtesy of https://sarahmarieh.wordpress.com/tag/mellie-from-scandal/

This particular scene made me laugh out loud.

Like everything in life, not everyone responds the same way to each situation. I truly love Grieving Mellie because she portrayed me. I wasn’t able to get to that point until after Tiny was home from the NICU and we were stabilized, and only THEN, almost a year later, was I able to truly deal with my loss and grieve. But I went through this. I didn’t care what I was wearing or if my hair was brushed. I said whatever was on my mind. And I drank. A lot. Not until 5pm (on most days) but the bottle was my bestie. For a long time.

Thank you grieving Mellie for showing the world what life is like for a “grieving mother.” We aren’t crazy when we spend hours gravesite, or decorate the graves, or talk about our children.

Thank you for making us laugh. Not at the situation. Not even at you. But at the reality that life is a big tangled, jumbled up mess of sadness, happiness, love, loss, hate, forgiveness, kindness, and meanness. It’s complicated, it’s messy, but it’s REAL.

And thank you Grieving Mellie, for eventually snapping out of it. For getting up, showering, getting dressed, and getting back on the horse.

For realizing it was time to move on.

It was time to live again.

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katbiggie

Freelance writer at Kat Biggie Press

Alexa B, who blogs as "Kat Biggie" is a wife, mother, and writer. She has three children and one in heaven. She recently self published a book entitled "Sunshine After the Storm: A Survival Guide for the Grieving Mother" which is available on Amazon. She blogs about life after the loss of one of her twin daughters to TTTS, motherhood, all things parenting, advocacy, grief support and social good.

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